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Try putting this in a job ad: "We will accept or reject your application within five business days. If we ask you to come in for an interview, you will have an

Try putting this in a job ad: "We will accept or reject your application within five business days. If we ask you to come in for an interview, you will have an answer at the end of that day." If your hiring process can't perform that well, it's broken.

mattlondon 2y ago
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but expecting an answer the same day is a bit unrealistic IMO. If you have a lot of candidates for example, you may not be able to physically interview them all on the same day (both for your own capacity reasons but also for candidates' own availability reasons for example).
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- Xelbair 2y ago
  They never said anything about same day interview, but to inform candidates - on the first day - that interview has been scheduled.
- exitb 2y ago
  The answer is to have less candidates. Tighten up the pre-interview phase. Ideally, this should be set up in a way that if the interview proves that the advertised capabilities are there, the person should be offered a job. You may think that this does not fit your hiring process. If so, I think you're not really getting what you expect out of it anyway.
Etheryte 2y ago
I can see what you're trying to say, but realistically this timeline is unrealistic for all but entry level positions. You'll be lucky if you can schedule all your candidates in one week, never mind one day so you can give them all an answer the same day.
Clubber 2y ago
>"We will accept or reject your application within five business days. If we ask you to come in for an interview, you will have an answer at the end of that day." From an interviewee perspective, I appreciate what you are saying, but typically the interview process for a position could last weeks, depending on the availability of the candidates. Unfortunately, resume embellishment has increased quite a bit over the last decade or two, so candidates who look good on paper aren't great "in the field." This results in an even longer process because you have to manually (via phone call/interview) weed out the embellishers who you thought would be a good fit but weren't quite up to the ability stated in the resume. Hiring is a slog and it sucks.
hnthrowaway121 2y ago
This seems kinda unworkable. If I make you an offer today, you may need time to review it, you might want to let your other interview processes complete and then negotiate, and ultimately you might choose another offer. In the meantime I need to still be interviewing and finding good candidates - I can’t give them an offer same day if I’m already negotiating with you. But I can’t just stop the interviews after making an offer, because not all offers lead to hiring.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  If you're min-maxing candidates, that's on you. If you're not sure that another candidate will be a better fit or not, set your bar higher. If you can't be excellent to the people you intend to hire because your processes optimize for filling headcount and pipeline efficiency, that says a lot about you and your company culture.
  - hnthrowaway121 2y ago
    So many assumptions here. As a candidate, I’ve had situations where I got two offers at the same time. BOTH offers were acceptable, both good companies, and I’m confident I would have been happy and successful in either place. With all that being equal, I chose the company that was in my timezone and I had prior connections with. The other company could have done nothing except go waaay above market rate on the role for me. Some candidates interview just for practice, some are keeping options open, some were solicited to interview and weren’t really looking and the want to get to the offer before they really even begin making a decision. Likewise, as a hiring manager, I’ve had cases where more than one candidate meets the bar for a single role and I would have been happy to hire either, so “falling back” to the next person isn’t a reduction in standards. There’s so many reasons that you don’t always hire the first candidate you make an offer too.
bulatb 2y ago
If the process being broken doesn't hurt them, why would they fix it? If they don't need to fix it, what makes it broken? I've been critical of hiring in tech for years and years and years, but hiring has only gotten worse (from my point of view) and the companies seem to be fine.
- prepend 2y ago
  It’s broken in the sense that the applicant thinks they are the most important part of the process and should have a process that is very convenient and efficient for them. So not actually broken, but someone idealistic or naive or clueless as to the working of a business may think it’s broken.
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prepend 2y ago
> If your hiring process can't perform that well, it's broken. This seems idyllic and by your measure every company has a broken process. Perhaps they are all broken, but which are useful. As a hiring manager, I’m balancing lots of priorities and hiring is rarely my true #1. When with early startups it’s hard to just logically review all applications within 5 days because rolling reviews are hard.
brudgers 2y ago
If there is a company wanting to avoid hiring high entitlement staff, longer than five business days would smell a feature not bug.
joshstrange 2y ago
Tell me you’ve never managed hiring without telling me you’ve never managed hiring. That is completely unworkable and you will end up with bad candidates or you will have to fire candidates very quickly with a process like that.
EasyMark 2y ago
How can they possibly do that when they often interview multiple people for a few hours? Seems like a selection from a pool of people will take at least a week.

