6 ms·

Should Employers Pay to Interview You?

48 points by alanfalcon 13y ago

adrianhoward 13y ago
I've had a policy of paying folk I interview for a while. Not for any initial phone interview or brief (hour to half day interview) - but for any "work" style exercises we do (either design for UX folk, or coding for dev folk). Usually 50% of "normal" day rate. Not everybody I've dealt with likes the idea (on the employer side I mean - had very few interviewees dislike it ;-) - but I've found it effective. For few reasons: * If you actually look at the total cost of hiring, adding in paying folk isn't actually that much more money. * Interviewees fucking love you for it. There's a real "You're taking me seriously, so I'm taking you seriously" moment. * It shouldn't really make a difference to the employer side (because most of the costs are for your time - not the interviewees) but it gives you some real clarity on whether it's worth interviewing some candidates. It encourages you to make smarter decisions earlier in the interviewing process. * You seem to get less hassle from folk you reject. I assume because the payment makes people see the process as taking them seriously.
- mtowle 13y ago
  Wow, that's a great idea. You're absolutely right, compared to the total cost of hiring, it's practically nothing. Throw in the fact that you're in about 100x as good a position to evaluate talent, and it seems like a no-brainer. Like scouting football players by watching them play football vs. measuring their broad jump.
- idoh 13y ago
  I like this idea! I think that it makes sense for prospects that are either already contractors, or perhaps the unemployed. If you already have a job, then I can see some challenges though - I'd imagine a candidate for Google would not be able to accept payment for doing work while being employed by Facebook, for example. Did you ever run into an issue like that?
  - gingerlime 13y ago
    Good point. But I suppose you can maybe get round this by, say, giving candidates amazon vouchers or something? (I don't know what the employment contracts stipulate on either companies though with regards to gifts and such)
    - rubinelli 13y ago
      It is common for large companies to have policies stating employees have to report a gift above a certain value, but that's mostly to prevent outright bribery (which still happens anyway, in most procurement departments). Paying cash can create some tax complications that vouchers avoid too.
  - eru 13y ago
    I can imagine you can just offer to donate to a charity of their choice instead?
  - adrianhoward 13y ago
    That particular objection has never come up. If it did I'd do as others have suggested and offer to donate to charity, amazon vouchers, or similar. The issue that has come up is, as @rubinelli identified, tax hassles. In those instances we've gone the charity route. (It's interesting actually. Now that I think of it the payment isn't really the issue. It's that we are visibly demonstrating how we value the interviewee's time.)
- groundCode 13y ago
  This is an excellent attitude - and especially in software development where there is often a not insignificant amount of coding done by the candidates. Several interviews I've been to have involved a full day of pair coding with various members of the dev team on current production code - it seems fair to at least offer something for the work.
- sitharus 13y ago
  I also think this is a good idea. If I was asked to spend an afternoon solving problems that aren't theoretical 'how do you sort an array of a billion integers' type then I wouldn't want to do it for free. If it gains traction it might reduce the crazy interview only questions from circulation.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Yeah, this reminds me of the "interview" I did for SpiderOak. I had built and launched various products by myself by then, so my experience in Web apps was very prominent in my resume. They asked me to spend a few hours implementing a commenting FAQ system or something like that, which was pretty much just some CRUD views with CAPTCHAs etc. I said I didn't really feel comfortable spending hours of work on something for an interview, but I did it anyway, because it sounded like an interesting company to work for. They took my submission, said something about "we'll see if we can arrange some compensation" and then never emailed me again. A few weeks later, their FAQ section was updated with pages and a commenting system. Worst interview ever.
  - peacemaker 13y ago
    This is exactly my worry when asked to do some 'real' work for a company I'm interviewing with. There are many unscrupulous companies out there so you have to be careful. A better way might be to get the candidate to do a task that isn't on company todo list, but instead is something the candidate is interested in. That might even open up a few conversations about the candidate which may help the decision process. Just a thought anyway, no idea if that could actually work. I do know we need something other than the series of pointless brain-teaser style questions companies are asking these days.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      The best interviews I've done were ones where we just talked about what technologies we like, where we've used them, etc. You just know you're talking someone who enjoys development as much as you do, and you can share your experiences with stacks you haven't used, etc. My favorite was one (I think I was the one doing the interview) where we talked about CouchDB, its pitfalls, its strengths, etc (the other guy had used it somewhere), and it was just honest chat between two people with the same interests. We ended up hiring the guy and he was great. Much better than a "spend three hours implementing something we need and send it to us, and we'll never talk to you again" faux-interview.
