Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 112 posts

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#101

Post by ylee »

wallstthrowaway wrote: post #61

I remember going through 16 interviews to be hired by a top tier Wall Street investment bank. I was an experienced hire, lateraling over at this point I was only hired after I got an offer from a competitor (following about ~6 interviews there, most of which were over the phone) and forced my top choice's hand Fast forward 18 months and I was laid off along with hundreds more. As it turns out, my two superiors weren'…

I've never worked for a tech company. But I have worked for two bulge-bracket investment banks. So it's been interesting to read of how tech companies recruiting works.

During my initial training/orientation period as a new analyst at Goldman Sachs in 1999, the person conducting the meeting asked people to stand up if they had had 5, 10, 20, etc. interviews for their job offer. One person stood up when the group was asked who had had more than 40 interviews.

I was very unusual in only having four interviews before my GS offer. For that job, I'm pretty sure the person looking to fill the role personally contacted my college's recruiting service (because she had received her MBA from there). For the second job, at Citigroup, I saw a Craigslist listing either by the person himself or his assistant, talked to someone I knew at the firm who worked near him, then reached out to the person directly. In both cases the person hiring did my first (and, in the second case, the only) interview, and I never talked to a true HR person, let alone recruiter, before receiving the offer.

I've been told that this sort of hiring does happen in tech, but it sure seems rare compared to all the stories I read here.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#102

Post by rokkitmensch »

Draiken wrote: post #75

I (thankfully) just got hired and it took 7 interviews. 6 of which included live coding. And I got lucky, as they could've said no after all that time investment. I understand that hiring is hard and I've had bad hires before, so I know it's definitely costly. I've had candidates with years of experience that couldn't code, so I get some of it. But at the same time it's almost insulting to have to prove that I know h…

"Steal" is an interesting word to use, since they don't really get much for their time spent like that. I don't have a better one, but it strikes me as a lose-lose deal if it falls through after all of that.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#103

Post by Draiken »

rokkitmensch wrote: post #102
Draiken wrote: post #75

I (thankfully) just got hired and it took 7 interviews. 6 of which included live coding. And I got lucky, as they could've said no after all that time investment. I understand that hiring is hard and I've had bad hires before, so I know it's definitely costly. I've had candidates with years of experience that couldn't code, so I get some of it. But at the same time it's almost insulting to have to prove that I know h…

"Steal" is an interesting word to use, since they don't really get much for their time spent like that. I don't have a better one, but it strikes me as a lose-lose deal if it falls through after all of that.

Agreed, it might not be the best word to describe it.

I guess one aspect is that on other interviews they at the very least pay for all the work you end up doing.

You're normally sacrificing your leisure time which, under normal circumstances, is worth even more than your normal rate. But because of the power imbalance involved, you're expected to do it for free. It just leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#104

Post by owyn »

GartzenDeHaes wrote: post #36
paxys wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every new feature is built by one developer doing 90% of the work and a dozen others doing the last 10%. As long as the company has the 90% developer on the project, it really doesn't matter whether the new hire happens today or 6 months from now. The feature is going to remain on track.

I don't know, on a lot of projects the last 10% seems to take 90% of the time.

Exactly. I consider myself to be one of those last 10% developers who enjoys the work it takes to get good, valuable projects from mostly done to actually done (software is never done but you know what I mean). The geniuses have already moved on to the next project. You need a mix of both at any company.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#105

Post by a_vanderbilt »

j_m_b wrote: post #79

We're just beginning to experience a shuffling of the top companies. Remember FAANG? Just look at how bad the products are these companies churn out. Google search is a degraded experience, Apple released vision pro, and the N for Netflix should probably be N for Nvidia. It makes sense that the larger and mid-sized players are indecisive and taking things slow, the status quo is working out great for them. Why change…

The market ebbs and flows and your assessment of the innovation happening at Netflix vs. Nvidia is evidence of that. Google used to be a cornerstone of what defined a FAANG, but now it's become the new Microsoft, while Microsoft has been busy re-inventing itself. Amazon is flattening out, FaceBook (ahem, Meta) is searching for their next moonshot, and Apple is about to incur the wrath of regulatory bodies that their curated experience may or may not survive. I think COVID was the pivotal moment for these companies for the reasons you allude to: bureaucracy. The Goog grew way to fast to try and capitalize on cloud going up during the pandemic, but they hired too many middling people. Most companies did, but they cannot afford to do so then or now.

