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The rise of never-ending job interviews

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Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#11
post #3

People are getting less and less willing to deal with bullshit when they're in massive demand and there is a talent shortage in $x industry. And they're finding out they can move around easily now too in this remote-first world. Something is going to have to change - really a lot of things. One of them is going to be that companies need to learn to figure out how to hire people without putting them through a grind-fe…

Nothing's going to change at FAANG until average, non-FAANG companies can compete on TC (never). I doubt things will change outside of FAANG - because most companies are merely emulating the FAANGs and hoping they emulate the success.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#12

What’s happening is that companies want to completely remove risk from the hiring process. In the real world, you cannot remove risk. You can manage it, but you cannot remove it. Asking candidates to go through 6 interviews before making a decision and not telling them when a decision will be made signals a risk adverse culture that cannot make decisions.

The reason they want to remove the risk is because it takes years to prune bad talent.

They'll miss most of the good talent if they're doing 6 interviews for a standard role. The candidates with skills and options will go elsewhere and you'll be left with the desperate dregs.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they want to remove the risk is because it takes years to prune bad talent.

And they're also in the situation where good talent isn't going to tolerate that rubbish.

The worst performer you tolerate on your team sets the tone for the whole team.

The best teams embrace and level up their low performers and make the whole team better.

The delta can’t be too big.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#14
> The National Business Research Institute study shows that a bad hire can have significant costs to an organization – between $25,000 and $300,000 5 . Asking a candidate to partake in four interviews may seem like overkill, but it seems trivial compared to the cost of a “bad hire.” Organizations that hire the best data science talent ensure they spend the time to use the best hiring practices.[0]

It's a risk mitigation strategy.

[0] Data Science Playbook, Booz Allen Hamilton https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/publication/data-science...

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#15

What’s happening is that companies want to completely remove risk from the hiring process. In the real world, you cannot remove risk. You can manage it, but you cannot remove it. Asking candidates to go through 6 interviews before making a decision and not telling them when a decision will be made signals a risk adverse culture that cannot make decisions.

I don't know if you've been through the firing process on either side, but after you go through a couple of dozen of these, and the hit to the morale/performance they entail, not to mention emotions involved, you tend to at least try to vet better to avoid such huge distractions in the future (a lose-lose for everyone involved!)

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#16

What’s happening is that companies want to completely remove risk from the hiring process. In the real world, you cannot remove risk. You can manage it, but you cannot remove it. Asking candidates to go through 6 interviews before making a decision and not telling them when a decision will be made signals a risk adverse culture that cannot make decisions.

I left a hedgefund interview loop for this reason.

I finished the 7th on-site interview. After I left NYC and flew back home, they wanted a 8th ( phone screen ) interview because one the interviewers lost the results.

On the one hand, this space’s modus operandi is more data is always better.

On the other hand, they have to trade and make decisions in a fast paced environment with imperfect information.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#17
I interviewed with four companies back in May for staff engineer roles(or staff equiv). Based on that experience and my current employers process a somewhat baseline expectation can be:

* Phone screen with recruiter that reached out to you

* Screen with the hiring manager

* Behavioral interview with multiple peeps

* Code pairing session with multiple peeps

* System design session with multiple peeps

So AT LEAST 5 hours time commitment just on interviews. Add time to research the company, its employees, and etc. Maybe the code pairing is instead an at-home test of some sort. This could potentially add hours(or in the case of Teleport like 20+ hours). Just engaging with a handful of companies was a huge amount of extra work and stress on top of existing responsibilities.

I pulled out of three voluntarily and declined an offer from the last for various reasons, opting to stick out till my RSU cliff in October. For the next round of engagements I may start toying with filtering out companies based on their hiring process as well and giving push back on it to see what happens.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#18

What’s happening is that companies want to completely remove risk from the hiring process. In the real world, you cannot remove risk. You can manage it, but you cannot remove it. Asking candidates to go through 6 interviews before making a decision and not telling them when a decision will be made signals a risk adverse culture that cannot make decisions.

Companies don't want to do job training anymore. Instead of a general background and attitude check, they need to know if the candidate has all of the individual skills that will be used on the job.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#19
Interviewing these days is not a technical challenge. It’s a fraternity/sorority rushing week.

Technically I was qualified and able to answer their questions. But ultimately was turned down after 6 rounds of interviewing. I think I was heavily dinged because I wasn’t entirely familiar with their product in the wild, and was never given any hint as to what product I would be working on.

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