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> After vetting your experience by email a company may grant you a 30 minute screening call, followed by an hour technical interview over the phone, and possibl

> After vetting your experience by email a company may grant you a 30 minute screening call, followed by an hour technical interview over the phone, and possibly even a third hour-long phone call. THEN you may be invited on-site for a 3+ hour technical interview with 3-6 people. If you’ve managed to impress them so far, and the company has a particularly thorough interview process, they might invite you back for a fifth interview to finally make a determination. During which you’ll spend no less than five hours making an attempt to solve a practical problem the company has faced recently. If you’re the right man (or woman) for the job, your references check out, and you can pass a background check, you’ll be made an offer and given two days to make a decision. This is the San Francisco startup interview process. I think it's batsh!t insane that (apparently) so many people are so willing to go through this type of process, and to go through it n times until they land a job. In the context of making a hiring decision, I would be skeptical of anybody who would subject himself or herself to this insanity. Then again, I'm not looking to hire people who are willing to chain themselves to a workstation and code 12 hours a day in exchange for access to a foosball table and catered meals.

nostrademons 12y ago
Eh, if I were unemployed and didn't have anything better I was working on, I wouldn't mind going through that process. I always interview with multiple companies in parallel, though, so if it takes you too long to make a decision some other company will snap me up. "Breadth-first search, weighted by expected value."
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  The problem is this is supposed to be a tight labor market. A company cannot afford a process like this in such a market. Of course, if the market is tight because everyone is picky...
  - acgourley 12y ago
    The market is tight for what companies perceive as high-value candidates. The reason why the hiring process is long despite that tight market is that companies can't know the candidate is high value unless several interviews.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  > Eh, if I were unemployed and didn't have anything better I was working on... Your time doesn't become any less valuable because you're unemployed. Engaging in an employer's insane and inefficient three-ring circus seems like an awfully bad use of one's time. That time should be invested in pursuing opportunities that don't ask candidates to indulge a company's dysfunction.
  - pmiller2 12y ago
    No, your time doesn't become less value because you're unemployed, but you have more of it and more of an incentive to participate in the "inefficient three-ring circus" process.
monksy 12y ago
> and possibly even a third hour-long phone call. Ok, they're going into crazyville here. > If you’ve managed to impress them so far, and the company has a particularly thorough interview process, they might invite you back for a fifth interview to finally make a determination. No thanks, please don't waste more of my time. > During which you’ll spend no less than five hours making an attempt to solve a practical problem the company has faced recently. If you’re the right man (or woman) for the job, your references check out, and you can pass a background check, you’ll be made an offer and given two days to make a decision. This is the San Francisco startup interview process. I've already accepted a better offer already.
karlkatzke 12y ago
So why, then, has this interview process become so typical? Why has it become almost a rite of passage that you then subject your future coworkers to during their hiring processes? As someone going through interviews in a tech city for a buzzword job, I am definitely going through this, and my family and friends are aghast at how many days worth of effort I end up putting in for each rejection letter... Or, worse, to finally get to the in-person interview only to find out that it's a brogrammer culture and I don't want to work there in the first place.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  For the same reason that you still find casting couches in Hollywood: the supply of candidates exceeds the number of positions. The "talent shortage" term that is so frequently used is misleading. Companies like Google and Facebook, as well as high-profile startups, can see hundreds of applications for every open position. Most of the candidates might not be as talented as these employers would like, but that doesn't mean they don't have a lot of warm bodies willing to subject themselves to a recruiting process that resembles a meat grinder.
- k3oni 12y ago
  This looks like the typical Google interview and they had that going for a long time[1]. My theory is that some companies want to be google-like and hope that by trying to apply the same interview practices they might be successful in finding and attracting the same top talent as Google attracted/attracts. [1] I interviewed with them a while back.
- prostoalex 12y ago
  The screener + in-person interview format has worked quite well for Google (and other companies before it, I might add, but Google's was the most publicized) and are used by now by other behemoths such as Yahoo and Facebook. Smaller companies either copy directly, or have alumni from larger corporations that are used to this process.
rayiner 12y ago
I don't get it. How does this square with the shortage of talent? In my field, there is an objective oversupply of candidates, and the standard interview process is still a 20 minute screener and 3-5!hour callback. You still get 30+ days to decide on an offer.
- harryh 12y ago
  Two hypotheses: 1) credentials (degree, class rank, past work experience, etc) are seen as better indicators of future performance in law than in programming 2) less effort is put into training in programming so more effort must be put into screening
  - rayiner 12y ago
    That makes a lot of sense.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  Every tech job I've ever had was pretty much that. 20-30 minute phone screen, 3-5 hour onsite interview. But then I've never worked in the Bay Area.
  - tracker1 12y ago
    I've only ever experienced anything like what is described a few times. One was a job I wasn't interested in. Another I wasn't interested in working with the team/environment in question... and another still, was strung out so long, and then dropped so late in such a weird way, it pissed me off. For the most part it's usually a phone call with a recruiter or HR type.. then a technical screen and/or an informal phone call.. followed by an in-person 1-2 hour interview. Usually half of the face to face interview is just chit-chatting. At this point, I've been in three jobs since I last updated my resume.. which I should probably do eventually. I'm not sure how much it matters... I'm less concerned about what comes next, than finishing what I am working on now. I'm also up-front about my faults and in what ways I don't fit into a typical corporate culture.
- 12y ago
SeoxyS 12y ago
Thoroughness of the interview process typically relates to the amount of skills required for the job. Engineering requires a tremendous amount of skills, and so it requires a fairly thorough review process. Being a cashier, for example, requires very little training. You could hire somebody after a 15min interview, and if they turn out to suck, fire them and move on with very little lost. That's not the case with an engineer.
morgante 12y ago
> I think it's batsh!t insane that (apparently) so many people are so willing to go through this type of process, and to go through it n times until they land a job. I think it's insane that some companies hire people after only a single cursory interview. In a startup, a new hire is one of your biggest expenses and has a tremendous impact on the company. Not to mention that you're probably going to spend more time with this person than with you're significant other. Plus, it's a lot harder to break up with an employee than with a girlfriend. Even the typical "gauntlet" seems like too little to me. I'd rather spend several weeks working with someone before hiring them, but unfortunately that's not possible.
- jplahn 12y ago
  I'm going to have to agree with this. After dreading the impending interview process I would have to go through this fall, I can't imagine working for a company that doesn't have it. For all the short comings of this process, I can say without a doubt that the quality of fellow interviewees I met at onsite interviews with the top companies was _significantly_ higher than those I met at companies with a shortened interview process. Sure that's likely obvious and anecdotal, but it gives me some peace of mind.
fsk 12y ago
I don't see how anyone who already has a job can do that. OK, you want me to do a full-day onsite interview? And you only hire 10% (or less) of the people you interview? That means that I'll pretty rapidly use up my annual vacation allotment on interviews. Some people say that you're supposed to "disappear" for a couple hours in the middle of the day to interview. That's dishonest to your current employer. In an "open office" environment it's very hard to disappear without being noticed. Taking a full day (or half day) for an interview doesn't scale for a candidate that already has a job.

