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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”?

#431

Post by claaams »

KerrickStaley wrote: post #50
monster_group wrote: post #31

Most tech companies now do around 4-5 interviews. It has been like that for at least 7-8 years (probably more) but I just found out that not all companies are like that. After being subjected to these demeaning Leetcoding interviews I went through a refreshingly pleasant experience. It was an interview with just one person. They gave me a technical open-ended problem and two weeks time. After two weeks I had to do a…

I would argue that 30 hours invested in interviewing at a single company is a lot more work than you put in doing a couple phone screens and a one-day onsite. I personally abhor take-home projects because they tend to balloon in scope (I'm a perfectionist and want to put the best foot forward). With an on-site loop, when you're done you're done.

I do IT so I'm not an elite member of society like most of the devs here. But I had an org give me some homework that was solving a problem they actively needed fixed. I took a job with a different company (still had like 5 or 6 interviews for that place but no 12 hours of homework) because it felt gross to be doing 'free' work for them.

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

#432

Post by dleslie »

kjeetgill wrote: post #307
dleslie wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The response is to the needless growth in complexity of the hiring process; advocating for reducing that complexity is appropriate. You're tacitly expressing a concern that a fast hiring commitment would be riskier; but that's not necessarily so. A minimal set of filters are meaningfully effective: resume, references, and meet the team. Anything beyond that doesn't have just diminishing returns, it can negatively imp…

I guess I don't think 2 phone calls and 5-6 hr onsite is that complex. Maybe the onsite could be 3 instead: 2 code + behavioral, but I can't imagine wanting to do less than that.

5-6 hr onsite is a strong filter against folks who are presently employed; particularly those who cannot spare personal days or unpaid days for every interview.

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

#433

Post by auntienomen »

BeetleB wrote: post #303
angarg12 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people simply assume big tech companies are dumb and they haven't thought their hiring process through? Amazon literally has a research team focused in hiring, and they run A/B experiments to continually improve the process. The current interview format is not a cargo cult, is a high refine process through the years. Is it perfect? hell no, but it isn't the mindless copycat people make it to be. They have actu…

> Amazon literally has a research team focused in hiring, and they run A/B experiments to continually improve the process. The current interview format is not a cargo cult, is a high refine process through the years. The median time an employee stays there is now under 2 years. Clearly Amazon isn't hiring the calibre of people they need.

Maybe they are?

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

#434

Post by igetspam »

pessimizer wrote: post #419
igetspam wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's taking months, then they're doing it badly. Our hiring process is five rounds but it never takes more than a couple weeks, including the negotiation phase. Our data shows that we need something like 14 resumes to get one candidate worth interviewing. Of those, it takes 4-6 candidates for one hire. Hiring and firing fast means we also have to invest in onboarding, training and allowing people to settle in. Dur…

> If it's taking months, then they're doing it badly. is not responsive to > I have to dedicate weeks or a month

Sure it is. If a company's hiring process for a single candidate takes multiple months, that's bad. The candidate experience is critically important. We have five stages of our interview process, two of them involve speaking with multiple engineers. The whole process takes less than a month, as long as the candidate has time. In general, it's 2-2.5 weeks and that involves coordinating calls with engineers in the Americas, Europe and APAC.

If it takes longer, it's always an issue with coordinating with the candidate schedule. (this is my experience with my hiring process)

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

#435

Post by emrah »

mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

> Is it really fair to have just one or two developers evaluate you?

Output of multiple interviewers are combined by AND'ing, so when any one interviewer has even the slightest hesitation, you are out. Because of this, more is not necessarily better

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

#436

Post by ethanwillis »

igetspam wrote: post #434
pessimizer wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's taking months, then they're doing it badly. is not responsive to > I have to dedicate weeks or a month

Sure it is. If a company's hiring process for a single candidate takes multiple months, that's bad. The candidate experience is critically important. We have five stages of our interview process, two of them involve speaking with multiple engineers. The whole process takes less than a month, as long as the candidate has time. In general, it's 2-2.5 weeks and that involves coordinating calls with engineers in the Amer…

No it sure isn't because I never said months or multiple months.

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

#437

Post by Tao331 »

nickjj wrote: post #43

I'm not sure why part time contract style "interviews" aren't more common. If I ever got into a situation where I was hiring, it would start with a 2 hour conversation. No coding questions. I want to get to know you and also talk shop about applicable technologies. Then after that is simple. I would hire you to do 5-30 hours of contract work where we pair program on real life things. The interviewer would do the driv…

Turn the table. How would you feel about your employees doing work for someone else on the side? I know some people are cool with their employees moonlighting, but I'm pretty sure it's still a minority.

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

#438

Post by igetspam »

hobs wrote: post #382
igetspam wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's all about everyone. If I hire a person and fire them in less than a year, that's almost always because of a performance problem that's impacting the team or the org. If you're the one being fired, you probably left a job or didn't take some other job to work with us and now you're going to be unemployed. Additionally, as a hiring manager, I too am a human who wants to enjoy my job and have positive experienc…

If I could get a job in a week instead of 3 months of interviews? Yeah I'd be fine with that.

A week for a single candidate interviewing with a US only company is entirely reasonable. I don't think two is bad either. I would not stay engaged with a company that took a month, the same way I don't stay engaged with a candidate that can't find time to schedule three or four calls in less than six weeks (I am more forgiving with candidates than I would be with companies).

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

#439

Post by linspace »

blub wrote: post #315
StupidUser123 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a HM at a big tech company with this format as well. Honestly, I really like it. I don’t want to hire the wrong person, it’s expensive and it makes my job awful for a while. It’s great getting data points on several programming interviews, system design, etc. That makes my sell interview so much easier because I can trust the process to assess their technical skills. You need multiple people because you’re consta…

You pay them a lot of money if they pass, but the others get zero. You’re basically annoying lots of people to make that one person happy.

You can take something out from an interview: practice for other interviews, insight of how others interview (what did you think were good or bad questions, what annoyed you). I know it's not the best use of your time but it's better than a total waste

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

#440

Post by Tao331 »

jjmorrison wrote: post #15

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.

Maybe you have to stop the discriminatory firings.
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