5 ms·

Regardless of how it's not uncommon these days, and even acceptable to some people, 5 rounds of interviews is insane. One round, possibly with several people, s

Regardless of how it's not uncommon these days, and even acceptable to some people, 5 rounds of interviews is insane. One round, possibly with several people, should be enough. If it's not enough, that means the wrong people were doing the interviews. 5 rounds is insane, and to me it's the mark of a severely dysfunctional company. Don't even get me started on multiple choice personality tests taken by wannabe psychologists in HR, or the general idiocy that is whiteboard coding.

nojito 4y ago
>5 rounds is insane, and to me it's the mark of a severely dysfunctional company. Not really. I had 7 rounds for my current role. Granted it's not a coding role, but for many roles that touch many aspects of an organization it's important to meet as many people as possible for both the organization and the interviewee.
- ericfrazier 4y ago
  Meeting as many people as possible really isn't important. Get someone in and get them to work. Best test ever invented.
  - dolmen 4y ago
    It depends on the job market. In France, engineers usually have 3 months notice period. So if you hire someone who already has a job, you have to wait for 3+ months for the new hire to leave the previous job. If that's a bad choice and you have to fire, you have to start again for the next candidate.
  - nojito 4y ago
    I have oversight over many different teams. it's important for them to meet me and vice versa.
- garciasn 4y ago
  Hey, I'm glad that was cool for you. More than two rounds means you will live in a world of indecisive teams slogging through unproductive meetings for the rest of your time there. I don't even want to think what seven rounds would be like. If it were me, I would have moved on to the next company where 2 or less rounds are more than sufficient.
  - nojito 4y ago
    Sure if you want to be an IC, but if you ever want to grow out it's in your best interest to meet everyone who you will interact with before deciding to join.
mikkergp 4y ago
What does 5 rounds of interviews mean? With remote, I actually prefer that they break up my “in person” day into x separate days so 1 phone screen plus four interviews doesnt seem that bad to me, but I guess it depends on how they’re presenting that. But that was in response to your question as OP scenario is nuts. It absolutely should be transparent up front and a surprise code screen at the end because they forgot something is 100% dysfunctional.
- Fr3dd1 4y ago
  I would not say 100% dysfunctional. I had a similar case in my company. I was looking for a new team member. Found 2 persons but only had one open position. I referred one of the candidates to another team lead who wanted to talk with that person before an offer was made. In my opinion thats totally fine.
BurningFrog 4y ago
Maybe the interview diligence increases as it gets harder to fire people?
- whoknew1122 4y ago
  The OP didn't define what constitutes an interview round. If they're being interviewed by 5 (now 6) people, we're incredibly close to ridiculous territory. If each round included multiple interviewers, we're firmly in clown show territory. If you need that many interviewers, your interviewers aren't on the same page or properly calibrated. It's a poor candidate experience. And from an interviewer perspective, getting 6+ people in a room is cumbersome and it'll be nigh impossible to come to a consensus. I routinely am an interviewer with Amazon and it's hard to navigate interview debriefs with four interviewers, a neutral third-party (i.e. 'bar raiser') and recruiter in the room. As an interviewer, I wouldn't participate in an interview process that had 6+ interviewers. As a candidate, the company better be doubling my six figure salary before I'll consider subjecting myself to that clown show.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    My interviews at Google in 2006 was 4 rounds with 9 interviewers total. It was indeed a bit of a clown show, and everyone agreed it was bad, but as long as I was there, I don't think it changed much.
jstx1 4y ago
"Round" can mean different things. A phone screen can be a round but if during an on-site you speak to 4 people for 20 minutes each that counts as 4 rounds. If we say half an hour for screening and 2h for onsite, that's 2.5h total for interviewing - seems very reasonable to me (still 5 rounds but it doesn't sound as scary). Of course, I'm coming up with a generous interpretation of things. Some companies do take multiple cycles of interviewing and waiting for feedback after each one which is very tedious. My point is that you need to look a bit deeper than the number of rounds to get an idea of how smooth the interview process is.
deleted 4y ago
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bin_bash 4y ago
What are you talking about? 5 is pretty standard. Virtually every company that I’ve ever interviewed for (out of probably 50 in my life) has needed at least 5.
- fullshark 4y ago
  I think there's confusion on what a round means. 5 people interviewing you is standard, 5 rounds i.e. 5 days of multiple interviews is insane. I think OP meant 5 people interviewing them and used the word rounds because 5 days of interviews is nuts.
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    There's also a huge difference between 5 separate days of on-site interviews/testing (requiring long-distance travel, and a serious time commitment for those currently employed), and 5 Skype calls, ideally scheduled outside of normal working hours.
sage76 4y ago
> One round, possibly with several people, should be enough. The onsite, frequently, has 3-5 interviews each an hour long. On site is after the initial 1-2 rounds of screening. I have not seen a single company hire with less than 4 rounds ever. Mostly, it's 5-8.
- odshoifsdhfs 4y ago
  Just went through interviewing: Sent two emails focused on the area I wanted to work: Company A: - Email the next day to schedule first call - 15 minutes hr talk (mostly if salary, way of work, etc aligned) - 60 minutes vp of engineering (my experience, challenges the company is facing, talk shop) - 30 minutes with cto (they selling me on their company) - Offer after 2 hours of ending the chat with the cto. All this in the span of 4 days (could have been faster but time conflicts) Company B: - Email same day to schedule call - 15 call with recruiter (salary, expectations, etc) - 1:30 call with tech lead + someone else I forgot (talk about my experience, shop, and included a quick simple 20 minute coding challenge) - Offer the next day Span of a week and a half since there were some holidays involved. In 20+ years of being a developer, I only once had more than 3 interviews to get a job (Spotify almost a decade ago). Some are quick one hour chats, one was just having lunch with the CEO and CTO for an hour and chatting, Had 1-2 that were coding challenges and then 30 minutes chat. I would never ever work for a company that required 5-8 interviews. Jesus christ
  - sage76 4y ago
    Not all of us have that privilege.
    - odshoifsdhfs 4y ago
      This was remote (been remote for close to 10 years) so not like I'm in the Bay Area or something (I'm 10000km from it). Yes, I do have a long experience but still, In 20 years I never seen more than 5 (except Spotify as I mentioned) so was just trying to offer an opposing view to yours. edit: At the company I am leaving, currently the process is: - After initial email, first call with CEO to assess match, culture, etc - Interview with me for an hour. We do 2 small coding challenges (your own editor, you chose the language, get information before hand, etc). If 2nd interview goes well, we put an offer, if it doesn't, we give an option of them doing a small take home (4h max, but we hope no-one does more than 2h) if they want to continue with the process. If this goes well, offer, if it doesn't, we may have another call to let them 'explain' their code and solutions. At this point, is either an offer or a no. Yes, technically it can be 4 interviews, but they are mostly to give more 'opportunities' to folks that may not be as good in a type of interview vs another type.
puppycodes 4y ago
It's been my experience that the more folks that meet a candidate from a diverse set of backgrounds, culture, and experience make for the best data in moving forward with a hire (and for the candidate). Most of the interviews i've been through have been at least three meetings or more. It also can depend on the position you are applying for and the level of responsibility you may hold over other employees. All this being said I really advocate for paying folks for their time beyond agreed upon interview structure. If they want a trial period or an additional meeting with preparation I think it's the right thing to do.
dagw 4y ago
One round, possibly with several people, should be enough. 5 rounds seems insane, 1 seems inefficient. Why 'waste' the time of several busy employees to interview a candidate that one person could quickly rule out in one interview.