      - adrianhoward 13y ago
- danielbarla 13y ago
  How do you handle the tax implications (specifically in the case of non-hires)?
  - chiph 13y ago
    You essentially brought them on as a 1099 contractor for the day, so in January your accountant sends them a 1099-MISC and they report it as earnings.
rweir 13y ago
no.
- rasur 13y ago
  Short and to the point, but for the benefit of those of us that cannot mind-read, care to explain why "no"?
_lex 13y ago
Employers already do - but they pay places like linkedin, craigslist, monster.com and every other job board out there instead of paying you. Listing a job can easily cost $400.
- adrianhoward 13y ago
  ... and job listing is pretty much the cheapest part of the process. The really expensive parts of filling job roles are: * the agency slice of the pie if an agent is involved (often at least a five digit number) * the people costs on the employer side of recruiting (writing job specs, managing adverts, weeding resumes, phone interviews, actual interviews, etc.) can easily take weeks worth of time from multiple people. Recruiting is expensive, and hard ;-/
meric 13y ago
Its called probation.
- gingerlime 13y ago
  I believe that in some countries, probation is a much more complicated deal. I think it might be the same as an employment, just with an extra section about early termination. In this example, the post is about charging on a freelance-basis for the interview alone, as a clearly-defined piece of work being delivered. The comment above about paying candidates to interview goes along the same lines too. Both should be simpler to set-up and less legally entangling than a probation.
- sitharus 13y ago
  Not really. If I'm in a probation period then I'm employed by that company. If it doesn't work out then I'm back on the job market. What this is talking about is compensating you for doing a trial as part of the pre-employment process, in addition to the standard interviews. If I was looking to change jobs I'd still be employed if it didn't go so well.
ziko 13y ago
It sounds like it's coming from people who waste their days at job interviews, not getting the desired job and then propose a thing like this. I understand it must be tough but in my opinion, you shouldn't be paid for turning up at an interview. "If you're good enough, you will get a chance."
- cs02rm0 13y ago
  Yeah... you can almost imagine people making a career out of being interviewed if you take this to the nth degree, which undoubtedly, someone would.
  - finnw 13y ago
    But if you are a competent recruiter, you should be able to spot these people quickly.
    - ziko 13y ago
      Needless work for personnel department. What you're suggesting is doing two things (paying an interviewee + check, often though to make sure, if he's in it for the sole purpose of interviewee fee) instead of none which has been working just fine for decades.
      - jwoah12 13y ago
        I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but "it's been working just fine for decades" is not a good reason to not change something. In fact, most things would never improve or change at all since most people are terrible at determining what "works just fine" is until they see "works really well".
jschuur 13y ago
Better question: Are people who genuinely ask this (as opposed to for the topic of a blog post) the kind of person you'd want to hire?
- finnw 13y ago
  No, but it does not matter. Either you have already decided not to hire them, or they have decided not to wait any longer for you to make your decision.
alexhawdon 13y ago
I would argue 'No'. The candidate wants a job. The employer wants an employee. They are BOTH investing their resources (time, money, opportunity cost) to achieve their respective goals. The employee doesn't want to attend interviews any more than an employer doesn't actually want to hold them; they'd both much rather skip to the end, but the whole process is a necessary evil for both parties. I certainly don't agree with the rudeness, mind.
rschmitty 13y ago
Should or shouldn't, is there any legal ground for billing? Someone who hasnt been responding to you is suddenly going to pay you? I would foresee them simply rejecting your "bill" and don't see how it could hold up in court. They are spending their time too afterall, whats to stop them from billing you?
- cobrophy 13y ago
  Well without a contract (even a verbal agreement) in place for them to refer to in court, as a case it seems pretty thin. It also seems like the lawyers will make more out of this than any of the parties. But there's no reason why when asked to do the work, you couldn't say I'll do it for a price and see how the employer responds.
