> 4-5 hours is pretty excessive for an interview process actually.
That's preposterous. You're going to spend hundreds of hours working together. 4-5 hours is extremely reasonable to make sure it's a good mutual fit.
Of course, it shouldn't be 4-5 hours for all candidates. The last hour spent should have a pretty high conversion rate to offer.
But 4-5 hours for hired candidates is completely standard.
> A candidate cannot be doing 4-5 hours for an interview process just to hear a no at the end. Successful job hunts need to have many irons in the fire at once and if each one is taking 4-5 hours there's only so much you can realistically take on
This is a toxic attitude. If you "spray and pray" then refuse any actual interview processes then you're never going to get a great job.
Every job I've gotten came from identifying a dozen or so opportunities up front and going deep on them.
>You're going to spend hundreds of hours working together. 4-5 hours is extremely reasonable to make sure it's a good mutual fit.
GP specified that these were for entry level candidate. How many people need to give a thumbs up to 'culture fit' (culture fit implies that 1-2 people's opinions should mesh with the rest of the culture, no)? I sure hope you aren't just grilling a college student with 4 hours of quizzes.
> If you "spray and pray" then refuse any actual interview processes then you're never going to get a great job.
most people out of college don't get (nor in my opinion, need) "great jobs". At least not by what the internet considers a "great job".
They should get plenty of training/growth, a liveable salary, and be willing to ask a lot of questions. Interview processes don't seem to promote 2/3 of these, and some industries 3/3.
>Every job I've gotten came from identifying a dozen or so opportunities up front and going deep on them.
It was a mix. Sometimes spraying worked, sometimes I just got a referral or even blindly approached. I definitely do not recommend going deep for a first job unless that is your dream job and you're staying connected for years with a contact. Even then, layoffs happen, or you simply are passed up. You always need fallbacks and IMO it's not that healthy to put so much emotional investment into one conglomerate like that that will only see you as a number. Take pride in accomplishments, not brands.
> I sure hope you aren't just grilling a college student with 4 hours of quizzes.
You misunderstood. 4-5 hours was for the entire interview across all steps, not a single 4-5 quiz session.
At minimum, you need to have some time for the candidate to ask about the company and learn about the team, too. Suggesting everything gets crammed into a single 1 hour conversation where both parties make a huge decision is not going to work for most.
Most candidates won’t even like that these days. They want to talk to the company, not get quizzed for 60 minutes and then asked to quit their current job and join this new company
I think we are still a bit misaligned. I'll explain my process for my last role as an example. Maybe one too many interviews for my taste, but it was for a senior role, so I'd say it's fine:
- 1 recruiter call to align (I personally don't count this, but some do)
- 1 call with the technical director focused on language and tool specific questions
- 1 call with 3 different team leads (since I was being considered for multiple roles). These were mostly soft questions with some light prodding of concepts.
- 1 call with 2 producers for some more soft questions and culture fit
- 1 more call with the overall director (basicslly 1 level below founder/c class) for, well, more soft questions and culture fit.
- lastly, an offer call with HR (I don't count this, but some do)
So I consider it 4 stages, some consider it 6. The times for all of them were around or a little over an hour so there's no issue IMO with call length. Usually 30 minutes of questions, 10 minutes of intro, and then 15 minutes of my own questions.
The number of stages felt a tiny bit too obsessive (did I really have to meet a director 3 levels above the chain? I don't think so), but not worth complaining about for a senior role. But still, these were separated 1-1.5 weeks apart, so this process ended up taking 7 weeks from recruiter call to offer letter. That's just so much dead air and it feels like this could have been condensed or abridged somehow.
For a new grad this just seems to be madness. Not just the time span but the number of people involved for a single hire at a moderately large company. (And I have gone through that many stages just to get rejected in my junior days). There's not as much to ask a new grad (again, unless you just want to quizz them for hours), not as many people will interface with them on day to day tasks, they will likely negotiate less than a senior unless it's some top student will multiple pending offers.
