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Comment by pelasaco | Hacker News Reader

I went to a similar process to work in the company that I always dreamed to work on:

- First interview, HR: 30 minutes

- Second round, Code test: 3 hours, I passed

- Third round: Interview with my possible manager (30 minutes), I passed. Then I was informed there were 2 more rounds (a system engineer interview, and a diversity manager). 1 hour each, fine. We can do it.

Then out of the blue, I get an email from another HR employee saying that they are testing a new hiring process and now I would have to go through a 2 x 90 minutes pair programming session, with two different engineers, then talk with one engineering manager, then the diversity one, then if everything went well, I would get a job offer (until this point, we didn't even talk about money).. So, basically I'm just giving up on that. It makes me actually sad, because I invested so much energy in the code test, understanding the product, reading actually part of the source code of the product, to come to the meeting with my possible manager as well prepared as possible.. In the end I had the impression that the hiring manager wanted me in the team, but the second HR person didn't really care about it. I was just one more task in his TODO list.

EDIT:

And actually my question to HN would be: Should I inform the hiring manager why I'm giving up on that?

View on HN

...and then they are surprised with "The Great Resignation" and that people don't want to get hired anymore and that they gave up.

I remember a time when I would go to an interview and be asked the following questions:

   Interviewer: Do you want to work?
   Me: Yes, of course!
   Interviewer: You like learning new things?
   Me: Always.
   Interviewer: Is it OK to start on Monday?
   Me: Sure thing (!), why not?
   Interviewer: Welcome to FooExample.
   Me: Thank you very much; see you on Monday.

Honestly that was it, nothing complicated, nothing fancy.

If a candidate didn't seem competent or effective for a position, by the end of the week warning signs were given to them and if they weren't honest with their management, by the end of the month they were let go; as simple as that.

The total number of employees used for the interview cost more than hiring one candidate for one month, don't they understand nor see that?

I think this is kind of related to that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28031782

Now that you said it, I remember my first job interview as well. 1999, Linux administrator in an ISP.

- Can you setup a ppp connection on Linux via terminal (I did it, using minicom)

- My future manager and partner (I ended up becoming a partner in the ISP, and technical director, some years later), gave me a sendmail book, and asked me to restrict the relay on sendmail using the book. I did it.

I was hired, and spent the next years of my life, setting routes on cisco routers and managing some linux and freebsds in a small ISP. It was a great school.

So here's the difference now. Back in the 90s, absolutely no one went into computing for the money, or the job prospects.

Only people deeply interested in computing did. They gravitated toward it, it was fun, they had an aptitude for it.

These days, people enter the field for cash, or because they are mildly interested and it is the best option, out of other mildly interesting things.

There is a vast difference between these two classes of candidates. Note, I am not saying that there are no younger employees that fit #1, but merely that they are far outnumbered by those barely able to perform the job.

Everyone was self taught in the day, when I started there was no internet to help me, and places like stack overflow came much, much later.

If something didn't work, I had to figure it out, no one could help. I had to look at sources, read entire books, learn how to debug, learn debugging tools, etc, etc.

Meanwhile, most modern candidates want cash cash cash, and if you ask them use your tool chain, they're pissed.

On top of that, I have seen endless candidates come out of College with zero ability for analytical thinking. It's only rote work for them.

Without frameworks, sql abstraction, and 100 other crutches, a rote worker cannot do this work.

This, I think, is why modern interview processes are so absurd. There's good money now, so naturally everyone wants the job.

This leads to the follow up, which is that rote workers are now looking to hire other rote workers. And thus, a rote workers do, they ape other company's processes.

They try to hire like google, even thought they are tiny in size, or, even though the type of work is different.

Exactly. In 1999, I just wanted to experiment. My first salary was like 500 bucks. The IT/software development world was boring. I remember telling my father, territory manager at IBM, that I would never be like him and he telling me that I should invest my time on Windows NT and Visual Basic because Linux would never get anywhere.. we were both totally wrong.

