I recently wrapped up a job search, and it occurred to me just now that in each of my job searches since finishing undergrad I’ve ended up at the company with the least painful hiring process. That’s not something I’ve intentionally tried to optimize for, but apparently I weight it pretty heavily.
What’s really interesting is that this time around I ended up in a US federal position that I cold-applied for, over private sector positions for which I was being actively recruited. You’d think startups would be able to do better than the most bureaucratic organization in the history of our species, but no, they insisted on 5+ rounds of interviews and 8-hour “take home” exercises.
For what it’s worth, my previous employer was a startup, I applied on a Friday afternoon and had a written offer in hand on the Monday morning 6 business days later.