>Most candidates won’t even like that these days. They want to talk to the company, not get quizzed for 60 minutes and then asked to quit their current job and join this new company
That'd be preferable for me. But Im not a new grad. I did my time doing 20 hour take homes and grinding Leet code. I was sure hoping there'd be less of that as I have 8 YOE and more direct experience to speak about on my behalf, but it seems that even 10+ years can't escape Leetcode hell.
But I digress. Most of the conversation revolved around new grad stuff after all. I understand the need to make sure people with no experience (and an industry with no licensing) have the technical know how. I'd just wish project times were more realistic.
> So I consider it 4 stages, some consider it 6. The times for all of them were around or a little over an hour so there's no issue IMO with call length. Usually 30 minutes of questions, 10 minutes of intro, and then 15 minutes of my own questions.
> Maybe one too many interviews for my taste, but it was for a senior role, so I'd say it's fine:
I think we're forgetting that the focus here was on new grad roles. I don't really think it's fair to use my new grad experience of doing a 20 take home project that wasn't even in the tech stack the role asked for.
My typical interview process after grad school which may have been a follow-up to an on-campus interview (or not) was to be flown to a company site and have interviews with maybe 5 people or so, usually a lunch, maybe a dinner. So it was basically a couple of days when all was said and done.
Even my last job at a medium-large company which started out as a chat with the president who I knew, and then came in again for a chat with one of his reports, still ended up with an HR-arranged set of interviews with about 4 people. It was local to me so not a big deal but it was still a full set of interviews.
And who pays the candidates for the hours wasted in these interviews again?
Comparing that to the hundreds of hours working together is what is preposterous. If interviews were paid for, then the entire conversation would shift dramatically.
Let's remember that 4-5 hours is on the low end for most places IME. I've had places that had a single day with 5 hours of interviews. I had to take a day off from work to make a single interview. Can't we all agree that's absurd?
This is extremely unfair on every candidate since they're doing this for multiple companies, all for free, only to then get rejected multiple times for absolutely stupid reasons.
But I take it you didn’t live through ‘01/dot-com-crash?
It was the same, but smaller scale back then. I remember looking for a job and folks were requiring a CS PhD for literal ‘help run a school computer lab’ jobs.
Home Depot wouldn’t even consider your resume if you had been in Tech either. One person I talked to (not HD) said that they considered techies ‘overly entitled brats’ and didn’t want to have anything to do with them. This was in the PNW.
Previously it was super high pay, no formal education required - as long as you could code.
This was before AI or automated applications or the like, so I was doing 15 something manual applications a week.
I ended up moving something like 8 states away to take a middle of nowhere software dev job - after applying for over a year - at 1/4 the salary that I had been previously paid. It worked out.
Frankly, employers are being pretty mellow considering the market conditions. So far anyway.
The biggest issue right now IMO is general confusion and overwhelm + widespread fraud and lying (in both sides of the market) resulting in the market nearly locking up.
Which is putting a lot of people in very awkward positions. But things aren’t desperate enough yet to cut through the BS.
No one is sure what they really want to do, what is reasonable, or what will work to produce an outcome they want, and that is causing everything to be a giant tarpit.
This is what people mean when they say ‘life isn’t fair’. Well, a very mellow version of it.
During dot-bomb it seemed as if people weren't even getting nibbles.
Based on anecdata from someone experienced who described the current situation as "weird," it seems as if there are a ton of people being put through a full interview cycle only to be told "Oops, the budget's been pulled" or "We decided to hold off for now."
I agree with you and my friend said something similar.
During dot-bomb we knew. It was nuclear winter for tech. I was very lucky to get a quick offer from the owner I knew at a small company that was still doing OK (and was probably overconfident that was going to continue) when I was laid off.
Today, as you say, who the hell knows? So companies are somewhat randomly zigging and zagging all over the place. Oh, and toss AI into the mix.
> It was the same, but smaller scale back then...The biggest issue right now IMO is general confusion and overwhelm + widespread fraud and lying (in both sides of the market) resulting in the market nearly locking up.
