Companies are already wasting 10x more money and emotional capital with their ridiculous interviewing processes.

I definitely appreciate the sentiment that everyone should negotiate in good faith, but until you are in front of your future manager and they explain very clearly what the job entails (whether virtual or in person), nothing is to be believed.

Wasting a company's time and money is something they already accept. If they didn't, they would optimize their process for minimal time spent.

If you could, how would you change the interviewing process?

It's not ridiculous in my opinion to want to talk to (and ask questions of) a potential candidate.

If you don't like interviews, I would look into contracting, as companies generally take on contractors very easily.

Totally agree with what you have said. I've been through W2 job interviews that lasted a total of 2 hours. One phone conversation and one in person, offered job on the same day with no waiting games played. This is 100% the exception to the rule.

I would remove multi round interviews with 7 different people and multiple calls backs. The in-person interview should be one and done, just like a music audition.

Why? Because a company can fire me on day one if they want. The idea that we should put $10,000 worth of man hours into screening someone before they begin working, when employees are still legally interchangeable seems kind of like a charade to me.

Employees don't like to see their colleagues fired quickly, but if it's for a deserving reason (candidate couldn't do the things they said they could do in interview) then the team really will move on quickly.

When you're paying out $120,000 a year for people to flip bits, the team accepts that turnover might occur a little bit more frequently that corporate middle management.

Ah, my context is different, I live/work in Sweden where "same-day" firings are completely illegal.

Job safety is insanely strong here, if you pass probation it's extremely unlikely you can be fired. Even if your job is not required anymore there is a "first-in-last-out" policy which would mean anyone hired after you would have to go first.

So there is huge financial incentive to ensure you only hire the right people.

Wow!! Such civilized culture :) In the US, unless otherwise negotiated, all employees are under the legal term "at will", which means firing/quitting can happen anytime and for any reason. Fortunately I have walked off the job on day one when I thought it was not as described :) But have also been fired plenty of times for assinine bullshit.

Maybe programmers in Cali are able to negotiate different contracts. But like 95% of non-state workers can be fired instantly I imagine in the US.

Cheers!!

Are you saying the probation period in Sweden occurs before you ever start working? The OP likely meant: fire them during the probation period because that is why it is there.

You don't. Well, you do, but not without losing stuff. Basically, you shoot from the hip, with less information. Some orgs already do this. They glace at resumes, talk to a few people briefly, and make a gut decision. Or you hire more known quantities (friends, and former colleagues). There are huge drawbacks to either approach, but those are the other options. You get less information if you shorten the process, however there's always a great deal of uncertainty when hiring someone new, no matter what you do.

I have mixed feelings on this.

Having good candidates not join is a massive pain. We call them heartbreakers. They come in, show you a great time, maybe a hint of things getting serious, then nothing.

However, your HR department should be able to sniff out a good percentage of non serious people at the door step. Mindless interviews, with little to no prep is fairly easy to spot.

As for the cost argument, again, HR filter, coding test & video conference filter should get rid of most. Thats about 2-4 hours of our people's time. any more than that and you either have too many people wasting time, or your interview are too long and gruelling. (excluding candidate sourcing.)

having said all that, you shouldn't sit and rot at the same company, if you are not enjoying yourself.

As a person who interviews people.

^ 100% this, actually the cost is probably understated.

I spend 2-3hrs reviewing a candidate's CV/resume before giving the go-ahead to Recruitment to schedule an interview, then there's the interviews which are about an hour each.

Then there's the on-site, which is a stage you'd want to get to, even if you're interviewing to practice.

So, for 3 members of my team it's roughly 3hrs + recruiters time (scheduling consumes so much time) and they have to negotiate with central HQ what salary range we can offer a person for their experience/subjective "goodness".

All-in-all I can easily see it taking more than a week of person-power for a single candidate.

As a person who also interviews people, it should not take 2-3 hours to read a resume. If you're spending more than 30 minutes on it, I have no idea what you're reading.

Spending 3 man-weeks finding the right candidate is an easy win over spending 3 hours finding the wrong one and 12 weeks training, remedying bad behaviors, and building a case for termination.

Maybe I should clarify a few things because people seem to be confused why I would do this.

1) I'm not just reading your resume, I'm checking any links you've put out (so, checking GitHub contributions if that's listed). If you're credited in something then I'm going to check the team size you were in- basically I'm going to try my best to figure out what questions I would ask you in an interview. (IE; how do you prefer priorities to be raised, do you prefer to work alone or with heavy collaboration).

Generally I find it helpful to have targeted questions in meetings, because meetings are hugely expensive in terms of attention and time. And an interview is really just a meeting with an external person where the topic is the background and prowess of the external person.

2) 12 weeks in training is actually more like 6months in my current position. It's complicated.

3) I live/work in Sweden, probation is 6months, but termination after that is _basically_ impossible. We had someone who's job was basically not being done in any way- it took more than a year before we could terminate their employment. Which is quite expensive if you hire the wrong candidate. (In that case, we were lax in hiring because that particular position wasn't exactly senior, and due to that they were able to pass probation because they looked like they were learning)

Anyway, a cursory glance can be enough to say "yes I want to talk" but an in-depth review of a CV is something I consider to be mandatory before I actually hold the interview.

Two hours reviewing one resumé is way too much. A few minutes should be plenty of time to decide whether or not to start the interview process with a candidate.

2-3 hours reviewing a candidates resume before giving the go-head to schedule an interview? That seems like a lot of time to review a resume.

I spend between 30 seconds to 2 minutes reading a resume before deciding to pass or to schedule a 30 minute phone screen.

How do you spend 2-3 hours reviewing one CV?

> "but it wastes a lot of the interviewer's time (and potentially money)."

I think there's something to this ('corporations are people too my friend!' one might say :) ). But I feel differently when speaking to recruiters, if I'm looking. Ultimately they're paid to get interviews. I assume their metrics are like any sales team's: get interviews, convert at least some of them to paid positions. I can't see how I'm wasting a recruiter's time if there's any chance at all that I'd take the job.

Well almost every company acts in a sociopathic way to maximize profit so I don’t see any issue with it. I also don’t think the reason to do it is to feel better about yourself, it’s to gain information about your situation in the job market.

Realistically no one who is employed already has time to jump through all the hoops in the present day interview process, the quizzes and homework and blah blah blah, just for fun.

It is not a total waste of time of the interviewer's. They may learn something. Plus you may decide to take an offer.

It's not the same thing, unless the company is holding interviews for a nonexistent job. Or if they're interviewing somebody that they know they won't hire anyways.

I don't think anybody would defend that practice, so what makes it OK if I'm doing it myself by leading on some company that I don't want to work at?

I don't believe the advice is "interview at 3 companies but don't take the job no matter what."

It's "interview at 3 companies to find out if the job opportunity is better than the job you currently have, and if so, jump ship."