'Job Interviews are a Nightmare - and Only Getting Worse' (vox.com) 255
"It often feels like you're tossing your resume into the abyss and praying to the recruitment gods for a response," writes Vox.
But then the real ordeal begins: Companies are seemingly coming up with new, higher, and harder hoops to jump through at every turn. That translates to endless rounds of interviews, various arbitrary tests, and complex exercises and presentations that entail hours of work and prep. There can be good reasons for firms to do this — they really want to make sure they get the right person, and they're trying to reduce biases — but it's hard not to feel like it can just be too much.
"There's no reason why 10 years ago we were able to hire people on two interviews and now it's taking 20 rounds of interviews," said Maddie Machado, a career strategist who has previously worked as a recruiter at companies such as LinkedIn, Meta, and Microsoft. "It's kind of like dating. When you go on a first date, you need a second date. You don't need 20 dates to know if you like somebody...."
Another man was told to start looking for apartments across the country after being flown out for a final interview, only to follow up a couple of weeks later and learn that the recruiter simply forget to tell him he hadn't gotten the job. "My interviewing experiences have been worse than dating, with the ghosting and non-responses," he said....
There's no denying that over the years, in many instances, the hiring process has gotten harder and more convoluted. A 2022 survey from hiring software company Greenhouse found that 60 percent of job seekers were "unimpressed by time-consuming recruitment processes...." The pandemic and current economic conditions may be exacerbating employers' anxiety even more. Sondra Levitt [a leadership and career coach with Korn Ferry, an organizational consulting firm] said she thinks many firms feel like they "jumped too fast" to make hires amid the great resignation or great reshuffle, as for much of 2021 and 2022 workers hopped jobs in droves. The pendulum is swinging the other way now, with managers being extra careful to do their due diligence, especially as the economy looks rocky.
"Perhaps the simplest answer to why companies make it so hard is that they can," the article concludes. Job-hunters have faced IQ tests, credit checks, and even reviews of their grades from high school. (I still remember one employer who asked everyone to take the Meyers-Briggs personality test.)
And it's painfully annoying to do multiple rounds of interviews — and then be rejected.
But then the real ordeal begins: Companies are seemingly coming up with new, higher, and harder hoops to jump through at every turn. That translates to endless rounds of interviews, various arbitrary tests, and complex exercises and presentations that entail hours of work and prep. There can be good reasons for firms to do this — they really want to make sure they get the right person, and they're trying to reduce biases — but it's hard not to feel like it can just be too much.
"There's no reason why 10 years ago we were able to hire people on two interviews and now it's taking 20 rounds of interviews," said Maddie Machado, a career strategist who has previously worked as a recruiter at companies such as LinkedIn, Meta, and Microsoft. "It's kind of like dating. When you go on a first date, you need a second date. You don't need 20 dates to know if you like somebody...."
Another man was told to start looking for apartments across the country after being flown out for a final interview, only to follow up a couple of weeks later and learn that the recruiter simply forget to tell him he hadn't gotten the job. "My interviewing experiences have been worse than dating, with the ghosting and non-responses," he said....
There's no denying that over the years, in many instances, the hiring process has gotten harder and more convoluted. A 2022 survey from hiring software company Greenhouse found that 60 percent of job seekers were "unimpressed by time-consuming recruitment processes...." The pandemic and current economic conditions may be exacerbating employers' anxiety even more. Sondra Levitt [a leadership and career coach with Korn Ferry, an organizational consulting firm] said she thinks many firms feel like they "jumped too fast" to make hires amid the great resignation or great reshuffle, as for much of 2021 and 2022 workers hopped jobs in droves. The pendulum is swinging the other way now, with managers being extra careful to do their due diligence, especially as the economy looks rocky.
"Perhaps the simplest answer to why companies make it so hard is that they can," the article concludes. Job-hunters have faced IQ tests, credit checks, and even reviews of their grades from high school. (I still remember one employer who asked everyone to take the Meyers-Briggs personality test.)
And it's painfully annoying to do multiple rounds of interviews — and then be rejected.
grades from high schools are useful for? (Score:5, Insightful)
grades from high schools are useful for? or is some HR person suck in the past.
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If you are less than about twenty-three they might be relevant (if college grades are not available anyway), after that not so much.
Re:grades from high schools are useful for? (Score:4, Insightful)
Recently I've seen job ads that basically demand grades. I surmise it's veiled age discrimination.