nostrademons 12y ago

Eh, if I were unemployed and didn't have anything better I was working on, I wouldn't mind going through that process. I always interview with multiple companies in parallel, though, so if it takes you too long to make a decision some other company will snap me up. "Breadth-first search, weighted by expected value."

vonmoltke 12y ago
The problem is this is supposed to be a tight labor market. A company cannot afford a process like this in such a market. Of course, if the market is tight because everyone is picky...
- acgourley 12y ago
  The market is tight for what companies perceive as high-value candidates. The reason why the hiring process is long despite that tight market is that companies can't know the candidate is high value unless several interviews.
7Figures2Commas 12y ago
> Eh, if I were unemployed and didn't have anything better I was working on... Your time doesn't become any less valuable because you're unemployed. Engaging in an employer's insane and inefficient three-ring circus seems like an awfully bad use of one's time. That time should be invested in pursuing opportunities that don't ask candidates to indulge a company's dysfunction.
- pmiller2 12y ago
  No, your time doesn't become less value because you're unemployed, but you have more of it and more of an incentive to participate in the "inefficient three-ring circus" process.

monksy 12y ago

> and possibly even a third hour-long phone call. Ok, they're going into crazyville here. > If you’ve managed to impress them so far, and the company has a particularly thorough interview process, they might invite you back for a fifth interview to finally make a determination. No thanks, please don't waste more of my time. > During which you’ll spend no less than five hours making an attempt to solve a practical problem the company has faced recently. If you’re the right man (or woman) for the job, your references check out, and you can pass a background check, you’ll be made an offer and given two days to make a decision. This is the San Francisco startup interview process. I've already accepted a better offer already.

