4 ms·
Not at HashiCorp, but I try to respect applicants' time in interviews, and my overall process is less than 3 hours total for interviewing, across 4 people (all
by bbarn 3y ago
Not at HashiCorp, but I try to respect applicants' time in interviews, and my overall process is less than 3 hours total for interviewing, across 4 people (all of which are self-scheduled). That said, when you have hundreds or thousands of applicants, people inevitably fall through the cracks unless you have an internal recruiting team entirely focused on maintaining that experience.
Interviewing sucks for everyone on either side, and efforts to improve candidate experience on my end have often been met with resistance in the company. One thing I've done is try to be as clear as possible at the end of interviews where someone stands. If it doesn't go well, I try to relate what didn't go well and how it applies to the position we're hiring for. If it goes well, my interviewers and I try to send out invites for the candidate to schedule the next interview within 10 minutes of completion, and I tell them that during the call.
So many companies are so risk-averse though, that they act like interviews are a poker game. I've generally had nothing but positives with my approach, and yes, someone may sue us at some point for being blunt and upfront, but my experience so far is people appreciate honest feedback if you deliver it kindly on the spot.
- NetOpWibby 3y agoI prefer bluntness as that's my personal style. I'm glad you're pushing through, even despite resistance. Every person I interviewed with at Hashicorp seemed to enjoy the conversation and the live coding challenge wasn't particularly challenging. Ah well. Rejection is protection and redirection.
- darkwater 3y ago> One thing I've done is try to be as clear as possible at the end of interviews where someone stands. If it doesn't go well, I try to relate what didn't go well and how it applies to the position we're hiring for. I tried doing that last time I hired and I think generally speaking makes a good experience for candidates, BUT when you have those 2-3 individuals that have really high opinions of themselves it can get tiring for the hiring manager (myself), because they won't accept the answer anyway and will keep asking and ultimately give some bad review in Glassdoor etc
- bbarn 3y agoI don't have too much issue because when it's bad, it's usually because they've failed pretty hard on tech screens for questions that have absolute answers. I have on one occasion had to pull up my IDE and run code and prove my questions to an argumentative candidate, but generally people appreciate the explanations when they are wrong and tell me they've learned something.