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I saw that once but it wasn't that, it was just bureaucracy.
I applied for a job at a university and they used the same application form for everyone from apprentice technicians to professors, so the form had boxes for GCSEs, a levels, undergrad degrees, masters, PhD, and if I recall correctly, fellowships of professional societies. They didn't ask for o levels presumably because they didn't expect anyone in their early 40s to be applying for a job where that was relevant.
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I recently had a place hire me and then demand a copy of my high school certificate. Since graduating high school, I have moved across the country with only what I could bring on the plane. My job start was delayed by 3 weeks while I tried to figure out how to even order a new one and then wait for delivery. First time in my entire 20+ year career someone has asked for that.
Re:grades from high schools are useful for? (Score:5, Informative)
I recently tried getting all the transcripts from my elementary, junior high, and high school years to keep in my personal archives. In every case, I was told all those records were destroyed or lost. They said they only kept records for a certain number of years (I forgot how long), and the records I was searching for are over 40 years old.
If I were to look for a new job, and a new potential employer wanted those records, my response would be, "good luck with that! If you manage to get any of them, can I have a copy?"
Re: grades from high schools are useful for? (Score:2)
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Try getting your great-grandfather's birth certificate from Italy from a country the other side of the globe to apply for ius sanguinis italian citizenship.
OK not gonna lie, it was pretty easy. Italians have records going wayyyy back and they keep them.
Re:grades from high schools are useful for? (Score:5, Insightful)
The appropriate response to that request is "no".
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This.
What I did during my high school years has ZERO to do with what I do now. None of the skills I have now came from that time, and I'm fairly sure I barely remember anything that I allegedly learned back then. Never needed it anymore, so why the fuck retain that information?
What the hell do they want that sheet of paper for that has nothing to do with me except maybe my name?
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Unless that was your most recent education/experience, there is no justification for the request.
It is abusive, and any company asking for it should be told "no." If they push for it, take it as a massive red flag -and walk away.
I can say that, because I am not entry level. I am comfortable walking away from bad employers because I know I can get a better offer from someone else. Early career individuals may not have that flexibility and will take the abuse. Over time it becomes just another "normal" th
They're very useful (Score:5, Informative)
You know what would help with that? If we all got together and formed a group that could effectively contract with or make deals with the extremely wealthy and powerful. You know, we could collect everybody to make bargains. As if everyone was joined or... some other word that means to bring together.
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You know what would help with that? If we all got together and formed a group that could effectively contract with or make deals with the extremely wealthy and powerful. You know, we could collect everybody to make bargains. As if everyone was joined or... some other word that means to bring together.
Amalgamated? Connected? Paired? Interfused? Combined? Federated? Coupled? Fused? Banded?
That's IT!! We'll form a BAND!!
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Found the corporate sock puppet.
Re: They're very useful (Score:4, Informative)
Your employer can dismiss you at any moment. And they can adjust your salary up or down at any moment. More importantly, they can abstain from adjusting your salary up to even keep up with inflation. Most of all, they can and do (despite it being illegal) collude with other employers to make sure that job-hopping won't result in you getting a better deal.
All you can do is quit. That's it. Your employer has more power than you do both before and after you agree to work for them. This imbalance of power is unfair from the get-go. As a job-seeker your only choices are employers who all have this much power over you and have all colluded to ensure it stays that way.
All a union does is equalize the playing field. Since the harms of the imbalance of power can come at any time, before or after being hired, it is perfectly ethical to bargain collectively, at any time, before or after you are hired.
Wise employers prevent this by taking care of their employees so they don't feel the need to unionize. Unwise employers deserve to have their entire staff union-up on them, and start bargaining on equal terms for a change.
For clarity: I recognize that unions are problematic. They become self-serving, and that gets worse over time. But this harm does not remove their necessity to prevent the other set of harms that comes from worker oppression. It's an example of why the phrase "necessary evil" exists. If employers don't take care of their people, they deserve the plagues that unions bring.
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Did you really put an USERID in your name?! Hilarious!
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He did, so I can't decide whether to not take him seriously because he's one the fake rsilverguns or because he is the real rsilvergun.
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grades from high schools are useful for? or is some HR person suck in the past.
Next step: let's see your for high school yearbooks.
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I don't have one. I didn't know it's mandatory to have that kind of sentimental bullcrap.
Be brutal with HR people (Score:5, Insightful)
grades from high schools are useful for? or is some HR person suck in the past.