mattlondon 2y ago

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but expecting an answer the same day is a bit unrealistic IMO. If you have a lot of candidates for example, you may not be able to physically interview them all on the same day (both for your own capacity reasons but also for candidates' own availability reasons for example).

deleted 2y ago
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Xelbair 2y ago
They never said anything about same day interview, but to inform candidates - on the first day - that interview has been scheduled.
exitb 2y ago
The answer is to have less candidates. Tighten up the pre-interview phase. Ideally, this should be set up in a way that if the interview proves that the advertised capabilities are there, the person should be offered a job. You may think that this does not fit your hiring process. If so, I think you're not really getting what you expect out of it anyway.

Etheryte 2y ago

I can see what you're trying to say, but realistically this timeline is unrealistic for all but entry level positions. You'll be lucky if you can schedule all your candidates in one week, never mind one day so you can give them all an answer the same day.

Clubber 2y ago

>"We will accept or reject your application within five business days. If we ask you to come in for an interview, you will have an answer at the end of that day." From an interviewee perspective, I appreciate what you are saying, but typically the interview process for a position could last weeks, depending on the availability of the candidates. Unfortunately, resume embellishment has increased quite a bit over the last decade or two, so candidates who look good on paper aren't great "in the field." This results in an even longer process because you have to manually (via phone call/interview) weed out the embellishers who you thought would be a good fit but weren't quite up to the ability stated in the resume. Hiring is a slog and it sucks.

hnthrowaway121 2y ago

This seems kinda unworkable. If I make you an offer today, you may need time to review it, you might want to let your other interview processes complete and then negotiate, and ultimately you might choose another offer. In the meantime I need to still be interviewing and finding good candidates - I can’t give them an offer same day if I’m already negotiating with you. But I can’t just stop the interviews after making an offer, because not all offers lead to hiring.

bastawhiz 2y ago
If you're min-maxing candidates, that's on you. If you're not sure that another candidate will be a better fit or not, set your bar higher. If you can't be excellent to the people you intend to hire because your processes optimize for filling headcount and pipeline efficiency, that says a lot about you and your company culture.
- hnthrowaway121 2y ago
  So many assumptions here. As a candidate, I’ve had situations where I got two offers at the same time. BOTH offers were acceptable, both good companies, and I’m confident I would have been happy and successful in either place. With all that being equal, I chose the company that was in my timezone and I had prior connections with. The other company could have done nothing except go waaay above market rate on the role for me. Some candidates interview just for practice, some are keeping options open, some were solicited to interview and weren’t really looking and the want to get to the offer before they really even begin making a decision. Likewise, as a hiring manager, I’ve had cases where more than one candidate meets the bar for a single role and I would have been happy to hire either, so “falling back” to the next person isn’t a reduction in standards. There’s so many reasons that you don’t always hire the first candidate you make an offer too.

bulatb 2y ago

If the process being broken doesn't hurt them, why would they fix it? If they don't need to fix it, what makes it broken? I've been critical of hiring in tech for years and years and years, but hiring has only gotten worse (from my point of view) and the companies seem to be fine.

prepend 2y ago
It’s broken in the sense that the applicant thinks they are the most important part of the process and should have a process that is very convenient and efficient for them. So not actually broken, but someone idealistic or naive or clueless as to the working of a business may think it’s broken.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

prepend 2y ago

> If your hiring process can't perform that well, it's broken. This seems idyllic and by your measure every company has a broken process. Perhaps they are all broken, but which are useful. As a hiring manager, I’m balancing lots of priorities and hiring is rarely my true #1. When with early startups it’s hard to just logically review all applications within 5 days because rolling reviews are hard.

brudgers 2y ago

If there is a company wanting to avoid hiring high entitlement staff, longer than five business days would smell a feature not bug.

joshstrange 2y ago

Tell me you’ve never managed hiring without telling me you’ve never managed hiring. That is completely unworkable and you will end up with bad candidates or you will have to fire candidates very quickly with a process like that.

EasyMark 2y ago

How can they possibly do that when they often interview multiple people for a few hours? Seems like a selection from a pool of people will take at least a week.