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As yet another person with some experience with hiring, let's not get theory and practice confused. Taking the time to make sure it's a good fit is a worthy go

As yet another person with some experience with hiring, let's not get theory and practice confused. Taking the time to make sure it's a good fit is a worthy goal, but the industry is operating under some kind of delusion that there's a Ballmer Peak (http://xkcd.com/323/ http://xkcd.com/323/) to interviewing people somewhere between the 4th and 5th hour of the onsite interview. Returns start diminishing very quickly after the first five minutes. This is why multiple people earlier in the process are necessary.

tchaffee 8y ago
> Returns start diminishing very quickly after the first five minutes. That's the opposite of a scientific approach. One of the best things I ever learned from an experienced interviewer is the spend the rest of the interview trying to disprove your first impression. Anything else is an exercise in confirmation bias. I'm not saying that I've never ended an interview early when it's obvious there is a bad fit. My time is important and so is other people's time.
- mchannon 8y ago
  A scientific approach is to pose a theory (this candidate would make a good hire) and perform a measurement (whoa, this guy's good) and then perhaps perform the measurement again, without bias, to see if the measurement is consistent and reproducible. What you're suggesting is to spend the next several hours performing additional measurements in the hopes of finding one contrary to your first measurement. That is precisely the opposite of science. It's also how casinos stay in business.
  - tchaffee 8y ago
    > and then perhaps perform the measurement again Not perhaps. Definitely measure again. And that's exactly what I said. Don't trust your initial impression. Measure again. Get as many data points as you can. > What you're suggesting is to spend the next several hours I didn't suggest that and I'm not sure where you got that idea from. My interviews are usually less than an hour and then I hand the candidate over to the next interviewer. If they are a strong no from me, I'll even talk to the next interviewer to explain why and see if they even want to continue with the candidate. They usually don't want to continue with a "strong no" candidate, but sometimes the next interviewer might not share my concerns and they do want to continue with the candidate. Could be the person is a good fit for the other interviewer's team.

tchaffee 8y ago

> Returns start diminishing very quickly after the first five minutes. That's the opposite of a scientific approach. One of the best things I ever learned from an experienced interviewer is the spend the rest of the interview trying to disprove your first impression. Anything else is an exercise in confirmation bias. I'm not saying that I've never ended an interview early when it's obvious there is a bad fit. My time is important and so is other people's time.

mchannon 8y ago
A scientific approach is to pose a theory (this candidate would make a good hire) and perform a measurement (whoa, this guy's good) and then perhaps perform the measurement again, without bias, to see if the measurement is consistent and reproducible. What you're suggesting is to spend the next several hours performing additional measurements in the hopes of finding one contrary to your first measurement. That is precisely the opposite of science. It's also how casinos stay in business.
- tchaffee 8y ago
  > and then perhaps perform the measurement again Not perhaps. Definitely measure again. And that's exactly what I said. Don't trust your initial impression. Measure again. Get as many data points as you can. > What you're suggesting is to spend the next several hours I didn't suggest that and I'm not sure where you got that idea from. My interviews are usually less than an hour and then I hand the candidate over to the next interviewer. If they are a strong no from me, I'll even talk to the next interviewer to explain why and see if they even want to continue with the candidate. They usually don't want to continue with a "strong no" candidate, but sometimes the next interviewer might not share my concerns and they do want to continue with the candidate. Could be the person is a good fit for the other interviewer's team.