nojito 4y ago

>5 rounds is insane, and to me it's the mark of a severely dysfunctional company. Not really. I had 7 rounds for my current role. Granted it's not a coding role, but for many roles that touch many aspects of an organization it's important to meet as many people as possible for both the organization and the interviewee.

ericfrazier 4y ago
Meeting as many people as possible really isn't important. Get someone in and get them to work. Best test ever invented.
- dolmen 4y ago
  It depends on the job market. In France, engineers usually have 3 months notice period. So if you hire someone who already has a job, you have to wait for 3+ months for the new hire to leave the previous job. If that's a bad choice and you have to fire, you have to start again for the next candidate.
- nojito 4y ago
  I have oversight over many different teams. it's important for them to meet me and vice versa.
garciasn 4y ago
Hey, I'm glad that was cool for you. More than two rounds means you will live in a world of indecisive teams slogging through unproductive meetings for the rest of your time there. I don't even want to think what seven rounds would be like. If it were me, I would have moved on to the next company where 2 or less rounds are more than sufficient.
- nojito 4y ago
  Sure if you want to be an IC, but if you ever want to grow out it's in your best interest to meet everyone who you will interact with before deciding to join.

mikkergp 4y ago

What does 5 rounds of interviews mean? With remote, I actually prefer that they break up my “in person” day into x separate days so 1 phone screen plus four interviews doesnt seem that bad to me, but I guess it depends on how they’re presenting that. But that was in response to your question as OP scenario is nuts. It absolutely should be transparent up front and a surprise code screen at the end because they forgot something is 100% dysfunctional.

Fr3dd1 4y ago
I would not say 100% dysfunctional. I had a similar case in my company. I was looking for a new team member. Found 2 persons but only had one open position. I referred one of the candidates to another team lead who wanted to talk with that person before an offer was made. In my opinion thats totally fine.