My take is to be brutal with HR people. They are generally clueless, tin-plated martinets that stand in the way of any real hiring process.
Every time some HR person (note: not an actual interviewer, only an HR type, and then only a clueless HR type) asks for something they don't need, I say "do you absolutely need $this?" Inevitably, they say "yes we really need that" and I say "Oh, I'm sorry to have wasted your time. Goodbye.", and they say "wait, where are you going... if it's such a problem we can get by without it" and I respond with "Were you lying to me when you just now said you really needed it? Because I won't work for a company that casually lies like that..." And at this point she's completely flustered and I ask if the company will still give me a fair chance and should I stay for the interviews because I don't think she would give me a fair shake, and she promises that she can still make a fair judgement.
I've now activated the overjustification effect [wikipedia.org] in her, she'll remember me and since she's stated out loud that she will be a fair judge she'll hold herself to that statement. She's also no longer in control, and won't press me for anything else that's not legally required.
On the subject of "we need people familiar with $this software package", I usually respond with "imagine you're looking for a driver, but only want drivers experienced with Chevys. Should a GM driver bother to apply?", and then back that up with some fundamentals about the package, like "there are a ton of microcontrollers out there, but they're all programmed the same way. To set the serial baud rate you put a number in a register - it doesn't matter where the register is or what number to use, there are only a couple of ways to do that and I'm sure your microcontroller uses one of those ways and it won't be a problem. Just like the Chevy driver using the pedals on the GM vehicle".
You need to get by the HR person and focus on the actual interviewers. Make them uncomfortable, make them stop wasting your time, and be careful not to actually piss them off.
Part of it is, I suppose, the willingness to walk away from a job process that's too annoying. I've never had to go further than a 2nd interview, and that's always been with a VP or higher, usually the founder who always checks new hires for compatibility, and they usually have an offer in hand at that point.
Twenty rounds of interviews? You're doing it wrong. If they take more than 2 rounds to make a decision, they're only doing that to keep you on the hook to make you think they might be interested in the future, to keep you from taking other job offers.
You don't want to work for that company.
While they're interviewing you, you're also interviewing them. You should have a clear picture of them by the 2nd round and be able to say yes or no.
Don't waste your time past the 2nd round.
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As an employer, sometimes I have needed three rounds. It usually comes down to having two viable candidates and needing to make a case to hire both rather than flip a coin. There was once when we needed a fourth round, but that was because someone felt we were making a panic hire.
Usually we were one-and-done though.
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This is also why I ask for a ridiculously high salary for companies I don't want to work for. If it doesn't get me a higher salary, maybe it will get a higher salary for the next programmer down the road.
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I don't understand why more workers -- and companies -- aren't asking for 1099 i.e. independent contracting, especially in software. I won't stand having an idiot for a boss, but if he is my client I'm happy to have a good business relatonship with him, and vice versa. On top of it nobody has to pretend that we are all a big happy family.
Anyone on the business-owning-and-developers-hiring side wants to give his two cents?
Re:Be brutal with HR people (Score:5, Interesting)
After having worked with HR in several companies, and even worked for HR (n an IT capacity) I can only say: don’t let HR select your candidates, they aren’t good at it. They can vet them (check diplomas and such), maybe do some rudimentary filtering. They can manage the process, and take care of the interviews that deal with corporate matters: salaris and benefits. But don’t let them get involved in the actual selection of candidates.
I liked the process of the first company I worked for. One afternoon, back to back interviews, with the branch director, with a peer, and with the person who would likely become your manager. After the interviews those 3 would get together and decide, tell you whether they wanted to hire you or not, and if so they’d send you home with a job offer.
complex exercises & presentations = work for f (Score:5, Insightful)
complex exercises & presentations = work for free
This is normal ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... for any whitecolar job these days.
For this very reason I haven't done "blind"/unsolicited applications in 2 decades. It's just a waste of time and resources. As a software expert I gladly can also ignore/abandon any bullshit interview process that wants me to reveal everything while at the same time not giving me any real information or a feasible work environment to deliver what is expected of me.
Most of the time is lousyly paid interns doing the pre-selection anyway, usually based on mostly arbitrary selectors, such as bizarre tech buzzword bingo or 5 years in experience for a technology that only exists for 2.
Re:This is normal ... (Score:4)
If you see "5 years of experience" in a tech that only exists for 2, there are 2 options: Laugh and move on or check the payment and see if it's high enough for you to consider fleecing the idiots who obviously don't know what they're asking for.