That's the worst part for me. I didn't live through it so feel free to correct me but: It seems everyone at the time all agreed that there was a crash and times were hard for that sector.
Meanwhile, the US really doesn't want to acknowledge a recession in 2024 and keep pretending "unemployment is down! Jobs are up!". Lies, damns lies, and statistics rights?
Times are always bumpy in my domain so I'm not surprised; I knew what I was signing up for. But the gaslighting about the ecconomy and lack of respect in more than a few responses I do get is the worst part of it all. I'd be surprised if the dotcom bubble had any people doing 4-5 stages of interviews and were then just ghosted. Not even a "we decided to go with another candidate".
Yeah those were times that probably compare the most to what we see today.
I agree with you it's definitely not the worse version of this (yet) but regardless, I don't think what GP said should be acceptable as reasonable.
Saying people should just accept that they have to humiliate themselves for hours on end, for free, to get the possibility of slaving away to earn a paycheck is disingenuous.
I say humiliating because even with 15 years of experience I still have to prove to a bunch of random people that I can code to move forward in these processes, many times to hear a no without any reasoning or get a ridiculously low offer.
For folks with Capital, now is a much better time to go found a startup, for instance.
For folks without, now is a great time to get into the trades.
For folks with a retirement nest egg and plans, why not retire?
Look at the market conditions, and make the best bet you can. That's the realist approach, anyway. It's hard not to feel the ego hit from changes like this, but it can easily lead to serious negative personal consequences if someone is not in a position to deal with the fallout.
Not being an adult about situations like this can have very severe and lifelong negative consequences.
> For folks without, now is a great time to get into the trades.
I'll save my rant on this response so I'll keep it short: It's going to be a while, but I have experience in tech and I'm pretty sure by the time I do the 2-3 years of appreticeships for trades the market will at least be not shit. Not necessarily bounce back, but people will actually be hiring.
Trades is a long term "tech is over" doomism retort. And if you really feel like that that's fine. But I think people right now would appreciate some short/mid term solutions more.
Eh, during the dot-com crash days I knew two people personally that left tech and became farmers. One started a big kale farm off highway 1, and was still doing it last I checked. He was a lot happier.
I learned how to skydive and rock climb while I waited to finally land something.
Downturns, techies have often turned to random different things.
Office Space had the dudes end up doing construction for a reason.
If you can afford to wait 2-3 years, then do. I already laid out what I did to get by.
Otherwise, work your network, or try to start your own thing, or any number of different things. Anything I tell you here is going to get noticed and will have a lot of competition. The harder (and often more likely to work) choices are ones you’ll need to find yourself.
Personally, I’ve been this close to starting HVAC and pest control companies, but have something outside the country I’m pursuing instead.
I'm not living comfortablly, but treading water. So don't worry about me. This definitely taught me that my end goal is to be my own boss, but that's at least 5 years out as I prepare.
I have some freelance work right now, and have savings and backup plans if/when things really screw up.
I just think the trades argument is one thrown around so freely without talking about the underlying details to get into trades. It's not as easy as turning up and getting paid minimum wage to start training.
>Downturns, techies have often turned to random different things.
That's the oddest part for me. The last time I just needed money (so, while applying for my first job), I went to a staffing agency and got temp work the next week. This time I visited 6 in my area and they all pretty much admitted that hiring was slow. Nary a follow up either. And even dumbing down my resume I get "overqualified" for retail.
That at least tells me that this current atmosphere isn't limited to tech. So it's strange how much the powers that be want to pretend everything is fine.
Good info thanks! And yeah, sounds like you have a solid head on your shoulders. I’m sure you’ll do fine.
The ‘overqualified’ bit sucks, and that was the classic line during the dot-com days they’d use for tech folks in other fields. I had friends just completely excise tech from their resume to get something landed.
We’ll see where this all goes.
Re: economic news - my take is that the left is being delusional in the ‘there are no problems’ direction, while the right is being delusional in the ‘everything is broken’ direction. Both are doing their damnest to manipulate everyone into believing their flavor of delusion.
