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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”?

#561

Post by vidarh »

sgerenser wrote: post #517
ballenf wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked and interviewed at dozens of companies and literally never experienced a company that had more than 2 interviews plus a discussion with a hiring manager or HR. I make half-ish of a FAANG salary, but it's enough to comfortably support a family and I'm generally pretty happy and get to work on cool stuff. The only challenge I never get at work are problems that have huge scale components.

Interesting, I’ve interviewed at all of the FAANGs other than Netflix, plus maybe 10 or so much smaller companies. In general the smaller companies all seemed to want to emulate the FAANG hiring process with 4-6 rounds of interviews with engineers after an initial phone screen. I think only 1 or 2 of them limited their interview to just 2 rounds.

I've been approached by a couple of FAANG and told them to stuff it because of the recruitment processes. I'm in London, and here at least they're extreme outliers.

If you're early in your career, they probably matter and it might be worth it, but for me it's not.

Maybe it'd be different in Silicon Valley, but in London they just aren't willing to offer enough over and above the kind of jobs I've had elsewhere to be worth the misery (with the big caveat that I'm at the high end of non-FAANG London market rates; for someone who is not, FAANG may be worth it here too)

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

#562

Post by dleslie »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #472
dleslie wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that argument is particularly relevant in the tech industry. It's not that hard to find a "sick" day, even if you don't have unlimited PTO. And especially during COVID, where going missing for a day might go unnoticed for a lot of people.

> It's not that hard to find a "sick" day, even if you don't have unlimited PTO.

Yah, no. That's a ridiculous proposal for many people, particularly parents and anyone with any sort of disability.

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

#563

Post by dleslie »

rockemsockem wrote: post #499
dleslie wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not advocating for hiring literally anyone. If they pass your credential requirements, reference checks, and team meet then they're already passing through significant filtering.

Resumes aren't really credentials. They're lists of things provided by the individual themselves and are almost always inflated in some way. Reference checks are just "I got someone you don't know (and shouldn't trust) to say good things about me", and meet the team is just "I can talk to people and sound smart for about an hour or two". There are a very large number of idiots who can do those things. I strongly disa…

Those who lie on their resume in a harmful way are immediately apparent upon hiring, and so are quick to fire. Those who do not, are not, and aren't fired.

It's really not the risk folks seem to think it is.

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

#564

Post by anyfoo »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #474
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…

> I’m a HM at a big tech company with this format as well. Honestly, I really like it. The truth is that nobody likes being interviewed . Getting tested and judged by strangers isn’t fun. But developers also really don’t like being surrounded by unqualified developers who slipped through a weak interview process. They also don’t like having significant numbers of their teammates fired and replaced all the time becaus…

> The truth is that nobody likes being interviewed. Getting tested and judged by strangers isn’t fun.

I sort of do. It's fun problem solving, at least sometimes.

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

#566

Post by vikingcaffiene »

kube-system wrote: post #550
vikingcaffiene wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Accountants have occupational licensing. Forgive my ignorance, but is this during every interview? If I am reading this right this is a certification they'd need to get which would be on their resume. Do they need to re-prove those skills every time?

Sometimes they are even more often, as those licenses often have "continuing education" requirements to keep them active. For example, they expire every two years in California. https://www.calcpa.org/cpa-licensure/renewing-a-cpa-license/... But no, they don't happen "during interviews". My point is that there's less need to test people during their interviews for occupations with licensing, because they've already b…

While I see where you are coming from but respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

> My point is that there's less need to test people during their interviews for occupations with licensing, because they've already been tested before they even showed up for the interview.

I mean past job experience and education are pretty good indicators? Is there some facet to the accounting certification process I am unaware of that filters out under performers? If my past few accountants are any indication, then no. :)

All of that aside, I've not seen any data that suggests the hiring practices common in our field produce better outcomes than that which I am evangelizing for. Furthermore, those practices are common FAANG type companies which can offer much higher compensation packages than a typical startup. I assert that it's not only the right thing to do, it is also a _competitive advantage_ to have a streamlined, humane, hiring process.

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

#567

Post by skeeter2020 »

tartoran wrote: post #297
novok wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks for people on both sides. To reduce the amount it happens is worthy. You can’t in practice just say, “this guy sucks, lets fire him next week” And it shows, barely anyone in my entire career has ever been fired. I only personally have been close to one.

> 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.

No kidding! The best people already have jobs and you want to steal them away from somewhere else. 5+ interviews? giant take-home projects or multiple coding assessments? Pass, they're not going to put up with it. "Our 7-interview process ensures we only hire the best" ... of the 10% willing to go through this nonsense.

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

#568

Post by justinclift »

igetspam wrote: post #428
ethanwillis wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to outsource the costs of developing talent. To their own detriment, then they want to blame everyone else. This is of course when they're not busy abusing someone on a visa to make them do more work than a human should have to do.

You've had some bad jobs, haven't you? Want to talk about it? We don't abuse anyone on a visa because we're fully remote and don't do visas. We target the high side of comp in the person's country. We specifically hire senior people because we're small and building. Developing talent is great but the time to do that is expensive and until you've hit a certain scale, it's detrimental to launching a startup. Look aroun…

> If you can find a startup that succeeded by hiring new grads and junior engineering first, I'd love to read about it.

Mentoring is not something that's only done for new grads and juniors.

Wherever there are skilled people in the company interested in learning more about the systems around them and how to work with them well, it's generally a good idea to figure out some way to mentor/grow them. Whether officially, nor unofficially.

For non-technical roles it's likely a good idea to do the same in ways that suit there as well.

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

#569

Post by dleslie »

rockemsockem wrote: post #496
dleslie wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between: Foo Corp - Wrote Java on Bar project And: Foo Corp - Designed and developed infrastructure for Baz for Bar project (Java) A resume that doesn't give an idea of what someone did, beyond the tech they used to accomplish their goals, isn't likely to pass my interest test.

There's only a very, very small difference between those two things though. I'm not hiring anyone based on either of those bulletpoints or similar ones; no matter how many there are. It's so easy to inflate your role on a project and what you contributed and the people who are best at it are usually also able to talk, talk, talk. The first interview question I ask is so easy that I don't think anyone should be paid t…

Ah, you've got a gotcha bullet point question that you think is a killer technical ability question. But you're asking it in a completely abnormal situation, an interview. All you're testing for is the candidate's ability to answer your clever question in a scenario where their ability and personal value is actively being judged; which is wholly unlike any day-to-day challenge they are to encounter.

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

#570

Post by skeeter2020 »

asveikau wrote: post #482
jchw wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been at one of FAANG for a few years. Never saw this play out. Sounds like something that is more likely to happen on the management side than it is the IC side…

Most ICs are pretty well insulated from this, because if they understood what went on at calibration a lot of good contributors would become pretty bitter.

Thank goodness ICs never see the top-level calibration with the executives. It's the most insane, ill-informed drive-by management I've ever experienced.
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