Re:This is normal ... (Score:5, Funny)
If you see "5 years of experience" in a tech that only exists for 2, there are 2 options: Laugh and move on or check the payment and see if it's high enough for you to consider fleecing the idiots who obviously don't know what they're asking for.
You mean like this [imgur.com]?
Re:This is normal ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I do believe this is the first JPEG I've ever seen that won't display without Javascript. That will be the last time I try visiting that domain.
Re: This is normal ... (Score:3)
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It's not. It is a hallmark of a company that doesn't know what it wants and shifts that problem onto the applicant. I don't want to work for companies that don't know what they want, they change their direction every other week and I do a lot of work for the bin, wasting a lot of resources on nothing.
I prefer to work for companies that have a future.
Corporate Astrology (Score:5, Interesting)
The ultimate motivation is simple enough: businesses want to make sure the person they hire will work out well and stay a long time. Hiring mistakes cost them quite a lot of money.
However, this method doesn't work. It seems like it should. But it doesn't. Interviews are good at filtering out obvious misfits and ensuring a basic competency bar is hit, and anything beyond that is largely wasted effort. There are simply too many variables at play that might make a candidate leave or need to be dismissed after a few months, and too many unpredictable future events, for more scrutiny to be effective at weeding out the candidates that won't wind up working out.
Every business has to learn this for themselves, the hard way, it seems.
I suppose there might be a darker agenda at work: a desire to hire based on things like gender quotas or other aspects of a person that are actually illegal to include in hiring decisions. Having loads of tests of various categories gives one a perfectly reasonable excuse to reject any candidate, so they can then proceed with the non-equal-opportunity judgments that they aren't otherwise allowed to make. Such behavior seems to fit the moral profile of most large businesses, I am just unsure how much this sort of thing actually goes on.
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I suppose there might be a darker agenda at work: a desire to hire based on things like gender quotas or other aspects of a person that are actually illegal to include in hiring decisions.
This is exactly what they are doing. If you have 20 rounds of interview, then it becomes much harder to prove they hired based on DIE quotas.
Re:Corporate Astrology (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose there might be a darker agenda at work: a desire to hire based on things like gender quotas or other aspects of a person that are actually illegal to include in hiring decisions.
This is exactly what they are doing. If you have 20 rounds of interview, then it becomes much harder to prove they hired based on DIE quotas.
It's far more likely it's the exact opposite. The complicated process creates more opportunities to screen out minorities. Removing indicators of race from resumes results in greater probability for interviews [hbs.edu]. Bonus points: companies who advertise themselves as pro-diversity discriminate just as much.
Credit Checks indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
> "Perhaps the simplest answer to why companies make it so hard is that they can," the article concludes. Job-hunters have faced IQ tests, credit checks, and even reviews of their grades from high school.
I wouldn't mind seeing the books of some of the companies I worked for. They were always crying poverty when it came time for raises but the owners always had the nicest cars. If they want to see how I manage my money, which impacts them very little, then it's only fair I see how they manage the company, which impacts me greatly.
Re:Credit Checks indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
They were always crying poverty when it came time for raises but the owners always had the nicest cars.
Unless you're talking about a small 5 person company your comment shows a profound lack of understanding of both scale as well as the financial world of the "rich".
Those people with the nicest cars often differ from your primarily by how much they owe the bank. Who is wealthier, a guy with a 100k Porsche that he bought on a loan, or the guy with a fully paid off Toyota Corolla? Often you are seeing little more than the illusion of being rich.
Then there's scale. If the owner drives a car that is 25k more expensive than yours and has 25 employees the value of that car depreciated over 5 years amounts to fuck all. It's the same about people complaining that a company is laying off 10% of its workforce while the CEO earns a salary for $2m. Well good, fire your CEO and you can employ 20 people, what about the other 9.5% of the workforce?
Looking rich is cheap. Don't be fooled by fancy cars.
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Unless you're talking about a small 5 person company your comment shows a profound lack of understanding of both scale as well as the financial world of the "rich".
Those people with the nicest cars often differ from your primarily by how much they owe the bank. Who is wealthier, a guy with a 100k Porsche that he bought on a loan, or the guy with a fully paid off Toyota Corolla? Often you are seeing little more than the illusion of being rich.