Nvidia is a wonderful case study in management doing leaps and bounds without being "busy", because like Valve, their winning move was to let everyone else make unforced blunders. CUDA isn't exceptional. It's OK, it's alright, - but it's certainly better than the broken mess ROCm is. Intel said "meh" and left the entire market open, despite tailored compilers being their strong suit. Now Intel is getting pounded by AMD and ARM, and AMD GPUs are a laughing stock in the fastest growing market space at the moment: AI and Machine Learning. The companies that capitalize effectively on AI/ML now will be winners in tomorrow's market.

I've worked in startups long enough to know what the end of ZIRP will do to a company.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#106

Post by usrusr »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #99
usrusr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The not so greedy might certainly be looking, but their willingness to jump through hoops would have a limit somewhere. Require a very large number of hoops to be jumped through and every single hire will be of the kind who would have zero qualms to sell your company internals to the highest bidder if given the chance.

This seems like you're bending over backwards to hallucinate some made up exotic scenario that has never happened. Require a very large number of hoops to be jumped through and every single hire will be of the kind who would have zero qualms to sell your company internals to the highest bidder if given the chance. What are you even talking about. What are you basing this on?

Are you saying that the mechanism does not exist or are you saying that it's not pushed into critical regions all that often?

If it's the latter, I certainly agree that it's an area where opinions can legitimately vary a lot and I would not pick "it happens very often!" as a hill to die on. If it's the former, I vehemently disagree. At some point, everybody leaves except the terminally greedy. Perhaps that point is never reached (I doubt it, but I respect options to the opposite), but the point exists.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#107

Post by CyberDildonics »

usrusr wrote: post #106
CyberDildonics wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like you're bending over backwards to hallucinate some made up exotic scenario that has never happened. Require a very large number of hoops to be jumped through and every single hire will be of the kind who would have zero qualms to sell your company internals to the highest bidder if given the chance. What are you even talking about. What are you basing this on?

Are you saying that the mechanism does not exist or are you saying that it's not pushed into critical regions all that often? If it's the latter, I certainly agree that it's an area where opinions can legitimately vary a lot and I would not pick "it happens very often!" as a hill to die on. If it's the former, I vehemently disagree. At some point, everybody leaves except the terminally greedy. Perhaps that point is n…

Are you saying that the mechanism does not exist or are you saying that it's not pushed into critical regions all that often?

I have absolute no idea what you're talking about now.

everybody leaves except the terminally greedy

People that stay at their jobs are "terminally greedy"? They are going to die from greed?

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#108

Post by ofslidingfeet »

mooreds wrote: post #8
ofslidingfeet wrote: post #3

We'll eventually get to the point where anyone willing to jump through these stupid hoops is primarily motivated by greed.

> primarily motivated by greed. Or perhaps a desire to, say, eat or live under a roof? A job is pretty much required for living nowadays in much of the world. A good job (one that requires jumping through such hoops) makes living much easier.

They have jobs where the interview isn't a hazing ritual. Those do exist, if you don't need a tech salary.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#109

Post by FeloniousHam »

gentleman11 wrote: post #22

A variant: government of canada/province jobs that re-post your job every season; requiring you to fully re-apply and re-interview over and over with your boss while they endlessly try to replace you, no matter how well you did. Until you get promoted or they find somebody they like better and you have to move 500+ km to get a different position I honestly think amazons stack ranking is less humiliating and skeezy

I have heard of a similar policy with State jobs in the US, in practice it's a formality (maybe because it's easier to fire people here). Sounded like "good governance" kabuki--I've never heard of anyone losing their job then.

Re: The return of never-ending job interviews: 'It can go beyond the pale'

#110

Post by usrusr »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #107
usrusr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the mechanism does not exist or are you saying that it's not pushed into critical regions all that often? If it's the latter, I certainly agree that it's an area where opinions can legitimately vary a lot and I would not pick "it happens very often!" as a hill to die on. If it's the former, I vehemently disagree. At some point, everybody leaves except the terminally greedy. Perhaps that point is n…

Are you saying that the mechanism does not exist or are you saying that it's not pushed into critical regions all that often? I have absolute no idea what you're talking about now. everybody leaves except the terminally greedy People that stay at their jobs are "terminally greedy"? They are going to die from greed?

Everybody leaves during recruitment. That's what we are talking about, in particular the subset of candidates who already have a job. Make it a two year process, but at the end there's the promise of truly exceptional compensation, and you can take it as an absolute given that nobody will be left who would not do anything for money. (if you extend observation to those without a job, it's the exceptionally greedy plus those incapable of finding something different. congratulations.)
Post reply on HN