octo_t 13y ago
As a student, having to fork out £40/£50 for train tickets was a pretty tough decision - having to weigh whether or not I thought I might get the job vs having the cost of train tickets. Most companies would reimburse travel either way, which was fine but some companies wouldn't.
MarkMc 13y ago
Relevant Dilbert cartoon: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-05-06/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-05-06/
michaelochurch 13y ago
I'd say no. I'm pretty serious about employee rights, but this is not a consideration that I feel employees are entitled to, at least not as originally framed. Who sets the market rate? Anyway, legally you have no standing to charge for that when the going protocol is that interviews are free. I'm not sure that I want to step away from that protocol, either. Employers have as much ground to charge sloppy candidates for wasting their time. Employers should pay all costs (e.g. travel) and they should volunteer so it isn't socially awkward-- no one should have to ask to be reimbursed for train tickets-- but they shouldn't be expected pay for the employee's time. Search costs are shared; that's just social protocol. Besides, the absolute last thing I want as a job candidate is to compete with spam candidates taking an outside shot at getting in and collecting a day's pay. Yes, that would seriously happen if companies started paying unsuccessful interview candidates. However, companies should be upfront about how long the process will take. Unexpected follow-ons are irritating and I usually wouldn't start running a clock, but I feel that I should have that right. What you can't do (legally, you have no standing) is retroactively decide that the clock was running because the company didn't have its house in order and missed deadlines. Also, if you try to "collect" and threaten reputation damage, there's a thin line between that and extortion. You probably won't go to jail in that particular case, but your leverage is gone. What I do support charging for (in event of not getting the job, which hasn't happened yet) are reference checks. I haven't had to give references in a while, but here's the best way that I can come up with to do that. Send an email with the contact information of your references in it. Then, generate a PDF with the first page having phone numbers and emails of your references (the exact same information, so it looks redundant; you'd prefer that the PDF not be read). Have the second page be either blank or garbage. On the third page, put that you consider any contact regarding you between employer and any reference to be extension of a job offer and that, if they contact a reference (provided or "back channel") and pass on you, they are liable in amount of 3 months' salary, Then make sure one of your references is someone who'll tell you if they get a call from that company. If they pass on you and you can't prove that they contacted references, you don't collect. However, if they call your references (and you can prove it) and still decline you, you usually will have legal standing to collect; since you allowed them to take a risk with your professional reputation, you have a right to appropriate consideration.
- 13y ago
madaxe 13y ago
No. I don't expect my prospective clients to pay me for the honour of me coming to sell our services, so why should there be an expectation for me to pay a prospective employee? Were this the case, there'd be an entire profession called "interviewee", whereby you go from interview to interview to interview wasting all and sundry's time while being paid. Poor idea.
shard 13y ago
In Korea at least, it's not an unknown practice for companies to pay interviewees for their time, although not all companies do it. Being American, I was taken by surprise the first time it happened, but it was a pleasant surprise in that the company showed that they valued my time. I'd say its not mandatory, but it's a classy thing to do.
LanceH 13y ago
One category which I definitely think should be billable is the interview when there is no actual job or no job as advertised. There were a bunch of stories going around about some insurance company calling people in to interview for database jobs and then trying to sell them on insurance cold-call sales positions. Another one is those interviews at large companies where they must conduct x number of interviews, but they already have the person they want and they're just going through the motions. This would be difficult to prove, but I've heard managers directly say they are doing this.
- theorique 13y ago
  In the case of a company that is willing to cross the business ethics line and be blatantly misleading or run a bait-and-switch, I am extremely skeptical that they would respond to any request for billing based on lost/wasted candidate time. You would probably need to take them to small-claims court.
goatforce5 13y ago
Red Gate in Cambridge UK was offering a free iPad to anyone who came in for an interview (after being pre-screened, of course): http://smyword.com/2010/04/red-gates-free-ipad-and-an-offer-you-probably-missed/ http://smyword.com/2010/04/red-gates-free-ipad-and-an-offer-...

