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Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

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Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#11
TL;DR - you can say no to the people who have normalized that, and still be highly successful

With the emergence of Google, et al, and the image of being elite, so came the emergence of nonsense like this: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/here-are-all-the-docume.... Getting butts in seats and long processes have replaced getting to know people before hiring them. The burden has been put on the candidate by the process.

I'm with you, OP. I remember the days of simpler processes. After going through the hoops of 5+ interview rounds in 2019 and 2020, I decided to apply limits to what I was willing to do for interviews. For example; I won't do leetcode, I won't enter a process with more than three steps, I won't give more than 5 hours to a process. This has significantly reduced the number of positions available to me, but the positive result is that the positions that do fit into my ruleset are high-quality, smaller companies, with more upside than the larger companies. I find that the companies that do fit into my ruleset about interviews actually want to get to know who I am and what I'm bringing, rather than if I'll just fit an open role or some quota. Now I'm not making FAANG salaries nor benefits, but I really enjoy the work I'm doing, the people I'm building with, and I'm very well taken care of financially.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#12
I entered the software industry as a developer about 4 years ago, and I have been running interviews for the past 2 years or so. Interview hell is all I have ever known.

Could you elaborate on how things worked differently in the past? I legitimately have no idea what a developer interview "loop" would look like without 5 to 7 interviews, but I desperately hope it can exist.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#14

Yeah I have 16 years experience and was asked to take an aptitude (IQ) test. I find it personally insulting. I think it all emerged from the recruiting/HR market. They started as middlemen but found a way to take on more of the "gatekeeping" role in hiring. This then lead to recruiters using more and more technical jargon and then we saw the emergence of leetcode interviews trend from faang, and multiple stupid inter…

this right here. i was told to fill out essays as part of the interview process to indicate i had a good culture fit. i'm talking college entrance length and prompt. shit like in 5.000 words tell me how u r a team player.

nahhhhhhh

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#16
I had a day of interviews (~7 people) at my first job out of college in 1986, but my hiring manager had also been the person I first talked with at a career fair.

I had a day of interviews (~7 people) in early 2000 at an internet consulting firm, mostly people I worked with directly once I was hired.

Whatever virus those places had, it seems to have spread.

I've also been hired after one or two conversations with one or two key people.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#17

Tech is very cargo cultish, which comes from having a young average age, and a strong survivorship bias in the media. Remember the Google brainteasers? Fizzbuzz? "Culture fit"? Tech companies have the lowest infrastructure costs of any industry, and so they have no place to hang their risk aversive paranoia except on personnel (the safer you are, the more trivial the things you fear). There's nothing logical about it…

All we need is a “3+ interviews considered harmful” post to hit HN a few months in a row and we can finally solve this problem.

That, or we’ll have some representative from the big 5 saying “Hey guys, Jayden from (x soulless Silicon Valley company) here. Not speaking on behalf of my employer but actually at X Corp(tm) we’ve found that anything less than 37 interviews (+tip) isn’t enough to let the real stars shine through. We’re all about finding the true team players who are a good culture fit” within 2 minutes of the post going up.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#18
post #12

I entered the software industry as a developer about 4 years ago, and I have been running interviews for the past 2 years or so. Interview hell is all I have ever known. Could you elaborate on how things worked differently in the past? I legitimately have no idea what a developer interview "loop" would look like without 5 to 7 interviews, but I desperately hope it can exist.

1st phone call directly with the hiring manager, after the resume has been screened by the hiring manager. 2nd meeting in person, a few questions, maybe a take home task. Decision made in 24-48 hrs.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#19

Well I can say in my experience firing people is such a pain nowadays that I feel a need to be a lot more careful in hiring. I've seen a bit more than half of fired employees come back with some form of discrimination lawsuit threat after being fired.

This is my answer as well. The two rational pairings are:

hire fast, fire fast

and

hire slow, fire slow

If for legal or cultural reasons you can’t fire fast, that leaves you with only one choice.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#20
> "5 to 7 interviews is normal"

Yeah, it's definitely not. I've never done more than 3 interviews, and that was the exceptional case. Vast majority have been either one interview with the hiring manager or two interviews where one is with the immediate hiring manager and the other was with someone more senior within the company.

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