1. That post needs several upvotes: insightful.
2. To go a little further down this path, stock market millionaires and billionaires often need to take out short-term loans to keep the lights turned on. Thus certain uneducated congresspeople and their mobs who complain about untaxed billions which is actually just precariously-valued unrealized capital gains don't realize the damage such 'wealth' taxes would do. Choose between crash-sale of the stock to pay the bills, being able to give the stock to the gove
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Credit checks are normal in certain types of jobs. Think government, military, banking, security, software engineers in any of the mentioned sectors, etc... basically anywhere bribery would lead to serious financial, regulatory, data privacy, security or reputational damage. Credit score and report reflect your financial situation and are very important when evaluating someone's susceptibility to bribery.
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Credit score and report reflect your financial situation and are very important when evaluating someone's susceptibility to bribery.
That's one theory. It's the simple and easy theory to apply. A related theory is the notion that electing a wealthy person to high government office makes sense because they're beyond corruption. Another one is that if a theft has occurred in a classroom in a school in a well to do district, then it's the one poor kid who did it (especially if they're a minority). It actually turns out though that wealthy people are just as capable (sometimes more so) of being greedy and abusing their office to enrich thems
No nonsense (Score:2)
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Fark that.
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My first interview out of college involved a company (Advanced Business Consultants in Kansas) representing Western Resources in the late 90's. I lived outside of Kansas, but was told they would fly me out there for the interview. I was thinking I was in a great position, since they were going to foot the bill for a plane flight just for an interview.
I had one interview, and the ABC consultant told me to get an apartment. I got an apartment (terminable at no cost if I didn't get the job), then I got the job
Kids today think nothing ever happened before (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember having all-day interview sessions with numerous people in a given company, way back in the 1980s. I remember feeling like my resume (printed on pricey paper, back then) got dropped into a black hole and wondering if anyone would ever actually bother to read it.
I remember, right out of college (and newly married!), looking for my very first job during a serious recession. Took months, and the place that hired me didn't even contact me until about six months after I initially applied.
Welcome to life. None of this is new, it's just been moved online - but people are still people, and hiring managers are still hiring managers. Now get off my lawn.
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Welcome to life. None of this is new, it's just been moved online ...
Which, in my observation (and may be generally obvious) seems to amplify everything in the process.
Re: Kids today think nothing ever happened before (Score:2)
can't wait for genetic testing (Score:2)
Gattaca had great job interviews. No need to study, no need to have family connections, all very scientific.
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i can still hear that "bing!" in my head heh
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In Futurama, your DNA was analyzed and your most suitable career assigned to you - no interviews necessary. Of course, if you refused your assigned job, you would be fired - out of a cannon into the sun.
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Technically in Gattaca everything was family connections, or at least direct ancestral connections. Maybe excepting a rare mutation here and there.
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Keep in mind, this child is still you. Simply the best of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.
Such a good film with a fairly realistic take on the future. Although the real future will have more cameras and automated facial recognition that would be difficult to make the film's plot work.
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It was realistic in the sense that the science was sound, there was nothing that technically couldn't happen. I don't think people would be willing to put up with that kind of genetic testing though, and I don't think it would work, mainly because of the subtitle of the film. There are too many other variables, genetics isn't destiny. That is entirely the point of the movie.
Remember kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies have been whining for decades they can't find people to fill jobs, including during recessions. Perhaps there's a reason for it.
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Companies that use these tactics...deserve not to find people to fill jobs. And a bad interview process...leads to a bad job.
Stand out and be confident (Score:5, Informative)
My take on interviewing is to stand out and be confident.
In every interview where I've had an offer I've done some act of confidence, where I acted like I owned the place, or already worked there. I tell people to pause because I need to get a bottle of water and walk off to the cafeteria without being shown the way, I respond to an uncomfortable question with one of my own, I ask insightful questions about the product. All this shows that I'm not afraid to stand up to people, politely, and challenge them on their beliefs and assumptions.
Example: After the inevitable "what would you consider your biggest flaw" I usually follow up with "what does your biggest competitor do better than this company?". I then explain that an interview works both ways, and while they are interviewing me, I am also interviewing them to see if they are a company I'd like to work for.
(Don't ask me why sewer caps are round, you'll totally get owned by my answer. :-)
Done politely, this has never failed. It makes you stand out, people remember you more than the meek supplicant for employment.
The other side is to cultivate some things that make you stand out. The best way to do this for the current audience is to contribute to open source, and as background I'll note that I just last month checked with an acquaintance who happens to be the ex-hiring manager for Red Hat and he concurred with my assessment: contribute to open source is one of 2 things that stand out on a resume. (The other one being passing cert exams.)
