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The multiple rounds, take home test + online examination, followed by 3 interviews etc nonsense has been a part of tech interviews for the past few years. Perha

by danjac 4y ago

The multiple rounds, take home test + online examination, followed by 3 interviews etc nonsense has been a part of tech interviews for the past few years. Perhaps more people are exposed to it now because they haven't been seriously job hunting until the recent bloodbath of layoffs, but it's certainly not a new thing. I think there's many reasons: 1. There's a lot of risk aversion in corporate culture these days, the cost of a bad hire can be very high and nobody wants to be held responsible. By having multiple rounds - which in turn requires a lot of people involved - responsibility is diluted so if there's a bad hire you can blame the process rather than one manager. 2. It's an endurance test. Someone who can power their way through round after round of interviews, home projects, online tests and so on shows good "work ethic" or at least a genuine interest in the job. 3. Cargo-culting FAANG. If Google or Meta do this, then we should too (even though we're a tiny startup). It's a bit like picking microservices or Kubernetes: there's good use cases, but for a lot of projects they are overkill. 4. Concern about discrimination: companies are scared of showing bias (whether against or for certain ethnic groups, genders etc) and a formal process should in theory be meritocratic than the old days of "let's just have a quick chat and hire based on gut feeling". There's good reasons here, but it's probably gone to extremes, particularly for positions at smaller companies with corresponding smaller salaries and benefits.