karlkatzke 12y ago

So why, then, has this interview process become so typical? Why has it become almost a rite of passage that you then subject your future coworkers to during their hiring processes? As someone going through interviews in a tech city for a buzzword job, I am definitely going through this, and my family and friends are aghast at how many days worth of effort I end up putting in for each rejection letter... Or, worse, to finally get to the in-person interview only to find out that it's a brogrammer culture and I don't want to work there in the first place.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago
For the same reason that you still find casting couches in Hollywood: the supply of candidates exceeds the number of positions. The "talent shortage" term that is so frequently used is misleading. Companies like Google and Facebook, as well as high-profile startups, can see hundreds of applications for every open position. Most of the candidates might not be as talented as these employers would like, but that doesn't mean they don't have a lot of warm bodies willing to subject themselves to a recruiting process that resembles a meat grinder.
k3oni 12y ago
This looks like the typical Google interview and they had that going for a long time[1]. My theory is that some companies want to be google-like and hope that by trying to apply the same interview practices they might be successful in finding and attracting the same top talent as Google attracted/attracts. [1] I interviewed with them a while back.
prostoalex 12y ago
The screener + in-person interview format has worked quite well for Google (and other companies before it, I might add, but Google's was the most publicized) and are used by now by other behemoths such as Yahoo and Facebook. Smaller companies either copy directly, or have alumni from larger corporations that are used to this process.

rayiner 12y ago

I don't get it. How does this square with the shortage of talent? In my field, there is an objective oversupply of candidates, and the standard interview process is still a 20 minute screener and 3-5!hour callback. You still get 30+ days to decide on an offer.

harryh 12y ago
Two hypotheses: 1) credentials (degree, class rank, past work experience, etc) are seen as better indicators of future performance in law than in programming 2) less effort is put into training in programming so more effort must be put into screening
- rayiner 12y ago
  That makes a lot of sense.
waterlesscloud 12y ago
Every tech job I've ever had was pretty much that. 20-30 minute phone screen, 3-5 hour onsite interview. But then I've never worked in the Bay Area.
- tracker1 12y ago
  I've only ever experienced anything like what is described a few times. One was a job I wasn't interested in. Another I wasn't interested in working with the team/environment in question... and another still, was strung out so long, and then dropped so late in such a weird way, it pissed me off. For the most part it's usually a phone call with a recruiter or HR type.. then a technical screen and/or an informal phone call.. followed by an in-person 1-2 hour interview. Usually half of the face to face interview is just chit-chatting. At this point, I've been in three jobs since I last updated my resume.. which I should probably do eventually. I'm not sure how much it matters... I'm less concerned about what comes next, than finishing what I am working on now. I'm also up-front about my faults and in what ways I don't fit into a typical corporate culture.
12y ago

SeoxyS 12y ago

Thoroughness of the interview process typically relates to the amount of skills required for the job. Engineering requires a tremendous amount of skills, and so it requires a fairly thorough review process. Being a cashier, for example, requires very little training. You could hire somebody after a 15min interview, and if they turn out to suck, fire them and move on with very little lost. That's not the case with an engineer.

morgante 12y ago

> I think it's batsh!t insane that (apparently) so many people are so willing to go through this type of process, and to go through it n times until they land a job. I think it's insane that some companies hire people after only a single cursory interview. In a startup, a new hire is one of your biggest expenses and has a tremendous impact on the company. Not to mention that you're probably going to spend more time with this person than with you're significant other. Plus, it's a lot harder to break up with an employee than with a girlfriend. Even the typical "gauntlet" seems like too little to me. I'd rather spend several weeks working with someone before hiring them, but unfortunately that's not possible.

jplahn 12y ago
I'm going to have to agree with this. After dreading the impending interview process I would have to go through this fall, I can't imagine working for a company that doesn't have it. For all the short comings of this process, I can say without a doubt that the quality of fellow interviewees I met at onsite interviews with the top companies was _significantly_ higher than those I met at companies with a shortened interview process. Sure that's likely obvious and anecdotal, but it gives me some peace of mind.

fsk 12y ago

I don't see how anyone who already has a job can do that. OK, you want me to do a full-day onsite interview? And you only hire 10% (or less) of the people you interview? That means that I'll pretty rapidly use up my annual vacation allotment on interviews. Some people say that you're supposed to "disappear" for a couple hours in the middle of the day to interview. That's dishonest to your current employer. In an "open office" environment it's very hard to disappear without being noticed. Taking a full day (or half day) for an interview doesn't scale for a candidate that already has a job.