4 ms·

Listing multiple possible openings for a limited headcount is common, but not necessarily nefarious. A company may be open to a junior, mid, or senior developer

Listing multiple possible openings for a limited headcount is common, but not necessarily nefarious. A company may be open to a junior, mid, or senior developer but have different expectations, compensation, and requirements for each of those titles. Posting different job listings allows you to cast a wider net without having to dilute the job descriptions too much. > do you invest 10+ hours in a process where a job may not exist in the first place The company isn’t going to spend the time walking someone through the hiring process if they don’t have any intention of hiring someone. 10 hours of interviewing is barely more than a single workday. It wasn’t long ago that interview processes required several rounds of phone screenings, interviews, and maybe testing before you were expected to come on-site for an entire day of in-person interviews - or more! I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a company to expect candidates to invest some time into going through an interview process. The phenomenon of hiring people into high paying jobs after a couple hours of casual interviews was largely an artifact of the recent tech bubble. It’s also part of the reason we’re seeing mass layoffs, IMO, as a lot of these companies hired so fast that they couldn’t reasonable screen everyone. It turned it “hire now, fire later if it doesn’t work out” when cash was plentiful.

throwaway5Am1k 4y ago
This is such a hack response. >not necessarily nefarious It might not be nefarious, but if companies are putting out "feelers", and I'm investing ~30 hours per company, and half the companies I'm applying to are like this, then there's a huge waste of time (mine and theirs). I've started calling out this bullshit: "is there a job here, or is this a position to gauge the market?" >10 hours of interviewing is barely more than a single workday. It's never 10 hours. It's 5+ interviews, plus a take-home test (that can take ~10-20 hours), plus scheduling, prep, etc. It's never 10 hours. Stop validating shitty behaviour. >I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a company to expect candidates to invest some time into going through an interview process. I wouldn't mind, if there was a job on the other end. I can't even list the number of times I've gone through the whole interview process (at big companies!) and have been ghosted at the very end. I wish they'd stop wasting my time. >The phenomenon of hiring people into high paying jobs after a couple hours of casual interviews was largely an artifact of the recent tech bubble. That's how it's been most of history. 10-30 hours of interviews for a single job is a relatively new phenomenon. >It’s also part of the reason we’re seeing mass layoffs This is so false. We're in layoffs because we overhired, not because the interview process is too easy.
- Hermitian909 4y ago
  > I'm investing ~30 hours per company I just want to say that this is a much higher number than necessary. If you've got skills there's just no reason to ever accept more than 90-120 minutes total before the on-site. That's plenty to receive multiple top-of-market offers (or not top-of-market) even in the current market. Any company pushing trying to make an interview take this long on your side is not worth working at.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- zitterbewegung 4y ago
  Playing devil's advocate if you don't want to do the take home test then they just filtered you out and actually is serving their desires on who they want to hire.
  - stanleydrew 4y ago
    Yeah this. There's often a presumption like "I'm a very talented software engineer and everyone should want to hire me and thus companies shouldn't design a hiring process that I personally find annoying." Hiring is a matching process. If a company with an annoying hiring process is a bad match for you, that's fine.
    - pooper 4y ago
      As long as the whole process is transparent and fully disclosed upfront. Remember, the company has more information than the applicant.
      - mariosisters 4y ago
        In what sense does the company have more information? They have more information about the details of the job, sure, but the applicant has more details about themselves. Which is “more valuable” depends on the market I guess. But why do you say one party has strictly more information? (This question is asked in good faith).
b112 4y ago
The company isn’t going to spend the time walking someone through the hiring process if they don’t have any intention of hiring someone. Oh, the logical fallacy of appealing to logic. I have personally seen companies post, interview, with no intention of hiring. No guff! Case 1: * "Just in case" they get a contract to provide thing X, they "want to be ready" to go. Case 2: * Forced to look at internal staff first, knowing full well they would not hire external, but going through the motions for appearance sake Beyond the above two, I have heard: * A government department interviewing, offering, and then the union hears of it, and challenges the new hire * A company interviewing a dozen people, ready to hire, and a stakeholder suddenly thinking "let's contract this out instead" * A company doing 3rd round, time consuming (for them and the candidates) interviews, after an offer, while waiting for the response. And I mean, scheduling and doing, not "already scheduled and doing".

throwaway5Am1k 4y ago

This is such a hack response. >not necessarily nefarious It might not be nefarious, but if companies are putting out "feelers", and I'm investing ~30 hours per company, and half the companies I'm applying to are like this, then there's a huge waste of time (mine and theirs). I've started calling out this bullshit: "is there a job here, or is this a position to gauge the market?" >10 hours of interviewing is barely more than a single workday. It's never 10 hours. It's 5+ interviews, plus a take-home test (that can take ~10-20 hours), plus scheduling, prep, etc. It's never 10 hours. Stop validating shitty behaviour. >I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a company to expect candidates to invest some time into going through an interview process. I wouldn't mind, if there was a job on the other end. I can't even list the number of times I've gone through the whole interview process (at big companies!) and have been ghosted at the very end. I wish they'd stop wasting my time. >The phenomenon of hiring people into high paying jobs after a couple hours of casual interviews was largely an artifact of the recent tech bubble. That's how it's been most of history. 10-30 hours of interviews for a single job is a relatively new phenomenon. >It’s also part of the reason we’re seeing mass layoffs This is so false. We're in layoffs because we overhired, not because the interview process is too easy.

Hermitian909 4y ago
> I'm investing ~30 hours per company I just want to say that this is a much higher number than necessary. If you've got skills there's just no reason to ever accept more than 90-120 minutes total before the on-site. That's plenty to receive multiple top-of-market offers (or not top-of-market) even in the current market. Any company pushing trying to make an interview take this long on your side is not worth working at.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zitterbewegung 4y ago
Playing devil's advocate if you don't want to do the take home test then they just filtered you out and actually is serving their desires on who they want to hire.
- stanleydrew 4y ago
  Yeah this. There's often a presumption like "I'm a very talented software engineer and everyone should want to hire me and thus companies shouldn't design a hiring process that I personally find annoying." Hiring is a matching process. If a company with an annoying hiring process is a bad match for you, that's fine.
  - pooper 4y ago
    As long as the whole process is transparent and fully disclosed upfront. Remember, the company has more information than the applicant.
    - mariosisters 4y ago
      In what sense does the company have more information? They have more information about the details of the job, sure, but the applicant has more details about themselves. Which is “more valuable” depends on the market I guess. But why do you say one party has strictly more information? (This question is asked in good faith).

b112 4y ago

The company isn’t going to spend the time walking someone through the hiring process if they don’t have any intention of hiring someone. Oh, the logical fallacy of appealing to logic. I have personally seen companies post, interview, with no intention of hiring. No guff! Case 1: * "Just in case" they get a contract to provide thing X, they "want to be ready" to go. Case 2: * Forced to look at internal staff first, knowing full well they would not hire external, but going through the motions for appearance sake Beyond the above two, I have heard: * A government department interviewing, offering, and then the union hears of it, and challenges the new hire * A company interviewing a dozen people, ready to hire, and a stakeholder suddenly thinking "let's contract this out instead" * A company doing 3rd round, time consuming (for them and the candidates) interviews, after an offer, while waiting for the response. And I mean, scheduling and doing, not "already scheduled and doing".