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I interviewed with a company a few months back who did something somewhat similar. I emailed my resume and application and received a text from their HR manager about a phone interview. The HR guy called me and I had an over one hour phone interview. After a couple of weeks, they called me back for an in person interview. That took another two hours. Then they had me do a skills quiz, which took another hour. Although I passed all these steps, I still hadn't gotten an offer from them, and I was losing patience with their extended hiring process. It was a part time job without benefits, I had a lot of experience (medical,) and I had always been hired quickly before. A few days later, the HR guy called me for a working interview, which would take part or all of a day, and if I passed this test, "a final offer would be considered." I told them nicely that they should have decided whether I was a good fit by now and that I was not interested in the position anymore. I got another offer a couple of days later from their competitor across the street, and they required only one interview.
Slow hiring is bad for companies. They may think they are choosing the best candidates through extended screening times, but it's just the opposite. If they make candidates jump through hoop after hoop and sit on them, contemplating every angle, they will be hired by someone else first. The only ones left are mediocre, unqualified, or downright bad candidates. For example, let's say J.J. Watt wanted to join a new football team and was sending out feelers to various coaches. Any team with an ounce of sense would hire him quickly before anyone else does. They wouldn't put him through endless drills and practice sessions trying to decide if they wanted him on board or someone else would hire him first.
I cringe each time I think of this story about a friend of mine. They flew him in for an interview and when he arrived, the hiring manager he was to interview with wasn't available they told him. Said "He was too busy" to see him. He ended up being interviewed by someone in another department that didn't even know exactly what the job was about or understand his background. As you can expect, there was no follow-up from them. What was going on? Who knows, but that's amazingly rude to bring someone in and the excuse is they are too busy to meet with you, and push you off to just anybody to fill the time. Maybe they were using him just to show they interviewed someone else for the job when they already had someone in mind.
This is why I always encourage people to report problems like this to Glassdoor to warn others.
Couldn't they have just picked up Joe Average off the street and interviewed him if this was a dog and pony show to begin with
Instead they dropped $600 for a round trip Delta flight
Couldn't they have just picked up Joe Average off the street and interviewed him if this was a dog and pony show to begin with
Instead they dropped $600 for a round trip Delta flight
They work with travel agencies half of the time. Its money they already spent. That is why they dont mind spending round trip air fare just to waste people's time
We know just about all of the big companies do them. They invite you to one of their campus where you spend the entire day being drilled endlessly by interviewing pairs. They will even be nice enough to buy you lunch sometimes. I've had my share of "marathon interviews", and I personally think they suck.
A few weeks ago I travelled out of town for an interview. Its was an all day interview for a fairly small company. I am no stranger to all day interviews, as I've had quite a few in my career even at 3 of the top 4 tech companies. So I'm familiar with this format. But I think the issue with these interviews is by the end of the day you're just fatigued. Also these day long interviews seem to be consistently unfocused. This is because they ask people who are otherwise busy to come in and conduct the interviews. So you get a lot of disinterest right away, with people checking slack messages during the interview, or even replying to emails.
I've also felt that I've been brought to some of these interviews to share my ideas with the team for free. It's one thing to be asked general or basic questions just to get a good handle of your thought process or skillset. But I've been asked to scale databases with very specific constraints in interviews. I've even been asked to solution problems on the spot that were VERY specific. I almost feel like I've been brought into some companies for a day just to solve their problems for them. I've even been asked to design a data migration strategy on the spot. I mean some of these questions have no specific answers because they're very business logic and environmental specific.
I've definitely found "solve our problems for us in this interview" mentality very much persistent at startups. At larger companies it's definitely not as bad. But the interview process is draining nonetheless.
Interviewing and job searches are already a pretty draining process within themselves. Especially when your skillset is in high demand. You can be taking anywhere between 5-7 interviews in a week. And onsite/all day interviews doesn't help when it comes to burnout. Let's not even get into how much more of a drain it is when you already have a job, and are just looking to make a change.
I personally am not a fan. I think a panel interview for about an hour or maybe 2 should be fine. I think it has the same effect if not better than scattered day long interviews. But what are you opinions.
You didn't tell us what kind of job you were applying for. It makes a difference.
I would expect a long interview if the position was high-paying, a critical high level one. The panel would want to see how you handle situations you would be expected to do on the job. Critical thinking, social skills, mannerisms, etiquette, wardrobe, handling stress and pressure, and even annunciation and vocabulary.
Personally I don't agree that an applicant should have to sit across the table from more than 2 interviewers.
That is going too far in any high level or entry level interview.
Slow hiring is bad for companies. They may think they are choosing the best candidates through extended screening times, but it's just the opposite. If they make candidates jump through hoop after hoop and sit on them, contemplating every angle, they will be hired by someone else first.
A friend of mine interviewed with a large company where the job inquiry came from a headhunter (as in they make a commission of like 20% of your annual salary if you take the job). He setup this phone interview and got him all pumped up for this thing. Weeks later big phone interview takes place and it goes well. He then hears nothing. Not from the company and not from the headhunter either. Meanwhile a week later he accepted a great job elsewhere.
An entire month goes by, and he gets a voicemail from the headhunter about how impressed his client was with the phone interview and they want to move forward to the next step. He calls back and leaves a voicemail for the headhunter that he accepted a job elsewhere. He played back the voicemail from the headhunter, the guy leaves a message sounding like he is heartbroken that he took another job and asked, "Call me back and just help me understand how this happened?".
The headhunter didn't even follow-up after the first phone interview, nothing for a month, and then seems surprised and disappointed that my friend wasn't just sitting there waiting for the next step. Unreal. How many times do companies do exactly this and you never hear from them again.
Couldn't they have just picked up Joe Average off the street and interviewed him if this was a dog and pony show to begin with
Instead they dropped $600 for a round trip Delta flight
The cost for it doesn't come out of management's pocket, so they don't care what it cost the company. If this was a small company, they would care about the costs because it comes out of the owner's pocket. A large place has a budget for interviews and if it isn't spent, it isn't like the hiring manager gets a bigger bonus because of it.
You can't interview just anyone off the street for a job, it has to be someone who is qualified to show they considered others. Regardless of their reasons, it's just rude and a waste of people's time. This is why I continue to encourage people to post to the company's Glassdoor entry.
You didn't tell us what kind of job you were applying for. It makes a difference.
I would expect a long interview if the position was high-paying, a critical high level one. The panel would want to see how you handle situations you would be expected to do on the job. Critical thinking, social skills, mannerisms, etiquette, wardrobe, handling stress and pressure, and even annunciation and vocabulary.
Personally I don't agree that an applicant should have to sit across the table from more than 2 interviewers.
That is going too far in any high level or entry level interview.
It really makes no difference these days. They treat everything as if it were critical. They don't need to be C-level jobs. They think nothing of having a couple of phone interviews and two rounds of interviews in-person for a job through a staffing firm which is still a temporary job. A neighbor just went through this exact thing, and they took 2 months to hire him as a W2 contractor. After a couple of weeks I asked him how things are going, and he told me he's under pressure at the job because they are behind schedule even before he got there. I said, "Maybe they should have hired you right away instead of spending 2 months on it." He smiled and said "Yeah, no s**t!". But he gets time and a half for overtime, so he doesn't really care as much.
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