I definitely appreciate the sentiment that everyone should negotiate in good faith, but until you are in front of your future manager and they explain very clearly what the job entails (whether virtual or in person), nothing is to be believed.
Wasting a company's time and money is something they already accept. If they didn't, they would optimize their process for minimal time spent.
It's not ridiculous in my opinion to want to talk to (and ask questions of) a potential candidate.
If you don't like interviews, I would look into contracting, as companies generally take on contractors very easily.
I would remove multi round interviews with 7 different people and multiple calls backs. The in-person interview should be one and done, just like a music audition.
Why? Because a company can fire me on day one if they want. The idea that we should put $10,000 worth of man hours into screening someone before they begin working, when employees are still legally interchangeable seems kind of like a charade to me.
Employees don't like to see their colleagues fired quickly, but if it's for a deserving reason (candidate couldn't do the things they said they could do in interview) then the team really will move on quickly.
When you're paying out $120,000 a year for people to flip bits, the team accepts that turnover might occur a little bit more frequently that corporate middle management.
Job safety is insanely strong here, if you pass probation it's extremely unlikely you can be fired. Even if your job is not required anymore there is a "first-in-last-out" policy which would mean anyone hired after you would have to go first.
So there is huge financial incentive to ensure you only hire the right people.
Maybe programmers in Cali are able to negotiate different contracts. But like 95% of non-state workers can be fired instantly I imagine in the US.
Cheers!!
Having good candidates not join is a massive pain. We call them heartbreakers. They come in, show you a great time, maybe a hint of things getting serious, then nothing.
However, your HR department should be able to sniff out a good percentage of non serious people at the door step. Mindless interviews, with little to no prep is fairly easy to spot.
As for the cost argument, again, HR filter, coding test & video conference filter should get rid of most. Thats about 2-4 hours of our people's time. any more than that and you either have too many people wasting time, or your interview are too long and gruelling. (excluding candidate sourcing.)
having said all that, you shouldn't sit and rot at the same company, if you are not enjoying yourself.
^ 100% this, actually the cost is probably understated.
I spend 2-3hrs reviewing a candidate's CV/resume before giving the go-ahead to Recruitment to schedule an interview, then there's the interviews which are about an hour each.
Then there's the on-site, which is a stage you'd want to get to, even if you're interviewing to practice.
So, for 3 members of my team it's roughly 3hrs + recruiters time (scheduling consumes so much time) and they have to negotiate with central HQ what salary range we can offer a person for their experience/subjective "goodness".
All-in-all I can easily see it taking more than a week of person-power for a single candidate.
Spending 3 man-weeks finding the right candidate is an easy win over spending 3 hours finding the wrong one and 12 weeks training, remedying bad behaviors, and building a case for termination.
1) I'm not just reading your resume, I'm checking any links you've put out (so, checking GitHub contributions if that's listed). If you're credited in something then I'm going to check the team size you were in- basically I'm going to try my best to figure out what questions I would ask you in an interview. (IE; how do you prefer priorities to be raised, do you prefer to work alone or with heavy collaboration).
Generally I find it helpful to have targeted questions in meetings, because meetings are hugely expensive in terms of attention and time. And an interview is really just a meeting with an external person where the topic is the background and prowess of the external person.
2) 12 weeks in training is actually more like 6months in my current position. It's complicated.
3) I live/work in Sweden, probation is 6months, but termination after that is _basically_ impossible. We had someone who's job was basically not being done in any way- it took more than a year before we could terminate their employment. Which is quite expensive if you hire the wrong candidate. (In that case, we were lax in hiring because that particular position wasn't exactly senior, and due to that they were able to pass probation because they looked like they were learning)
Anyway, a cursory glance can be enough to say "yes I want to talk" but an in-depth review of a CV is something I consider to be mandatory before I actually hold the interview.
I spend between 30 seconds to 2 minutes reading a resume before deciding to pass or to schedule a 30 minute phone screen.
I think there's something to this ('corporations are people too my friend!' one might say :) ). But I feel differently when speaking to recruiters, if I'm looking. Ultimately they're paid to get interviews. I assume their metrics are like any sales team's: get interviews, convert at least some of them to paid positions. I can't see how I'm wasting a recruiter's time if there's any chance at all that I'd take the job.
If I was interviewing for a job, it would probably take 6-8 hours across finding the job listing, parsing the requirements and responsibilities, and researching the company. So maybe $600-$800 total plus disrupting my schedule. Plus maybe another $1000 in travel expenses.
Asking random interviewers to spend that time just so I could feel good about my company would make me a low-key sociopath.
Snark aside, companies have a huge upper hand over potential employees right now (especially when an employee is out of work and needs the job). Anything that tips the scale back toward the employee is a net positive. Regardless, I don't think many employees have the time to spare to interview for 3 jobs a year.
I don't think anybody would defend that practice, so what makes it OK if I'm doing it myself by leading on some company that I don't want to work at?
It's "interview at 3 companies to find out if the job opportunity is better than the job you currently have, and if so, jump ship."
If I was interviewing a candidate, it would take probably two man-days total across all the interviewers, HR, etc. So maybe $1500 total plus disrupting everybody's schedules. Plus maybe another $1000 in travel expenses.
Asking 3 random companies to spend that every year just so I could feel good about my employability would make me a low-key sociopath.