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If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

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Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#81

Post by grumple »

sulam wrote: post #35
lovich wrote: post #25

I don't disagree with this articles satire, as it lines up with my experience if you remove a bit of the hyperbole. I am however curious as to why companies continue to do this and seem to be increasing their interview requirements in the face of an inability to hire. The most reasonable sounding answer I can come up with is that executives are balking at engineering pay and rationalizing it to themselves by demandin…

Not really. It comes down to the asymmetry in hiring outcomes. It is much more expensive to hire a bad employee than it is to hire a good employee. It’s gotten exceptionally hard to just fire people in corporate America, at-will employment notwithstanding.

Is it that much more expensive? It's mostly opportunity cost imo, but that's basically a nonfactor for big corps that take ages to do anything anyway, and they are constantly hiring replacements.

I can terminate team members with a couple of clicks in workday if I wanted. Seems overblown.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#82

Post by pluc »

pram wrote: post #11
pcthrowaway wrote: post #8

FROM: jobs@bubbleapp.com DATE: October 5, 2022 Dear Applicant, As you may be aware, the past three weeks have been a test. You have been “working” at a facsimile of our HQ staffed by trained actors. Finally, an explanation for all the software devs who can't fizzbuzz!

Dear Applicant, As you may be aware, you have been drugged and transported to southern Mexico. Both of your kidneys have been removed. Now begins the practical portion of the interviewing process where we analyze your problem solving skills.

Each of your kidneys are on a train, one going 88 mph heading from east to west and another going 103 mph heading west to east

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#83

Post by As_You_Wish »

insightcheck wrote: post #2

> "Phase three starts at 8 a.m. sharp, next Monday, and lasts for fourteen Pomodoro-timer cycles, concluding at 5:38 p.m." Unfortunately, this sounds dreadful and yet completely plausible. Pomodoros, or taking short breaks every once in a while, really are useful for avoiding stretching out tasks, though.

Oh, Pomodoros is a thing?

I thought a Pomodoros was one of those little dogs, I guess that is Pomoranian, but that's what my mind went to. So I thought that was some kind of cynical remark like dog years, but short Pomorian dog cycles that dogs have during the day that I didn't know about. Just some throw-away remark by the author that it was measured by some dog cycle that I didn't know about. Arf.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#84

Post by inferiorhuman »

yrgulation wrote: post #66
inferiorhuman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been doing the look for work grind off and on for a few months. I've had one okay, one great (Render), a couple comically bad, and then a bunch of leetcode type places… for an SRE role. The best of the leetcode fans actually had the self-awareness to ask why I declined the interview request. One recruiter begged me to go through with it because they were working hard on getting an exemption for SRE hires so it w…

> I've been doing the look for work grind off and on for a few months. ok i may be living in a bubble or something. where in the world is looking for work in tech a grind?

I probably have a lower tolerance for bullshit both compared to my younger self and compared to most other people. So it's not just the effort of filtering out ridiculous job postings – I'm not going to work for a blockchain equipped, NFT based dog therapy app company, nor do I share your passion in bringing social media to defecation tracking, etc. Now I'm spending some time and landing right into the leetcode queue. Or going through a decent interview process only to get met with a hiring freeze. The whole process is just tedious.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#85

Post by cgio »

gabeio wrote: post #65
PebblesHD wrote: post #44

These styles of multi-round interviews inspired by the FAANG collective started picking up in Australia before the pandemic, but it got to a point where most of my more talented colleagues and I all agreed it just wasn’t worth the time for the salaries being offered. 4 round interviews for a ‘senior’ developer position on $120k? When interviewing my own candidates, I use a 1 hour interview mostly focused on approach…

> We have a probation period to work out if they’ve over-promised I'm curious what you mean by over-promised? Unless you only do this for people who don't already have a job, this sounds more toxic than multiple interviews. "Oh yeah we want you to work for us, but quit your old company, we'll try you out for a few weeks and if not we'll go our separate ways" ... but they quit their previous company so it's not as nic…

I’ll side with you. I lead a big team, but also an employee myself, I find probation period a very uncomfortable concept. There is no promises in interviews. You ask your questions, you get your answers, you make your decisions. If your questions ask for promises to make your decision easier, you are doing it wrong. From my perspective, any hire that ends up with negative probation outcome should be marked against interviewers performance. We are people, working with people with families, obligations, dreams. We have to let that sink in our thinking rather than take cover behind corporate policies, procedures, legislation etc.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#86

Post by bitwize »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #45
jimbob45 wrote: post #15

What’s the ideal interview? HR screen, tech interview, and team lead interview? I don’t know that you can reasonably compress things down to less than three interviews without relying on individuals to be better at interviewing than they might actually be.

people aren't complaining about 3. but it's commonly not 3. it's 5, 6 or 7. Or 3 and one is 4 hours.

Ugh, the 4 hour one.

I once interviewed at a small AI company. The CTO had a Ph.D. (from MIT!) in Really Tough AI Stuff. He was supported by some of the best programmers in Really Tough AI Stuff. The last round was the multi-hour one. I had to do a couple of different programming challenges, which I think I did all right in. Then I was subjected to multiple rounds, by the CTO and his supporting developers, of Really Tough AI questions. I wasn't trained for this, plus I was nervous and worn out and really off my game, so I tended to open my answers with "I know I'm probably getting this wrong, but..." and then pretty much spitball a guess.

They were kind enough to provide feedback! They said "We really liked your answers and we think you have all the right skills, but you didn't seem very confident, so we're going to have to pass."

I probably had to be a psychopath in order to get that job, at least without a postgrad degree in Really Tough AI Stuff.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#87

Post by xivzgrev »

this was pure gold

"An Enneagram test and one-on-ones with nineteen different people in H.R. A fajita lunch, some improv games, and a Ping-Pong tournament, after which you will be evaluated on our five-dimensional Work Hard, Play Harder assessment matrix. A ninety-minute walk-and-chat around our man-made lagoon with our C.E.O., Benji, and Benji’s dog, Mr. Rex. (Mr. Rex will “interview” you with his barks!)"

everything was pretty believable except 19 different people in HR. Would've been better just saying "19 different people". Because sometimes it feels like that!

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#89

Post by swader999 »

And you are now hired! Note that there will be daily metrics collected on your keystroke rate, github contributions, slack response times, monthly managerial review and quarterly peer rankings. We also track your extra curricular internet and social media activity to ensure our members contribute to the greater good.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#90

Post by PebblesHD »

cgio wrote: post #85
gabeio wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a probation period to work out if they’ve over-promised I'm curious what you mean by over-promised? Unless you only do this for people who don't already have a job, this sounds more toxic than multiple interviews. "Oh yeah we want you to work for us, but quit your old company, we'll try you out for a few weeks and if not we'll go our separate ways" ... but they quit their previous company so it's not as nic…

I’ll side with you. I lead a big team, but also an employee myself, I find probation period a very uncomfortable concept. There is no promises in interviews. You ask your questions, you get your answers, you make your decisions. If your questions ask for promises to make your decision easier, you are doing it wrong. From my perspective, any hire that ends up with negative probation outcome should be marked against in…

I can absolutely see this position, for me it’s more a case of protecting ourselves against the rare but increasing occasions of candidates actually making misleading claims. As I’ve said in a sibling comment, for me I like to be able to take basic skills at face value, and focus on core competencies. If someone can learn the skill during probation, that’s totally fine.
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