48 points by alanfalcon 13y ago

I've had a policy of paying folk I interview for a while. Not for any initial phone interview or brief (hour to half day interview) - but for any "work" style exercises we do (either design for UX folk, or coding for dev folk). Usually 50% of "normal" day rate. Not everybody I've dealt with likes the idea (on the employer side I mean - had very few interviewees dislike it ;-) - but I've found it effective. For few reasons: * If you actually look at the total cost of hiring, adding in paying folk isn't actually that much more money. * Interviewees fucking love you for it. There's a real "You're taking me seriously, so I'm taking you seriously" moment. * It shouldn't really make a difference to the employer side (because most of the costs are for your time - not the interviewees) but it gives you some real clarity on whether it's worth interviewing some candidates. It encourages you to make smarter decisions earlier in the interviewing process. * You seem to get less hassle from folk you reject. I assume because the payment makes people see the process as taking them seriously.

mtowle 13y ago
Wow, that's a great idea. You're absolutely right, compared to the total cost of hiring, it's practically nothing. Throw in the fact that you're in about 100x as good a position to evaluate talent, and it seems like a no-brainer. Like scouting football players by watching them play football vs. measuring their broad jump.
idoh 13y ago
I like this idea! I think that it makes sense for prospects that are either already contractors, or perhaps the unemployed. If you already have a job, then I can see some challenges though - I'd imagine a candidate for Google would not be able to accept payment for doing work while being employed by Facebook, for example. Did you ever run into an issue like that?
- gingerlime 13y ago
  Good point. But I suppose you can maybe get round this by, say, giving candidates amazon vouchers or something? (I don't know what the employment contracts stipulate on either companies though with regards to gifts and such)
  - rubinelli 13y ago
    It is common for large companies to have policies stating employees have to report a gift above a certain value, but that's mostly to prevent outright bribery (which still happens anyway, in most procurement departments). Paying cash can create some tax complications that vouchers avoid too.
- eru 13y ago
  I can imagine you can just offer to donate to a charity of their choice instead?
- adrianhoward 13y ago
  That particular objection has never come up. If it did I'd do as others have suggested and offer to donate to charity, amazon vouchers, or similar. The issue that has come up is, as @rubinelli identified, tax hassles. In those instances we've gone the charity route. (It's interesting actually. Now that I think of it the payment isn't really the issue. It's that we are visibly demonstrating how we value the interviewee's time.)
groundCode 13y ago
This is an excellent attitude - and especially in software development where there is often a not insignificant amount of coding done by the candidates. Several interviews I've been to have involved a full day of pair coding with various members of the dev team on current production code - it seems fair to at least offer something for the work.
sitharus 13y ago
I also think this is a good idea. If I was asked to spend an afternoon solving problems that aren't theoretical 'how do you sort an array of a billion integers' type then I wouldn't want to do it for free. If it gains traction it might reduce the crazy interview only questions from circulation.
StavrosK 13y ago
Yeah, this reminds me of the "interview" I did for SpiderOak. I had built and launched various products by myself by then, so my experience in Web apps was very prominent in my resume. They asked me to spend a few hours implementing a commenting FAQ system or something like that, which was pretty much just some CRUD views with CAPTCHAs etc. I said I didn't really feel comfortable spending hours of work on something for an interview, but I did it anyway, because it sounded like an interesting company to work for. They took my submission, said something about "we'll see if we can arrange some compensation" and then never emailed me again. A few weeks later, their FAQ section was updated with pages and a commenting system. Worst interview ever.
- peacemaker 13y ago
  This is exactly my worry when asked to do some 'real' work for a company I'm interviewing with. There are many unscrupulous companies out there so you have to be careful. A better way might be to get the candidate to do a task that isn't on company todo list, but instead is something the candidate is interested in. That might even open up a few conversations about the candidate which may help the decision process. Just a thought anyway, no idea if that could actually work. I do know we need something other than the series of pointless brain-teaser style questions companies are asking these days.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    The best interviews I've done were ones where we just talked about what technologies we like, where we've used them, etc. You just know you're talking someone who enjoys development as much as you do, and you can share your experiences with stacks you haven't used, etc. My favorite was one (I think I was the one doing the interview) where we talked about CouchDB, its pitfalls, its strengths, etc (the other guy had used it somewhere), and it was just honest chat between two people with the same interests. We ended up hiring the guy and he was great. Much better than a "spend three hours implementing something we need and send it to us, and we'll never talk to you again" faux-interview.
    - adrianhoward 13y ago
danielbarla 13y ago
How do you handle the tax implications (specifically in the case of non-hires)?
- chiph 13y ago
  You essentially brought them on as a 1099 contractor for the day, so in January your accountant sends them a 1099-MISC and they report it as earnings.