Find a subject you like, and then contribute to the 2nd most popular project in that field. The most popular project has a ton of people and probably few bugs, you can make a better contribution to the 2nd place project. Write lots of documentation, and use that to hone your writing skills. Once you're known in their system, you can transition into fixing bugs and little changes. Offer to rewrite a small section, that sort of thing.
When starting a company, the first thing to ask is "what is my product distinction?"; meaning, what is it about your product that makes it stand apart from other products? If you want to sell paper products, you don't sell printer paper because there's no reason for anyone to purchase your printer paper over anyone else's. If you sell specialized art paper, or printer paper that never tears, or have some notable distinction - that's something you can build a company on.
Consider yourself a company, ask yourself "what's my product distinction?", and make actual plans for your future jobs.
(NB: Out of college I listed "Galois theory" on my resume, and within the 1st year one company VP interviewer started a long conversation about abstract algebra and prime numbers. This was with "Prime Computer" back in the day. List your stand-out accomplishments, you never know which ones will lead somewhere.)
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a round sewer lid (sitting on a lip that is smaller than the lid) can't fall into the sewer hole.
e
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a round sewer lid (sitting on a lip that is smaller than the lid) can't fall into the sewer hole.
Is that the "correct" answer, because I think I would have gotten that wrong. I would have given a number of reasons. That one might have been at the bottom of my list or not mentioned at all since there's no reason you can't make the lip of a square or other shaped hole big enough that the cover is still wider on every dimension than the largest dimension, diagonal or otherwise, across the actual hole. When I saw the question, I mentally shuffled that one into the conditional reasons although I do grant t
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It takes a bit of thought: What's the problem with a hole, even though you want it there?
Caps are round so they can't fall into the hole. Every other shape has a diagonal larger than its side, allowing it to fit inside itself.
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There are an infinite number of 'constant diameter' shapes, of which the circle is the simplest. NONE of them will fall through an opening of the same shape that has a lip.
Circles are used because the are easy to make.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Sewer covers aren't all round. 95% of the sewer covers I ride my bike over are square so they can be effective on the road side. The question is bullshit because it has an assumption (see what I did there). A better question is, "what are the advantages of round manhole covers vs square?"
The owned answer (Score:2, Interesting)
Why are sewer caps round? (serious)
The answer "so they don't fall into the hole" is not the complete answer. Any polygon with an odd-number of sides won't fall into the hole, so you would also have to explain why sewer caps aren't triangular, or 5-sided.
In fact, many sewer caps in Japan are triangular, and many Roman caps (in stone) were rectangular. Google "Roman sewer caps" sometime.
The real, actual reason is that at the time sewers were being implemented the available methods of manufacturing were casting, turning, parting, and boring. Ma
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The purpose is to "wake them up", force them to actually think about the interview and pop them out of heuristic mode [wikipedia.org]. Get them to realize that you're actually paying attention, and they're not.
A question I found that really works for this is, "What are you looking for in the person for this job?" Instant wakeup call.
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Sewer caps?
Here they did a big hole, leave it for 6 weeks with some nice signs letting you know how sorry Thames water are for the inconvenience, then fill it in again then cover it work tarmac.
If you're lucky you might see a couple of men in high viz chatting next to a JCB, drinking tea.
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So much work to get something I don't want but need...
I'm slightly known in some online circles, but I certainly don't want any potential employer going around there (Not hiding it, its a "friends only" kind of thing). That means I'd need another online persona.
> contribute to the 2nd most popular project in that field
In addition to having a normal job (job hopping scenario) and maintaining a home? I like sports too. Coding is fun and all, but a few hours per day outside do me a lot more good.
Those acts
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Torture (Score:2)
Companies just like looking what they can get away with. Most managers just get a sadistic pleasure from it. Don't work for a company. I checked out long ago from going anywhere near these toxic environments. Maybe this is why they can not find any good people. People with self respect and half a brain will just not show up for such a futile exercise. It's obvious from corona that when everybody got used to work from home, nobody wanted to come back. Managers were in panic, how could they satisfy the insati
Who monetarily benefits from bureaucracy? (Score:2)
Follow the money.
Who personally profited from selling companies the idea these practices are profitable? Follow the money.