bilekas 4y ago
These are actually all great reasons. Speaking from experience a bad hire can be extremely detrimental. While all valid points i do dislike how often those tests and interviews focus a lot on areas that you will not be doing in the role. This is where I see the biggest frustrations. When we hire we do try to tailer the interview process in a related to the work involved as possible. It adds confidence that we have hired the right candidate for the job.
- gymbeaux 4y ago
  But usually there’s a 90 or 120-day probation period for new hires. How about letting them “interview” for the job, on the job. Screen them obviously, but after that… I mean the best way to see if they’re a good hire is to actually hire them. There’s no interview question or interview process that can perfectly duplicate that.
  - koreth1 4y ago
    Probation periods seem to be a thing in some countries but they’re not universal. I have never had a job with one. Also, even with a probation period, a bad hire can damage morale and waste a lot of the team’s time.
    - lostphilosopher 4y ago
      In the US I suspect "contract to hire" fills a similar function. I see that all the time but I don't think I've ever seen an official "probation period" on an employee role. (Could also be regional or industry dependent.)
      - kelipso 4y ago
        The idea behind probation period is that it becomes much more difficult to fire someone after that due to labor laws. US doesn't have such laws, most states are at-will employment so you don't have to give any reason to fire someone.
        gymbeaux 4y ago
        Probation periods are seen in the US, despite "right to work" labor laws because A) the company is large and has employees in California, or another state where labor laws favor the employees a bit more or B) the company wants to minimize the chance of getting slapped with a wrongful termination lawsuit. Regardless of labor laws, it's universally illegal to discriminate/fire someone for their race, religion, gender, marital status, age, et. al. and I think companies, especially when they want to fire someone who might believe they are being discriminated against, want an airtight defense (usually a PIP). Even though the employer will probably win the legal case, they still would rather not have a lawsuit at all.
      - gymbeaux 4y ago
        I'm in the US and the last few jobs I've had all came with a probation period. All were salaried positions.
  - 4y ago
brightball 4y ago
Part of this is due to fraud from the last couple of years. I know multiple companies who dealt with remote employee fraud over the last 2 years. Companies are defensive now.
- grugagag 4y ago
  What kind of fraud in remote work?
  - IceyEC 4y ago
    I interview and then you show up to do the job, possibly
    - coredog64 4y ago
      I saw a lot of that while doing phone screens: People who were getting coached via earbuds, people who were frantically searching Google for answers, etc. The 100% virtual hiring process means that it is much easier to sub out your interview as there’s no point in the process where you show up for an on-site, present your government issued ID, and then interview.
      - dilyevsky 4y ago
        I don’t remember ever showing my id in onsites. In some of those big places one could def skate by having someone else interview and then show up on first day and nobody would notice. Ime id doesn’t come up until hr wants work authorization on your first day
        pnutjam 4y ago
        Yeah, I worked for a large employer who complained about this happening when people were onsite all day. Different people interviewed and showed up for work. This is nothing new, it's just a media blitz by status quo lovers.
  - 4y ago
Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
Point 3 is pretty important. I have seen so many small companies, that did not need really the very best engineer on the world to do their C# API suddenly ask Google questions straight from the "Cracking the coding interview". Asking a 21 year old about a recursive O(nlogn) algorithm solution or how many ping pong balls fit on an airbus because you heard Google asks it when all you need is someone who can write a good integration test suite, use springboot, and create documentation for the clients to make the API useable and scalable is such a weird way to go about it. And it seems entirely based on "if FAANG does it, it must be right".
- shagmin 4y ago
  The hardest interview in my life was a long time ago when I tried getting a part time/side job updating content on a mostly static PHP website (no database or backend). Thought this would be a nice way to get some extra beer money or something. The interviewer was the person who was currently maintaining the site and had just graduated from Yale and wanted to move on. Not a single question about PHP, javascript, HTML, instead question after question about implementing various algorithms in pseudo code. I figure he was asking me questions from a textbook or something. I didn't get the job. Been a while since I've been in an interview but everything has been cake since.
supportlocal4h 4y ago
I'll point out just one side effect. A highly qualified candidate interviews with three companies. One does two interviews in a week and extends an offer. The others take two weeks to get back to the candidate, then do two interviews and a take home, then two more rounds of interview. Meanwhile, the first offer is on the clock. The only reason not to accept the first offer is because one of the other companies is that much better to work for. So the companies with the most onerous processes lose out on the best candidates or have to offer double the compensation to keep them in the maze. The reality is that most companies can do fine with average employees. Bad hiring practices that lower the talent or increase costs don't kill them.
- danjac 4y ago
  That's just it. They are willing to lose the occasional great hire in order to avoid the risk of a bad hire.
  - malfist 4y ago
    Sure, that's the reasoning, but I've yet to see any evidence that it actually does reduce bad hires
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > I've yet to see any evidence that it actually does reduce bad hires And the OP's own point "responsibility is diluted so if there's a bad hire you can blame the process rather than one manager" would be needless if the process actually did avoid bad hires.
      - paleotrope 4y ago
        A good general rule is that most things can be explained by people trying to avoid responsibility for making a mistake.
    - danjac 4y ago
      It's not a reasoning I would agree with either. The core of my original comment is "avoid responsibility": people don't want to be held responsible for a bad hire (or a discrimination lawsuit), so adding multiple rounds to the process shares that responsibility among as many other people as possible. By cargo-culting from FAANG you can also use the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" argument and this dilutes responsibility further. So does that actually reduce bad hires (or increase good to excellent hires)? Probably not, but that's not really the purpose of all this theatre. The purpose is that if there's a bad hire, do I, personally, get the blame?
lapcat 4y ago
> By having multiple rounds - which in turn requires a lot of people involved - responsibility is diluted so if there's a bad hire you can blame the process rather than one manager. That's an interesting take I haven't heard emphasized before, but it seems plausible.
jjav 4y ago
> It's an endurance test. From the company point of view that might make sense if they don't think about the consequences. But for the person, since we all know that usually any such projects are silently rejected without explanation it's totally not worth the effort. Having been on the inside watching some people review take-home projects and arbitrarily reject them for the most random reasons ("I don't like the way he writes comments, what a loser") I also have zero faith on them being evaluated fairly. The only way I'd ever consider doing any kind of endurance project for an interview is if the company guarantees results if I put in the effort. Could be something like: Write code to interact with and/or provide these well-documented APIs, it'll be run against a test suite where I can see the results and it needs to meet xyz performance criteria and if you can deliver it in X hours or less we guarantee a competitive offer. Only then would it be worth the work. But to spend a lot of time just to be ghosted? Big no to that.
- t0mbstone 4y ago
  The answer is simple: Companies should be hiring people on a contract basis to perform REAL WORK. This work should ideally be the very type of work they would be doing if they were hired full time. If they do a good job, then great! Hire them on full time. If they don't do a good job, but they meet the acceptance criteria of the contract, then they get paid, but don't get hired full time. If they don't complete the contract requirements, then they don't get paid at all. This arrangement is completely fair to both parties, and doesn't waste anyone's time. It's a win/win scenario. Unfortunately, most companies are too lazy to set up a hiring process that looks like this.

