Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”? • Hacker News Board

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

#621

Post by rascul » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:43 AM UTC

mateo411 wrote: post #580

tartoran wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks So is the 7 interview gauntlet. But I guess it just shifts the burden on the candidates and externalizes cost.

Well no. It's expensive for the company too. All of the people involved in the interview process are still getting paid while they are interviewing the candidates. They aren't working on their projects that they have to complete. The company probably has a recruiting or talent acquisition team and the people on that team don't work for free. The company might also work with outside agencies or external recruiters. If…

> All of the people involved in the interview process are still getting paid

Except the interviewee.

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

#622

Post by rascul » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:47 AM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #576

bluescrn wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably also selecting for people who are unemployed and therefore much more able to attend the entire gauntlet than those already employed.

I would think the opposite is more likely.If you are employed, there is no pressure. You may go through 12 interviews for a 12 different jobs and be only so slightly offended. For the unemployed, time is most likely ticking, if not financially, at least emotionally. A relative slowness at any step of the process affects the unemployed mindset. Stress alone lowers interview performance, especially on the soft skills s…

If you're employed it's more likely you don't have time for 12 interviews because you're working.

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

#623

Post by jugg1es » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:48 AM UTC

bluedevil2k wrote: post #592

jugg1es wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you if the interview process included ANY feedback to interviewees when they were rejected. Prior to COVID, I got flown to Seattle mid-week for 2 nights and interviewed well (the recruiter told me to start looking for houses). But 20 days later I was basically ghosted by my recruiter and I had to escalate to their manager to get a response that I was rejected. They gave me no feedback at all. The i…

I went through the exact same thing at a big tech company a few weeks ago. Basically told me I got it, ghosted me for weeks, I had to escalate to higher managers, got told a generic “someone was a better match”. Do these companies think about the reputation hit these kinds of things cause? Amazon is the best example - I’m sure half the people on here would never apply to Amazon because their reputation is beyond repa…

From what I've read from managers of recruiters from FAANG companies is:

1) Recruiters at these companies are under a large amount of pressure to bring candidates in.

2) There is only so much time in the day

3) They feel all of their time must be spent on potential hires because of #1 and #2

4) No one likes giving bad news

I don't feel like any of these reasons excuse you from being a considerate human being. Ultimately, it happens because recruiters are never rewarded for being considerate. People who fail the interview process are treated like legal liabilities.

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

#624

Post by ss108 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:49 AM UTC

geeky4qwerty wrote: post #47

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

Tech companies are extremely risk adverse when it comes to hiring the "wrong" person. More interviews means more people to spread to blame over if a wrong hire happens. At seven interviews, if everyone signed off on the bad hire, that wasn't anyone's fault, it must have been that the hire was skilled at deception or some other deflection.

Doesn't this seem like the (hopefully inadvertent) perfectly structured model for hiring sociopaths? I'm speaking semi-hyperbolic but seriously... An employee isn't a romantic partner or social club member. Some (most?) of the most brilliant and hyper-productive people I've hired and worked with were socially inept. In fact I once hired a guy whose resume was -barely- legible and horribly structured who turned out to…

Why did you hire him?

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

#625

Post by H1Supreme » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:50 AM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #576

bluescrn wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably also selecting for people who are unemployed and therefore much more able to attend the entire gauntlet than those already employed.

I would think the opposite is more likely.If you are employed, there is no pressure. You may go through 12 interviews for a 12 different jobs and be only so slightly offended. For the unemployed, time is most likely ticking, if not financially, at least emotionally. A relative slowness at any step of the process affects the unemployed mindset. Stress alone lowers interview performance, especially on the soft skills s…

There might not be pressure, but you have to schedule time away from your current job to take interviews.

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

#626

Post by confidantlake » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:51 AM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #507

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every alternative you can imagine has been tried. Lots of interviews, few interviews, take home projects, pair programming, hire fast fire fast, trial periods and on and on and on.

Hire fast fire fast is by far the best one, should you really need it. A 20 minute technical conversation and then firing within 2-3 weeks if they do not seem self-directed has worked in my experience. If you can't get someone up to speed with your internal processes fast enough to at least gauge if they're following along that indicates an internal problem. The problem is, I think, that HR does not want technical st…

Fired after 2 weeks if they don't seem self directed? I have been at one place where I didn't even have my laptop in the first two weeks and multiple places where I did not have access to the codebase yet.

Most people except for a few outliers will be fumbling around the first month while they learn the code and the company.

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

#627

Post by 7thaccount » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:52 AM UTC

I have an upcoming all day interview with 7 different people... something like an hour each. The last time I interviewed for a new company had an on-site round robin process used where we interviewed with a lot of different management staff after initial HR interviews. I guess it's been this way for awhile.

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

#628

Post by MichaelBurge » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:53 AM UTC

rascul wrote: post #621

mateo411 wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well no. It's expensive for the company too. All of the people involved in the interview process are still getting paid while they are interviewing the candidates. They aren't working on their projects that they have to complete. The company probably has a recruiting or talent acquisition team and the people on that team don't work for free. The company might also work with outside agencies or external recruiters. If…

> All of the people involved in the interview process are still getting paid Except the interviewee.

There's often a signing bonus. If there's a 10% chance of getting the job and a $50k signing bonus is common, then your EV is $5000 per interview.

Even if there weren't, then 10% of the extra compensation vs. an easier-to-hire company with your discount horizon applied would also count as payment.

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

#629

Post by pirate787 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:54 AM UTC

netizen-936824 wrote: post #378

tartoran wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks So is the 7 interview gauntlet. But I guess it just shifts the burden on the candidates and externalizes cost.

Cost externalization is the entire basis of businesses/corporations these days it seems. Maybe it was always that way though

I think it has gotten better in some areas. Sales processes used to be brutal for buyers. Pricing today is more transparent in general.

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

#630

Post by throwaway787544 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 12:59 AM UTC

FAANGs started doing tons of interviews so everyone else did too. Today I'll get a "behavioral interview" from a small company that is totally unstructured and I end up controlling the interview because the interviewer is unprepared. Whereas for a FAANG I just need to have scripted responses to a series of 30 to 50 commonly asked questions.

I'm happy that they are doing more to try to ensure they get the right candidate. It's very easy with just one or two interviews to miss a great candidate who was nervous, or miss a confident candidate who is a terrible fit.

However, these additional rounds are no guarantee you won't get a bad match. It depends on who's interviewing and what basis they're going off of, and whether the interviewee has done prep work. As per usual, it's not the process that matters, but the people doing the process.