rweir 13y ago

no.

rasur 13y ago
Short and to the point, but for the benefit of those of us that cannot mind-read, care to explain why "no"?

_lex 13y ago

Employers already do - but they pay places like linkedin, craigslist, monster.com and every other job board out there instead of paying you. Listing a job can easily cost $400.

adrianhoward 13y ago
... and job listing is pretty much the cheapest part of the process. The really expensive parts of filling job roles are: * the agency slice of the pie if an agent is involved (often at least a five digit number) * the people costs on the employer side of recruiting (writing job specs, managing adverts, weeding resumes, phone interviews, actual interviews, etc.) can easily take weeks worth of time from multiple people. Recruiting is expensive, and hard ;-/

meric 13y ago

Its called probation.

gingerlime 13y ago
I believe that in some countries, probation is a much more complicated deal. I think it might be the same as an employment, just with an extra section about early termination. In this example, the post is about charging on a freelance-basis for the interview alone, as a clearly-defined piece of work being delivered. The comment above about paying candidates to interview goes along the same lines too. Both should be simpler to set-up and less legally entangling than a probation.
sitharus 13y ago
Not really. If I'm in a probation period then I'm employed by that company. If it doesn't work out then I'm back on the job market. What this is talking about is compensating you for doing a trial as part of the pre-employment process, in addition to the standard interviews. If I was looking to change jobs I'd still be employed if it didn't go so well.

ziko 13y ago

It sounds like it's coming from people who waste their days at job interviews, not getting the desired job and then propose a thing like this. I understand it must be tough but in my opinion, you shouldn't be paid for turning up at an interview. "If you're good enough, you will get a chance."

cs02rm0 13y ago
Yeah... you can almost imagine people making a career out of being interviewed if you take this to the nth degree, which undoubtedly, someone would.
- finnw 13y ago
  But if you are a competent recruiter, you should be able to spot these people quickly.
  - ziko 13y ago
    Needless work for personnel department. What you're suggesting is doing two things (paying an interviewee + check, often though to make sure, if he's in it for the sole purpose of interviewee fee) instead of none which has been working just fine for decades.
    - jwoah12 13y ago
      I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but "it's been working just fine for decades" is not a good reason to not change something. In fact, most things would never improve or change at all since most people are terrible at determining what "works just fine" is until they see "works really well".

jschuur 13y ago

Better question: Are people who genuinely ask this (as opposed to for the topic of a blog post) the kind of person you'd want to hire?

finnw 13y ago
No, but it does not matter. Either you have already decided not to hire them, or they have decided not to wait any longer for you to make your decision.

alexhawdon 13y ago

I would argue 'No'. The candidate wants a job. The employer wants an employee. They are BOTH investing their resources (time, money, opportunity cost) to achieve their respective goals. The employee doesn't want to attend interviews any more than an employer doesn't actually want to hold them; they'd both much rather skip to the end, but the whole process is a necessary evil for both parties. I certainly don't agree with the rudeness, mind.

rschmitty 13y ago

Should or shouldn't, is there any legal ground for billing? Someone who hasnt been responding to you is suddenly going to pay you? I would foresee them simply rejecting your "bill" and don't see how it could hold up in court. They are spending their time too afterall, whats to stop them from billing you?

cobrophy 13y ago
Well without a contract (even a verbal agreement) in place for them to refer to in court, as a case it seems pretty thin. It also seems like the lawyers will make more out of this than any of the parties. But there's no reason why when asked to do the work, you couldn't say I'll do it for a price and see how the employer responds.

octo_t 13y ago

As a student, having to fork out £40/£50 for train tickets was a pretty tough decision - having to weigh whether or not I thought I might get the job vs having the cost of train tickets. Most companies would reimburse travel either way, which was fine but some companies wouldn't.