Which makes sense, because traditionally incumbents get destroyed if there are economic issues, and both are in existential crisis mode right now.
Folks are starting to have to ‘look down’ though, and the timing is going to be pretty shitty.
Re: trades - yeah, any change is going to require ramp up time, investment of effort and learning, etc.
I’ve got some contractors (plumbers) and welders in the family, and used to be a certified welder - and it’s not like there aren’t tradeoffs there too vs tech. Especially if someone doesn’t have the habit of using PPE properly. That said, some areas are in very high demand - and can’t be outsourced - and pay very well. Especially for someone who can supervise or run a shop, and isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
They’ll do very well as boomers age too, as will nurses and Dr’s.
It sure would be nice to live in a world where programming qualifications meant something, so I didn't have to spend 2.5 of those 5 hours demonstrating that I can do the programming equivalent of tying my shoe laces.
I sure wish it was just tying my shoe. More like "can you tie in a windsor knot?" Then later they say "sorry we wanted someone who can do a Gordian knot".
Oh, that’s a great analogy. Everyone can tie a windsor knot, but nearly the same amount of people will have forgotten how to do it every time they actually need to.
> It sure would be nice to live in a world where programming qualifications meant something, so I didn't have to spend 2.5 of those 5 hours demonstrating that I can do the programming equivalent of tying my shoe laces.
I’ve read so many resumes from candidates who appeared highly qualified and experienced, only to get them in an interview and discover that they can’t even write a for loop in the language they said they were an expert in.
It’s surprising the first time it happens. The 100th time you see it, you embrace the coding interview.
Unfortunate, but it’s how we have arrived at the status quo. A nontrivial number of applicants will charismatically lie through their teeth if they think they can get away with it.
Yes, it would be nice to live in a world where fizzbuzz wasn't necessary to filter for evidence of claimed qualifications (although, if fizzbuzz is taking half of a multi-hour experience, it's not being used correctly).
My point being, "programming qualifications" are just words anyone can put on a page.
There's already a way to validate claimed qualifications - ask to see their certificate and (if you're being particularly diligent) contact the school to verify it.
Nobody in the tech industry does this though. Maybe it's possible to graduate from college with a CS degree without being able to solve fizzbuzz? So you need to check they can program despite their qualifications? IDK though.
> ask to see their certificate and (if you're being particularly diligent) contact the school to verify it.
Certificates are ~useless in tech. I've encountered way too many candidates who have a bunch of certificates but don't actually understand anything they're supposedly certified in. They just memorized enough to pass the exam.
> Maybe it's possible to graduate from college with a CS degree without being able to solve fizzbuzz? So you need to check they can program despite their qualifications? IDK though.
Yes. It's astonishing how many CS grads simply don't understand programming.
sounds like the exams suck then, to be frank. No one wants to train and despite popular sentiment university is not a training center. So why isn't there some collective effort to make good exams and certifricates? Maybe ones with an active component to start (even my AP Comp Sci test required some Object Oriented coding). The big tech sort of settled on Leetcode, but clearly that doesn't required needed knowledge even within those big tech.
Honestly I think the real issue is non-technical recruiting/hr have gotten way too involved in filtering and selecting candidates, so dipshits or liars end up getting interviewed at all. When technical eng management are actively involved in looking at a candidate, I rarely see these terrible ones show up and waste time.
30 mins chat with a recruiter who'll try to suss out whether they can afford you, make sure you're actually interested, and check you've got the right to work in the country.
1 hour hiring manager interview the first person who actually understands those acronyms on your CV
1.5 hour technical/coding interview, to check you know how to program
1 hour behavioural interview to check if you've ever gotten into a fistfight about database schema design
1 hour chat with your boss's boss's boss, who feels he ought to have a conversation with someone before approving a six-figure paycheck.
This lengthy and bureaucratic process is vital to ensuring prospective hires have the patience needed to get through all the other lengthy and bureaucratic processes their job will entail.
I appreciate your comment as its intended defense and understand why a committee approach is a CYA risk-assessment measure (which ultimately turns job placement into a popularity contest as technical ability and team desiredata take a back seat/lower weight to fisticuffs assessments by HR).
