Dear hiring teams,
First of all, I know you are doing your best. You're doing what you're told and working hard to fulfill all the hiring needs of your company. You're doing this with little budget, changing priorities and little support from leaders. You're powering through tough conversations both internally and externally. You're putting on a smile through hard days to welcome new members of the team and recruit new candidates for the team.
Your work often goes unnoticed, but it is an important work!
With respect for your position in mind, let's talk about the need to reform interview processes.
With the expansion of remote work, and with that, the explosion of the job market, there are so many candidates that interview processes needed to intensify. There needed to be a time with a learning curve of how to handle the influx of candidates. Due to covid and the growth of technology, hiring teams needed to figure out how to handle the influx of resumes.
For a time.
The interviews are getting out of hand.
I have heard from several people who have done 6 interviews, a project and a personality test. They prepare for hours, plus the hours for interviews and project prep.
Then, they are not offered a job or compensated for their time.
It seems that a lengthy interview process has become a point of pride for a company.
"We rake them over the coals! They have to PROVE themselves to work here!"
Full stop.
Or partial stop, at least. If you are going to require multiple interviews, projects and tests, you need to compensate for the time the candidates take to apply to your company. Especially the candidates that get close.
I recently went viral on Instagram for a post I made about how getting a job these days is like performing an intense gymnastic routine. I'm glad it went viral, but it's also just SAD that so many people related to it.
It is so difficult to get a job these days.
We are living in a time with technology that can help you weed out candidates BEFORE 6 interviews and multiple tests.
Bring your hiring process to the 21st century and use LinkedIn, prerecorded video interviews for screening, quick answer questions they can fill out over email, there are so many options.
I don't care how much you tout "We want to protect our culture, so we have an intense interview process", first of all, it's not working. People can be great interviewers and still harm the culture once they start and second, it is just unnecessary.
I'm calling for a reform for interviews. Two interviews max. Maybe a quick take home test or screening.
The direct manager is honestly one of the only people who needs to interview the candidate.
Again, with so much respect for the hiring teams, work together with your leadership and get these interviews in control.
Sincerely,
A former hiring manager
P.S. Think of all the great things you can do with your time at work if you're not coordinating 182 schedules and interviews per week!
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