Don't play the game (Score:2)
I don't mind a chat with the hiring manager and maybe some peers or potential direct reports. However, if it becomes more than 3 or 4 calls and if there is any request for things like transcripts (I've been in the workforce for 20+ years), "tests" or "presentations" I thank them for considering me and tell them I'm no longer interested. The same goes for companies who say they are eager to hire and then drag their feet with feedback on a hiring decision. Life is too short.
These days I don't even consider
Find a better place to work (Score:2)
I blame recruiters for a large part (Score:2)
They misrepresent for personal gain. Most of them lie and cheat both ways. They lie to people looking for jobs, they lie to people looking for people.
1 hour including a technical test is enough (Score:2)
The only very important point is the technical ability test. I use a C driver source code. The candidate can ask any questions to analyze and explain the code. Then follow 4 tricky questions that only programmers that have delivered and understand real working code in that field can comfortably respond. The questions are accessible to candidates that start there carrier if there have enough motivation to have done some kind of relevant project.
This process work really well. Almost all candidates are doing g
Lack of feedback is my pet peeve with interviews (Score:2)
The lack of feedback is my pet peeve with interviews. I've had difficult and easy interviews, boring and exciting interviews, but they all take time--some more than others.
But what really makes me angry is the standard policy of many companies to give no feedback. They do this on the premise that the feedback doesn't help the candidate and hurts feelings.
I happen to know the feedback DOES help the candidate and, while feelings may be hurt, they are almost always constructive criticism and point out areas
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Works both ways. I don't give them any feedback either when I signed up with someone else.
Yes it is nuts (Score:5, Informative)
Over almost a half century of working I have had a fair amount of experience on both sides of the table. On the management side I have to say that it is catastrophically expensive to hire the wrong person.
I can understand why they want to be careful, but the present-day environment has taken it from "risk adverse" to "absolutely zero risk." It works about as well as zero-tolerance policies handed down from above usually do.
After I semi-retired my last position at CTO/VP level I thought that I could take a job somewhere several pay grades down and get back to the days when I wrote code for a living and working was more fun. So my resume went out at several of the major job posting sites.
Long story short: oh, fuck no.
Long story longer: The mostly automated resume sorting process absolutely does not know what to do with a candidate like me. And the tech interviews are often well meaning but totally lacking in perspective. And the insistence on coding tests is ridiculous and I'll admit that I suck at them. The skill to do those is admirable but it only represents capability of about 5-10% at most of what a full stack software engineer actually does.
Other people have ranted and raved on this subject that I will refrain from doing so further, but I never experience frustration quite like having my C coding skills evaluated by someone who wasn't even born for 15 years after I first started coding in C for a living.
But that doesn't matter. Corporations gotta do corporate stuff, and the order of the day is that HR-As-A-Service (harass) has to check all the boxes and "guarantee" that there is no risk for a given hire going forward. I wasted a year getting that proved to me, gave up, contacted a friend and got employed over the weekend. And he even paid for lunch.
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I never experience frustration quite like having my C coding skills evaluated by someone who wasn't even born for 15 years after I first started coding in C for a living.
This is why I hate coding tests. The required amount of humility is not a problem (or at least I can fake it well enough to continue the interview), but when the interviewers don't know what they are talking about, it gets really frustrating.
Third party companies are also to blame (Score:2)
Many companies starting in the late 90s started outsourcing their IT filtering to organizations like Taleo which had and IMO still has the worst algorithms for aligning a job description. If you didn't have all the buzzwords in your resume you were never passed along to a hiring manager for consideration. Resumes became TLA/Acronym garbage and key details dropped from resumes. Sadly, that trend has continued and Taleo is still around milking companies and frustrating job seekers worldwide.
Flash forward a co
Outsourced recruitment & D&I (Score:2)
HR staff need something to do (Score:2)
This sort of activity is great - as are all the diversity exercises etc etc. The more work they have, the more employees their department needs, which means the boss of HR gets an ever higher status.
I thought there was a terrrrible shortage of talen (Score:2)
Wasnt there supposed to be an oh so terrrrible shortage of talent? Which is why we need sooooo many H1b visas?
This kind of insane and disrespectful hiring process sounds more like there is an overwhelming, overflowing amount of candidates to choose from, not a shortage.
Not really (Score:2)
I've been interviewing and taking new jobs for 20 years... it's really not that bad. There are a couple outliers that are terrible and the rest are pretty much the same as they always were, because only FAANG puts a lot of effort into their hiring process.