BurningFrog 4y ago

Maybe the interview diligence increases as it gets harder to fire people?

whoknew1122 4y ago
The OP didn't define what constitutes an interview round. If they're being interviewed by 5 (now 6) people, we're incredibly close to ridiculous territory. If each round included multiple interviewers, we're firmly in clown show territory. If you need that many interviewers, your interviewers aren't on the same page or properly calibrated. It's a poor candidate experience. And from an interviewer perspective, getting 6+ people in a room is cumbersome and it'll be nigh impossible to come to a consensus. I routinely am an interviewer with Amazon and it's hard to navigate interview debriefs with four interviewers, a neutral third-party (i.e. 'bar raiser') and recruiter in the room. As an interviewer, I wouldn't participate in an interview process that had 6+ interviewers. As a candidate, the company better be doubling my six figure salary before I'll consider subjecting myself to that clown show.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  My interviews at Google in 2006 was 4 rounds with 9 interviewers total. It was indeed a bit of a clown show, and everyone agreed it was bad, but as long as I was there, I don't think it changed much.

jstx1 4y ago

"Round" can mean different things. A phone screen can be a round but if during an on-site you speak to 4 people for 20 minutes each that counts as 4 rounds. If we say half an hour for screening and 2h for onsite, that's 2.5h total for interviewing - seems very reasonable to me (still 5 rounds but it doesn't sound as scary). Of course, I'm coming up with a generous interpretation of things. Some companies do take multiple cycles of interviewing and waiting for feedback after each one which is very tedious. My point is that you need to look a bit deeper than the number of rounds to get an idea of how smooth the interview process is.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bin_bash 4y ago

What are you talking about? 5 is pretty standard. Virtually every company that I’ve ever interviewed for (out of probably 50 in my life) has needed at least 5.

fullshark 4y ago
I think there's confusion on what a round means. 5 people interviewing you is standard, 5 rounds i.e. 5 days of multiple interviews is insane. I think OP meant 5 people interviewing them and used the word rounds because 5 days of interviews is nuts.
- bluescrn 4y ago
  There's also a huge difference between 5 separate days of on-site interviews/testing (requiring long-distance travel, and a serious time commitment for those currently employed), and 5 Skype calls, ideally scheduled outside of normal working hours.

sage76 4y ago

> One round, possibly with several people, should be enough. The onsite, frequently, has 3-5 interviews each an hour long. On site is after the initial 1-2 rounds of screening. I have not seen a single company hire with less than 4 rounds ever. Mostly, it's 5-8.

odshoifsdhfs 4y ago
Just went through interviewing: Sent two emails focused on the area I wanted to work: Company A: - Email the next day to schedule first call - 15 minutes hr talk (mostly if salary, way of work, etc aligned) - 60 minutes vp of engineering (my experience, challenges the company is facing, talk shop) - 30 minutes with cto (they selling me on their company) - Offer after 2 hours of ending the chat with the cto. All this in the span of 4 days (could have been faster but time conflicts) Company B: - Email same day to schedule call - 15 call with recruiter (salary, expectations, etc) - 1:30 call with tech lead + someone else I forgot (talk about my experience, shop, and included a quick simple 20 minute coding challenge) - Offer the next day Span of a week and a half since there were some holidays involved. In 20+ years of being a developer, I only once had more than 3 interviews to get a job (Spotify almost a decade ago). Some are quick one hour chats, one was just having lunch with the CEO and CTO for an hour and chatting, Had 1-2 that were coding challenges and then 30 minutes chat. I would never ever work for a company that required 5-8 interviews. Jesus christ
- sage76 4y ago
  Not all of us have that privilege.
  - odshoifsdhfs 4y ago
    This was remote (been remote for close to 10 years) so not like I'm in the Bay Area or something (I'm 10000km from it). Yes, I do have a long experience but still, In 20 years I never seen more than 5 (except Spotify as I mentioned) so was just trying to offer an opposing view to yours. edit: At the company I am leaving, currently the process is: - After initial email, first call with CEO to assess match, culture, etc - Interview with me for an hour. We do 2 small coding challenges (your own editor, you chose the language, get information before hand, etc). If 2nd interview goes well, we put an offer, if it doesn't, we give an option of them doing a small take home (4h max, but we hope no-one does more than 2h) if they want to continue with the process. If this goes well, offer, if it doesn't, we may have another call to let them 'explain' their code and solutions. At this point, is either an offer or a no. Yes, technically it can be 4 interviews, but they are mostly to give more 'opportunities' to folks that may not be as good in a type of interview vs another type.

puppycodes 4y ago

It's been my experience that the more folks that meet a candidate from a diverse set of backgrounds, culture, and experience make for the best data in moving forward with a hire (and for the candidate). Most of the interviews i've been through have been at least three meetings or more. It also can depend on the position you are applying for and the level of responsibility you may hold over other employees. All this being said I really advocate for paying folks for their time beyond agreed upon interview structure. If they want a trial period or an additional meeting with preparation I think it's the right thing to do.

dagw 4y ago

One round, possibly with several people, should be enough. 5 rounds seems insane, 1 seems inefficient. Why 'waste' the time of several busy employees to interview a candidate that one person could quickly rule out in one interview.