However, parent commentator mentioned wanting to _go deep_, and needed 4-5 hours to do it, indicating that the typical committee pattern is out of alignment with what they were advocating.
Further, your time assessments are too long. You can assess fisticuffs in 10 minutes along with a background check. Technical doesn't have to be 1.5 hours. Also, 90 day probation policies exist to address as well.
Jeez. Should they not expect each interview stage to at least whittle down 1 applicant for every 2 that reach that stage? That's 4096 people who got to interview.
Or I guess they decided on a "mixture of experts" and put everyone through to multiple "final round" from different domain experts? All of whom are somehow adding value?
I don't think I've ever said this before, but that sounds like a job for a management consultancy.
I mentioned this in another reply -- while this is true and common, it's not what the grandparent commentator mentioned. They wanted 4-5 hours to "go deep" which is really unreal from an interviewing perspective.
> That's preposterous. You're going to spend hundreds of hours working together. 4-5 hours is extremely reasonable to make sure it's a good mutual fit.
The point is that you know whether it’s a good fit after 1 hour, so anything after that is just posturing.
Not always so. Generally during the first call with a candidate I can filter out the people who clearly aren't going to be a good fit.
But I've had people I was really excited to hire totally fail on the technical interview. And in some cases, turn belligerent when pushed on their solutions.
There are plenty of engineers who are friendly and really good at talking tech, but missing some underlying qualifications.
> 4-5 hours is extremely reasonable to make sure it's a good mutual fit.
If it takes 4-5 hours to ensure a good fit, then that says more about you and/or the company than it does about the applicant.
Let me be charitable and say that some large orgs do the 4-5 hours to benefit the company via CYA and letting everyone get their chance to do interviews, but that’s just sloppy org-side waste.
As another commenter said, what actionable info do you gain in hours 4 and 5 than you already have at 3.5. I would to further and say what do you gain in hours 2 and 3 that you don’t already have at 1.5, and why are you so horribly inefficient in the event that you come up with a non-BS answer?
So much of the hiring process is corporate theater rather than optimal selection processes. I think most of the participants would do well to realize that.
> Of course, it shouldn't be 4-5 hours for all candidates. The last hour spent should have a pretty high conversion rate to offer.
I have been in multiple 'late round' interview stages where I learned I was one of 3 candidates (reasonable) through one of 8 candidates. (Come on. I'm involved in hiring too. If you're not whittling down harder than that, you're making a mess. The university that my partner works at hired a new President with 4 candidates at the final round.)
Tried that. Word got out that people could get paid for interviews. Got a lot of people using us for paid interview practice with no intention of joining.
I'd give it a balance if you ever wanted to try it again
- 2 calls with recruiting and whatever technical screen you want.
- Take home that is paid X amount
- follow up take home review to verify they did it
- offer.
Big issue I have with take homes is that they love to be the first step, not the middle one. you can probably weed out a lot of candidates and pay only the ones you seriously consider with this approach.
Also solves a lot of spec work issues in other industries.
Most likely find some loophole that lets them keep more or less the same process but doesn't quite reach the legal criteria that require it to be paid.
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You don't seriously expect me to argue your position for you, do you? If you want to convince someone that such a law would be beneficial, feel free to stop sealioning and start making actual arguments.
That's preposterous. You're going to spend hundreds of hours working together. 4-5 hours is extremely reasonable to make sure it's a good mutual fit.
Of course, it shouldn't be 4-5 hours for all candidates. The last hour spent should have a pretty high conversion rate to offer.
But 4-5 hours for hired candidates is completely standard.
> A candidate cannot be doing 4-5 hours for an interview process just to hear a no at the end. Successful job hunts need to have many irons in the fire at once and if each one is taking 4-5 hours there's only so much you can realistically take on
This is a toxic attitude. If you "spray and pray" then refuse any actual interview processes then you're never going to get a great job.
Every job I've gotten came from identifying a dozen or so opportunities up front and going deep on them.