MarkMc 13y ago

Relevant Dilbert cartoon: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-05-06/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-05-06/

michaelochurch 13y ago

I'd say no. I'm pretty serious about employee rights, but this is not a consideration that I feel employees are entitled to, at least not as originally framed. Who sets the market rate? Anyway, legally you have no standing to charge for that when the going protocol is that interviews are free. I'm not sure that I want to step away from that protocol, either. Employers have as much ground to charge sloppy candidates for wasting their time. Employers should pay all costs (e.g. travel) and they should volunteer so it isn't socially awkward-- no one should have to ask to be reimbursed for train tickets-- but they shouldn't be expected pay for the employee's time. Search costs are shared; that's just social protocol. Besides, the absolute last thing I want as a job candidate is to compete with spam candidates taking an outside shot at getting in and collecting a day's pay. Yes, that would seriously happen if companies started paying unsuccessful interview candidates. However, companies should be upfront about how long the process will take. Unexpected follow-ons are irritating and I usually wouldn't start running a clock, but I feel that I should have that right. What you can't do (legally, you have no standing) is retroactively decide that the clock was running because the company didn't have its house in order and missed deadlines. Also, if you try to "collect" and threaten reputation damage, there's a thin line between that and extortion. You probably won't go to jail in that particular case, but your leverage is gone. What I do support charging for (in event of not getting the job, which hasn't happened yet) are reference checks. I haven't had to give references in a while, but here's the best way that I can come up with to do that. Send an email with the contact information of your references in it. Then, generate a PDF with the first page having phone numbers and emails of your references (the exact same information, so it looks redundant; you'd prefer that the PDF not be read). Have the second page be either blank or garbage. On the third page, put that you consider any contact regarding you between employer and any reference to be extension of a job offer and that, if they contact a reference (provided or "back channel") and pass on you, they are liable in amount of 3 months' salary, Then make sure one of your references is someone who'll tell you if they get a call from that company. If they pass on you and you can't prove that they contacted references, you don't collect. However, if they call your references (and you can prove it) and still decline you, you usually will have legal standing to collect; since you allowed them to take a risk with your professional reputation, you have a right to appropriate consideration.

13y ago

madaxe 13y ago

No. I don't expect my prospective clients to pay me for the honour of me coming to sell our services, so why should there be an expectation for me to pay a prospective employee? Were this the case, there'd be an entire profession called "interviewee", whereby you go from interview to interview to interview wasting all and sundry's time while being paid. Poor idea.

shard 13y ago

In Korea at least, it's not an unknown practice for companies to pay interviewees for their time, although not all companies do it. Being American, I was taken by surprise the first time it happened, but it was a pleasant surprise in that the company showed that they valued my time. I'd say its not mandatory, but it's a classy thing to do.

LanceH 13y ago

One category which I definitely think should be billable is the interview when there is no actual job or no job as advertised. There were a bunch of stories going around about some insurance company calling people in to interview for database jobs and then trying to sell them on insurance cold-call sales positions. Another one is those interviews at large companies where they must conduct x number of interviews, but they already have the person they want and they're just going through the motions. This would be difficult to prove, but I've heard managers directly say they are doing this.

theorique 13y ago
In the case of a company that is willing to cross the business ethics line and be blatantly misleading or run a bait-and-switch, I am extremely skeptical that they would respond to any request for billing based on lost/wasted candidate time. You would probably need to take them to small-claims court.

goatforce5 13y ago

Red Gate in Cambridge UK was offering a free iPad to anyone who came in for an interview (after being pre-screened, of course): http://smyword.com/2010/04/red-gates-free-ipad-and-an-offer-you-probably-missed/ http://smyword.com/2010/04/red-gates-free-ipad-and-an-offer-...