If you want a really big competitive advantage, figure out how to hire great people who don't interview well.
Your objection is of course valid - extra workload on top of a normal job probably has its limits. But the fact one is willing to pay those who are willing to be paid for such an interview doesn't suddenly make it a strict requirement ha.
I must say though, I also view the interview standard I've faced - quick phone screen, 1h tech screen, 4-6h onsite (probably online now) - as adding up to a lot of time very quickly, especially as the "onsite" time is of course awkward when it means you take PTO to go to an interview. In this sense, I'd probably rather have an ~8-12h coding task than a 4-6h onsite. Maybe even a higher factor
Not wanting to do an extra project is the second part of this problem - the best people already have jobs and aren't looking, so they're not going to spend all their free time working on high-effort job applications.
For a business the cost to make the hire is the same, the time commitment is much less and the candidate fit is more accurate
My entire interview process for BigTech was only six hours and because of Covid, it was fully remote.
When I was looking for a job in 2016 locally, I emailed a bunch of local external recruiters and was juggling eight or nine openings. I did six phone screens in one day from different companies.
I was no special snowflake. Anyone who could call themselves a “full stack developer” with 5 years of experience could do the same thing. Heck, I didn’t know any of the $coolkids front end frameworks.
The process was the same - one phone screen, a half day in person where you spoke about your past projects, maybe did a coding test that was barely above FizzBuzz level of complexity and show that you know SQL.
A local full stack developer who had any kind of experience could get the “right now” job within a month if they weren’t being picky.
Of course post-Covid, things are different.
So either way. If you are looking for framework developers (no insult intended - that’s what I was as a developer until recently) the process is easy if you’re any good. If you are looking for “smart people” (tm). They are able to do the leetCode monkey dance. Who is left that is willing to spend hours doing take home tests? All of the best candidates know how to play one game or the other.
I've used this process to help place entry level all the way to C-Level -- maybe I've not provided enough details (it's more than just a simple test) or maybe you're over-simplifying the process?
It's not a perfect process (hiring in general is still looking for that) and clearly it's not the right process for you.
I'm happy you found a job you enjoy.
Solutions Architect - answer the soft skill questions aka “tell me about a time when..” and they had to do a writing sample either a sales blog post or an SOW.
Project Manager - same soft skill questions, talk about processes, previous challenges and outcomes. Maybe do a simplified project plan.
Are those the types of take home tasks you are referring to for non developer roles? Just curious.
SOW also seems tricky... I'm usually putting out 27+ SOWs, and there is a lot of "standard language" cut-n-paste.
But just think about all of those business people that want free work and to hire people that are willing to throw themselves in to the project for no extra comp. /s
I agree.. also that sets boundaries.
So they spend more time and cash on the traditional method...then complain about a lack of talent. Resume keyword filters and non-technical recruiters are a (not) surprising waste.
I've seen great devs intern twice at the same company while in college and spend several years there as full time right after graduating, only jumping ships when a friend at an other company specifically reached out.
They are essentially invisible to any recruiters.
But those interns were interviewed, no doubt.
Not to mention, having a family, I don't have a ton of time to study for the gauntlet decent tech companies put in place to vet candidates.
As for personal projects? See lack of time above. I'm lucky to get an hour a week to work on something I actually enjoy. Forget about building something unique/useful/worth public launch in any kind of reasonable time. Also, let's not forget the fun non-compete/anything you build while employed with X is owned by X clauses.
Hiring in general is broken. In tech it just seems amplified.
My first job all open positions went to Jon (last name hid), if he handed a name that person was called in, the interview was reverse, unless you really did something stupid you had the job, the purpose of the interview was to convince you to take it. If Jon didn't know anyone a head hunter was called for a 6 month contract, with option to hire if we liked you. So moral of this story is know Jon.
Where I work now we train people on how to put you at ease. It works okay, I think.
Luckily my current and last position didn't require any kind of mental gymnastics (my soft skills are great in terms of software engineers), but I'm still wondering what lies behind those gates kept locked by technical trivia and tricky buzzword algorithms that send CVs to the void before a human ever sees them.