by danjac 4y ago

bilekas 4y ago

These are actually all great reasons. Speaking from experience a bad hire can be extremely detrimental. While all valid points i do dislike how often those tests and interviews focus a lot on areas that you will not be doing in the role. This is where I see the biggest frustrations. When we hire we do try to tailer the interview process in a related to the work involved as possible. It adds confidence that we have hired the right candidate for the job.

gymbeaux 4y ago
But usually there’s a 90 or 120-day probation period for new hires. How about letting them “interview” for the job, on the job. Screen them obviously, but after that… I mean the best way to see if they’re a good hire is to actually hire them. There’s no interview question or interview process that can perfectly duplicate that.
- koreth1 4y ago
  Probation periods seem to be a thing in some countries but they’re not universal. I have never had a job with one. Also, even with a probation period, a bad hire can damage morale and waste a lot of the team’s time.
  - lostphilosopher 4y ago
    In the US I suspect "contract to hire" fills a similar function. I see that all the time but I don't think I've ever seen an official "probation period" on an employee role. (Could also be regional or industry dependent.)
    - kelipso 4y ago
      The idea behind probation period is that it becomes much more difficult to fire someone after that due to labor laws. US doesn't have such laws, most states are at-will employment so you don't have to give any reason to fire someone.
      - gymbeaux 4y ago
        Probation periods are seen in the US, despite "right to work" labor laws because A) the company is large and has employees in California, or another state where labor laws favor the employees a bit more or B) the company wants to minimize the chance of getting slapped with a wrongful termination lawsuit. Regardless of labor laws, it's universally illegal to discriminate/fire someone for their race, religion, gender, marital status, age, et. al. and I think companies, especially when they want to fire someone who might believe they are being discriminated against, want an airtight defense (usually a PIP). Even though the employer will probably win the legal case, they still would rather not have a lawsuit at all.
    - gymbeaux 4y ago
      I'm in the US and the last few jobs I've had all came with a probation period. All were salaried positions.
- 4y ago

brightball 4y ago

Part of this is due to fraud from the last couple of years. I know multiple companies who dealt with remote employee fraud over the last 2 years. Companies are defensive now.

grugagag 4y ago
What kind of fraud in remote work?
- IceyEC 4y ago
  I interview and then you show up to do the job, possibly
  - coredog64 4y ago
    I saw a lot of that while doing phone screens: People who were getting coached via earbuds, people who were frantically searching Google for answers, etc. The 100% virtual hiring process means that it is much easier to sub out your interview as there’s no point in the process where you show up for an on-site, present your government issued ID, and then interview.
    - dilyevsky 4y ago
      I don’t remember ever showing my id in onsites. In some of those big places one could def skate by having someone else interview and then show up on first day and nobody would notice. Ime id doesn’t come up until hr wants work authorization on your first day
      - pnutjam 4y ago
        Yeah, I worked for a large employer who complained about this happening when people were onsite all day. Different people interviewed and showed up for work. This is nothing new, it's just a media blitz by status quo lovers.
- 4y ago