Interestingly, in 1999 my father worked at Microsoft on the Windows NT kernel but at home he had a Linux server and taught me to install Debian from floppy disks.

The irony to me is it seems the current interview process stands to filter out the people who are genuinely interested in tech and learning and caters to people who google "tech interview questions for X."

FWIW I would never sit for any interview that was multi-tier over several hours. I'm fortunate in that I have a pretty good network and everyone in my network would hire me if they had a spot open. I haven't cold-interviewed since probably 2012 and that was on a whim for iPhone dev work (I had released 3 fairly successful but not life changing apps already). I ended the process when they wanted me to write code over Thanksgiving because I hadn't already written enough code to their satisfaction. That company is now out of business.

I do remember a take home project given to me over Christmas, with a serious expectation that I not take more than 48 hours.

Oh, and my favorite one, a ‘pop-quiz’ take home test. They wouldn’t tell me what time they were sending it, and just suddenly sent it. I mean they told me what day, but they wouldn’t say what time. So I had to sit around and just wait for hours and ‘bam’ there was the email with a time limit given.

Can’t make this shit up. There’s truly something uniquely douchey about tech hiring that I can’t exactly put my finger on. It’s either some tacky attempt by startups, or in a similar vein, a tacky attempt by larger orgs. Douchey is the only word that comes to mind.

i have a good network too and they all now work at FAANG like companies, and want to hire me, to do domain specific work. But have no power to do direct hiring. So it varies really.

A lot of companies lack confidence and experience, so they cargo-cult processes from companies they view as big+successful. In the tech world, it's FAANG or MAANG or whatever the acronym is these days.

It's a bit like shops adopting Kubernetes for their tiny startup with 100 max concurrent users when Heroku would do the job just fine.

or some years ago, when people were forcing hadoop to biggy data easily queryable with traditional SQL.

Or people forcing SQL when CGI endpoints executing bat files querying Excel documents on a network drive is fine.

Somehow cheap hacks is frowned apon but if you use stupidly complex systems then, ye, you have to be competent and doing best practice or something. Just spread the mess out over multiple layers of abstraction and no-one will realize it is bad ...

> Or people forcing SQL when CGI endpoints executing bat files querying Excel documents on a network drive is fine.

I'm not sure if you are trolling or not, but I can imagine that some power plants around the world do it :)

Heh ye well I am exaggerating alot.

My point is KISS in the amount of knowledge required to do something, not just the implementation complexity.

E.g. on my last job we were really machine engineers doing some c programming. Good luck establishing fancy pancy workflows. Instead of trying to use relative paths and setup env variables for dependencies we just all had the same version controlled folder on c:\ with everything in it. And it is fine.

Querying Excel files doesn't sound easy, though. SQL is not that hard. Though easiest would probably be a Ruby-on-Rails-like framework that just sets up your basic CRUD-stuff for you.

Sure. It was meant as an exaggerated joke, but I mean the point (with a bad example). You would probably need to write some VBA to query the excel doc, which is not easier then using SQL.

Companies are being picky that shouldn't be picky.

I think the shortest interview I ever had was:

    Interviewer: Hi there. Wait. I was just called for an emergency. I am really sorry, but I have to go.
    Me: Oh dear. I hope everything is okay.
    Interviewer: Thanks. Again, sorry. Talk soon. Bye.

The next day by e-mail:

    Interviewer: When can you start?

That lead to a great working relationship. The current age is indeed ridiculous.

Is this only the case in the US, or also in other countries? I live in Netherland, and haven't seen anything like those neverending interviews. Then again, I work as freelancer[0], and most projects just take one or two interviews, and they're mostly about what the project is about and what kind of developer I am.

[0] Except for the past year, when I took a pay cut to continue working on a project I loved as an employee after starting that project as freelancer. That didn't really require an interview, just stiff negotiations (which got me nowhere, hence the pay cut).

Email the hiring manager, tell him you have a number of other firms who are ready to go, but you thought there was some good chemistry between you, and that he needs to act immediately if he wants you. When he throws an offer at you ask for 20% extra and see if you meet him at 10%.