My current situation is a bit different than previous (trying to transition tech stacks and job titles now) so the nerves are a bit different. The anxieties are just as real as before though, albeit the payoffs are higher with the new goals. Guess you could call em game day jitters.
Your interview process sounds improved over traditional corporate style interviews. My last employer had similar tactics (put the interviewee at ease, casual conversation), and it led to the best 18 months I've had in my career yet.
And, amazingly enough, you find those people generally become quite good.
I guess it would still be something of a competitive advantage though if you were a great person who got hired despite interviewing poorly you might be more grateful than those who interview well.
But anyway I don't know that anyone has the stats on how many great people interview poorly - I would of course only put myself as average, albeit lucky, and I interview poorly half the time but some times I interview really well, for some reason, and when it clicks like that I get the job. So I assume if there is hope for as bad an interviewee as myself there must be hope for all the other poor interviews out there.
It sounds like you're making it a zero sum game. Isn't it reasonable to assume that you could create an interview process that does well for both parties rather than one that is exclusionary? Isn't the issue with the current interviewing practices is that it is exclusionary and doesn't assess people correctly?
If every variation of interviewing people try seems to lead to a sub-optimal zero-sum game I worry that interviewing is zero-sum and what one should try to do is to work the optimization angle. but like I said - cynic.
The opposite is a great interviewer. They will have an even better resume. Rarely are the best workers but can somehow stage what little they do into looking like a top performer. Will likely move on when the going gets tough.
Certainly helps to find great talent and build a cohesive team.
Also tends to perpetuate our biases, create cliques and echo chambers. Makes it harder for new talent to break in.
When I build my teams, I try to balance referrals with newly sourced talent far outside my network.
Once you've been involved in hiring you see why a company will pass on a likely good candidate to avoid a maybe bad experience. In the longer term it's way less work.
Of course I want to hire people for their technical and professional judgement. That's the whole point of the interview process: to attempt to measure technical knowledge and its application (ie- judgement). It's hard, but we have to try.
But if we google "bias in hiring [1]," all the results are around prejudices that have nothing to do with their performance on the job. In this context, bias means discrimination against certain genders, races, religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds and so on.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt: perhaps you are unfamiliar with the generally understood definition of bias when talking about hiring practices.
Alternatively, you're selectively and intentionally feigning misunderstanding to advance a position that such prejudice and discrimination is acceptable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...
That's the major factor but I guess if one tries hard enough they can see the angels dancing on the head of a needle. Why would they dismiss it in the 2nd paragraph to come up with some holier-than-thou babble.
Of course, and then one could do some math and figure out that in a graph where 75% of nodes are X and 25% are Y and random relationships occur, the average Y will have a higher proportion of X friends than the average X will have of Y friends. ? Where does one jump from this to some kind of moral argument?
It's like saying the avg kitesurfers has more non-kitesurfer friends than the avg non-kitesurfer has kitesurfer friends.
F*, this grouping and deindividuation of people that the American left has degenerated to, has truly has become a post-modern religion with it's requisite self-flagelation and utopic symbolism.
This isn’t a novel observation. People live by people that look like them when they are voluntarily choosing who to socialize with, they socialize with people that look like them. I’m not making any value judgments.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Kids-Sitting-Together-Cafeteria...
https://tcf.org/content/report/attacking-black-white-opportu...
https://tcf.org/content/report/attacking-black-white-opportu...
But, even if you look beyond racial lines, how many 25 year old singles hang out with 45 year old married people? It even happens in reverse. My former manager was trying to build a department of developers in a remote office. After he got one or two good hires using the standard recruiting process, all the rest came from referrals.
No one in our office of 10 developers were under 35. How much different would the median age have been if he hadn’t used referrals?
Learn how to evaluate people on their skills, rather than your own personal belief on how a problem should be solved. Understand how someone is thinking and approaching a problem, instead of a yes/no checkbox. Be able to determine what a candidate's strengths are and how you can best utilize them, rather than how to fit them into a pigeonholed role you have imagined.