So I will give you my perspective as a hiring manager and as someone who has interviewed quite a few times in my career. I personally encourage friends, especi

So I will give you my perspective as a hiring manager and as someone who has interviewed quite a few times in my career. I personally encourage friends, especially those that have been at their job for 5+ years to go to interviews for roles they might find interesting, even if they have no plan of leaving their current role. I have been in the industry long enough to see companies cut ties with employees that have been with them for many years. If they are lucky it is not during a mass firing round, but if they are unlucky it is the result of a large firing round or worse yet a recession of some type. Job hunting and interviewing are at the end of the day a type of competition and if you want to be good at it you need to make sure you have practiced. The benefit of this, is if you make a point of going to interviews where you are still curious about the role, you may actually find your an unexpectedly amazing job and you also are more likely to get a much better offer than you ever would when you are actively looking. Now when I am a hiring manager, I have zero issue if someone comes with the intent of it being a practice interview. Why? Well, my job as a hiring manager is to win over the candidate to the role I am hiring for. It starts with the one on one, to the exercise I give and to the overall process being a nice experience. If I do those things correctly and the candidate is good, then it usually doesn’t matter what their original motive was for interviewing, they walk out of the process saying I want to work with that person and I want that job. I think a lot of companies don’t understand that the candidates are choosing you as much as you are choosing them. At least that is the way it should be.