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago

Point 3 is pretty important. I have seen so many small companies, that did not need really the very best engineer on the world to do their C# API suddenly ask Google questions straight from the "Cracking the coding interview". Asking a 21 year old about a recursive O(nlogn) algorithm solution or how many ping pong balls fit on an airbus because you heard Google asks it when all you need is someone who can write a good integration test suite, use springboot, and create documentation for the clients to make the API useable and scalable is such a weird way to go about it. And it seems entirely based on "if FAANG does it, it must be right".

shagmin 4y ago
The hardest interview in my life was a long time ago when I tried getting a part time/side job updating content on a mostly static PHP website (no database or backend). Thought this would be a nice way to get some extra beer money or something. The interviewer was the person who was currently maintaining the site and had just graduated from Yale and wanted to move on. Not a single question about PHP, javascript, HTML, instead question after question about implementing various algorithms in pseudo code. I figure he was asking me questions from a textbook or something. I didn't get the job. Been a while since I've been in an interview but everything has been cake since.

supportlocal4h 4y ago

I'll point out just one side effect. A highly qualified candidate interviews with three companies. One does two interviews in a week and extends an offer. The others take two weeks to get back to the candidate, then do two interviews and a take home, then two more rounds of interview. Meanwhile, the first offer is on the clock. The only reason not to accept the first offer is because one of the other companies is that much better to work for. So the companies with the most onerous processes lose out on the best candidates or have to offer double the compensation to keep them in the maze. The reality is that most companies can do fine with average employees. Bad hiring practices that lower the talent or increase costs don't kill them.

danjac 4y ago
That's just it. They are willing to lose the occasional great hire in order to avoid the risk of a bad hire.
- malfist 4y ago
  Sure, that's the reasoning, but I've yet to see any evidence that it actually does reduce bad hires
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > I've yet to see any evidence that it actually does reduce bad hires And the OP's own point "responsibility is diluted so if there's a bad hire you can blame the process rather than one manager" would be needless if the process actually did avoid bad hires.
    - paleotrope 4y ago
      A good general rule is that most things can be explained by people trying to avoid responsibility for making a mistake.
  - danjac 4y ago
    It's not a reasoning I would agree with either. The core of my original comment is "avoid responsibility": people don't want to be held responsible for a bad hire (or a discrimination lawsuit), so adding multiple rounds to the process shares that responsibility among as many other people as possible. By cargo-culting from FAANG you can also use the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" argument and this dilutes responsibility further. So does that actually reduce bad hires (or increase good to excellent hires)? Probably not, but that's not really the purpose of all this theatre. The purpose is that if there's a bad hire, do I, personally, get the blame?

lapcat 4y ago

> By having multiple rounds - which in turn requires a lot of people involved - responsibility is diluted so if there's a bad hire you can blame the process rather than one manager. That's an interesting take I haven't heard emphasized before, but it seems plausible.

jjav 4y ago

> It's an endurance test. From the company point of view that might make sense if they don't think about the consequences. But for the person, since we all know that usually any such projects are silently rejected without explanation it's totally not worth the effort. Having been on the inside watching some people review take-home projects and arbitrarily reject them for the most random reasons ("I don't like the way he writes comments, what a loser") I also have zero faith on them being evaluated fairly. The only way I'd ever consider doing any kind of endurance project for an interview is if the company guarantees results if I put in the effort. Could be something like: Write code to interact with and/or provide these well-documented APIs, it'll be run against a test suite where I can see the results and it needs to meet xyz performance criteria and if you can deliver it in X hours or less we guarantee a competitive offer. Only then would it be worth the work. But to spend a lot of time just to be ghosted? Big no to that.

t0mbstone 4y ago
The answer is simple: Companies should be hiring people on a contract basis to perform REAL WORK. This work should ideally be the very type of work they would be doing if they were hired full time. If they do a good job, then great! Hire them on full time. If they don't do a good job, but they meet the acceptance criteria of the contract, then they get paid, but don't get hired full time. If they don't complete the contract requirements, then they don't get paid at all. This arrangement is completely fair to both parties, and doesn't waste anyone's time. It's a win/win scenario. Unfortunately, most companies are too lazy to set up a hiring process that looks like this.