He got 1%, we can't hire him

I very much dislike the idea that you can't give special treatment to individual candidates. The job of a recruiter is to find the best candidate for the job, not to treat all candidates equally. Now obviously we can't go around discriminating against candidates based on attributes not relevant to their ability to perform (ie gender, race, religion etc), but that doesn't mean we can't make use of any extra information we might be able to garner about a person.

If a particular candidate, who happens to fail part of the interview, still seems like a good choice, by all means look for additional means of evaluation.

I once had an interview, where I spoke with a few people very positively for about 3 hours, it was going great. There was no sign of a technical test, so I had assumed by this point that they either didn't do them, or they'd be in a second round of interviews. Then they realised they'd forgotten to give me the technical test, which they then gave me and I screwed up for whatever reasons. Upon learning that I'd aced every part of the interview except the programming test, I mentioned they had an employee who'd worked with me on previous projects and could vouch for my coding ability. But they said they couldn't use that information because it would be unfair to other candidates.

This was a long time ago, and I didn't really lose much by not getting the job, but it always felt like the approach they took was wrong.

HR - particularly recruiting - at most (big) companies is a colossal joke. They´re typically lazy - limited in their understanding of the business and very quick to make decisions that they refuse to change due to the insecurity of knowing that they might actually be superfluous if it wasn´t for all that paperwork that someone had to take care of. They set some random parameters and don´t actually have an understanding of who would really fit the job. At the end of the day - they dont have to work with those people, nor do they understand the current team dynamic - so how can one expect otherwise!?

Heh, I agreed with this, clicked on the karma icon, then read the author's name... ofc.... ciao salvo!

It's fairly common. If one says "X and I" one risks coming across as being a bit Brian Sewell.

I was interested in applying for a job here in Norway, but it turned out the company had 2-3+ interviews (which would mean spending the day at their offices) over several months, as well as some sort of IQ test and other things.

That was in the spring and they expected to have picked out some people by the end of summer.

I didn't apply, mostly because I am happy where I am, but also because a 3-5 month interview process is completely ridiculous.

The entire process just put me off from applying. If they can't talk to me once or twice and look at my resume/past projects then I do not know if I want to work there. I understand the need to find the right people, but there are limits to how many hoops I care to jump through to get the honour of working in their company.

Is this a common practice?

I can understand if you have another job and end up interviewing somewhere else while working, but if I was without a job I probably wouldn't be able to wait 5 months for someone to decide I've passed their tests.

My friend ended up applying and he was also one of the few that got hired, which is why I've heard a bit more about their process than I think I normally would.

I think using a recruiting company is more common around here. Where I work now, quite a few of us have started out working part time (as I am now) through a recruiting process, and occasionally those who work full time get picked up by our company to work directly.

My boss worked the same position I work in now, back when he was in university.