Everybody does the same thing: talk to the hiring manager/recruiter, talk to the manager, talk to some people on the team, additional on-site if they like you, back to the hiring manager/recruiter for salary negotiation, you either get an offer or you don'
This happens to me all the time... (Score:2)
I have been applying to many many jobs in software development and IT here in Australia and most of the time I get nothing or at best some sort of email notification saying "your application for job xyz isn't going to proceed". Actually getting any human to even talk to me seems impossible.
And they say there is a shortage of IT workers here in Oz...
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Actually getting any human to even talk to me seems impossible.
It means you need to find a different way to apply for these jobs. Possibly try linkedIn (finding a suitable member of the company on linkedIn), or maybe some forums somewhere, or a different Job board. Basically, there is a way to get interviews with actual people, and figuring out how should be your first priority.
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Most of these jobs go through recruitment firms and the job ad doesn't even mention the actual company involved.
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ok use a different way to get in contact with them.
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Job interviews and introverts (Score:2)
Find a good recruiter (Score:2)
Yes, there are a lot of really bad recruiters out there. But it's totally worth it to work with a good recruiter. The entire experience is worlds better. You know in advance whether the salary being offered is what you're looking for. You get constant feedback about your status in the process. And no, you don't have to go through a dozen interviews, typically just 2-3. If you find a good recruiter, stick with them.
Why put up with it? (Score:2)
There are so many companies begging for programmers. There's no reason to put up with this nonsense. If a company starts jerking you around, you don't want to work for them anyway! Move on.
A bad interview process leads to a bad job (Score:2)
A good company knows that the interview process is the first impression a candidates gets of them. They want that experience to be as good as possible. After all, they WANT a good person to join their team! If they screw up the interview process, the company is going to be a hell hole once you get in. Don't go there! There are too many better options!
I must be lucky (Score:2)
Back when I ran my own company, I almost always decided to hire someone or not hire them after one interview. For non-technical positions, my sales person would interview them first and then I'd have a quick meeting with them afterwards. But never more than two interviews, ever.
The last three jobs I had were each obtained after a single interview. I did go through the interview process at Canonical in between jobs, and that was an absurd cluster-fuck. I had to write an essay, take two online tests, an
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It used to be "one and done." Either you want me or you don't. If you can't make that decision, why am I even talking to you?
It's like any other kind of purchase - I know what I want, I go look at it, and it's either "fine, I'll take it", "what else can you recommend", or "nope, ultimately not what I expected."
Shitty management that is trying to get the absolute max of what they perceive as "value" playing games are wasting way too many people's time, because THEIR employees need to justify their jobs
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I have no problem with recruiters, in my line of work it's pretty much mandatory for a company to use them because it's a very specialized skill set and most companies don't exactly know how to shake down an applicant for his skill level. Frankly, I'd rather talk with a recruiter who can tell me in no uncertain terms what they want and what is expected from me than with some HR goon who can't turn on a computer without causing a major security incident but thinks they can interview a security specialist.
I e
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This is one of the three best comments in these comments, and deserves upvotes.
My experience has been that it's a mixture of apathy and poor execution by the hiring managers. In some cases ouright malpractice by the in-house recruiters (who apparently have no incentives). My experience with third-party recruiters is (because they get paid based on results) they're the most motivated and best working people in this whole process, exceeding even the applicants.
A few examples I know of: delaying the job postin
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I have no problem with recruiters.
I do, because they are, by and large, useless and clueless, for the most part just wasting one's time.
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I actually "fired" a recruiting company over a job at Microsoft that was on offer. I was a single parent at the time, my kid living with me full time, and this recruiter kept on trying to sell me on this position so I decided to look into it. We discussed the role, but she kept on being cagey about the nature of the pay and wouldn't spill the beans on how the interview process would go. The position was in Redmond, but I was living in southern California at the time, so I just figured the interviews would b
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Those males should be creative enough to band together and benefit from unity..
First it's necessary to admit you have enemies. Never permit yourself to be naive, childish or submissive and always hold those traits (and your enemies who promote them) in contempt. Human nature demands effective aggression as a condition of survival.
Everything your enemies want you not to be is to your advantage. Examine why.
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Unlike say, this survey that shows a 2-1 anti-male bias:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1418878112
Fuck the feminazis.
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Hmm. I get headhunted, three times successfully so far, Just last year I've been asked by 3 different company principals if I'd be interested in working for them.
But no, no patents. I work in a specialised field where we don't generally do patents. Telling competitors what we're up to doesn't seem like a smart move.