If he can't swing HR or the salary, you don't want to work for a wet noodle and you've now dodged a bullet.

> you've now dodged a bullet.

This is a key point that too many of us lose sight of. Getting into a bad relationship is never a positive. When you're (semi) stuck in a bad relationship you'll struggle to find the time and energy to pursue a better relationship.

great answer! I had to check your profile to be sure that you weren't my dad (that's the kind of answer he would give me) :)

Haha thanks.

But seriously, when you get an offer, test it. If it falls apart as soon as you try to negotiate anything, run away. This is even if it's your dream job that you think you'll never need to change and pays you way more than you wanted, because if you do like I say and you lose it, you don't lose anything.

Porcelain jobs are the worst.

"until this point, we didn't even talk about money" I wont even go in for an interview unless I know the salary. It's a waste of time otherwise as you and the business may be miles apart. Almost all my jobs are through recruiters. My process is recruiter sends me an email (I get ~15 a week currently) and if the job looks interesting, I respond, say it looks interesting and ask the salary. If they don't give it on the reply I am done. If the salary is too low, I thank them and wish them well. I work for money and nothing else and don't want to waste anyone's time including my own. If this is your first job, still entry level or out of work, I completely understand not asking as you are just looking for a gig.

100% Agree. I'll take the initial phone screening, learn more about the role and the team, but the last question I always have is something along the lines of: "I know you're extremely so in an attempt to not waste anyones time whats the salary range? This way we're all on the same page before moving forwards"

I have never gotten a recruiter that doesn't tell me the salary when I do this.

Depends how generous you're feeling, but it might give the hiring manager ammunition to try to get the process changed.

IMHO That third round should have been rolled into one longer session (no more than 2 hours). Anything any more convoluted than that is just eating the candidate's time because your processes are bad. Then adding more hurdles... nah.

Companies so often miss that you can have a probation period, try someone out in the role, which will give you a much better idea of how it's going to work than selecting for people who will tolerate your byzantine hiring oddyssey

That's actually very typical on site interview for a non-faang North American company right now. You spend a whole day with them and then get a no... And actually they didnt hire anyone for months (based on linkedin insights)

I’ve seen this several times now: “everyone loved you and we just decided that now is not the right time to hire for this role” then for the next three months the same exact job is a promoted listing floating on my LinkedIn home page right margin.

Yeah and also a couple of startups continue posting for months in the Who Hiring thread but checking their profile on LinkedIn they are not growing. I understand that there is a need to show outward success but just post the positions on your careers page and simply don't interview people. Or they simply looking for core Rails contributor who is ok with 50,000USD/year

"Pay is bad but we'll make you jump extra hoops to get it"

I wonder if this isn't to document the requirement for H-1B visas that they tried to find a local candidate but were unable.

https://nearshoreamericas.com/us-makes-h1b-visa-harder-obtai...

Wouldn't it be hysterical if the hiring process all these companies are cargo-culting was actually designed to not hire people so H-1Bs could be used.

Well, they assume you are a lemon. This is why the job market has basically collapsed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

"until this point, we didn't even talk about money"

Big mistake. For years I was desperate for a job (STEM PhD). Now it would be my first question to ask. And I ask this on the phone before I would even bother to go for an interview. But again, now I don't need your shitty job. Chances are, you need me more than I need you.

I remember when I talk to a company once on the phone. Besides that I did not really like the salary, I realized I would not be able to do the job since it was basically two jobs and their chances of success were much slimmer then they were assuming. Didn't bother to go on. But the HR guy said, please apply, worst thing that can happen is that we don't hire you. WRONG. Worst thing that can happen is that I get treated disrespectful in an interview and that I waste time. Most companies value your time with zero.

And if you applied already you ask in the first phone interview why they think you are suited for the job. You would be surprised how many people have you come in without ever having looked at your resume and then tell you that you are not a good fit based on your resume in the interview. It is basically the first time they look at it.

> WRONG. Worst thing that can happen is that I get treated disrespectful in an interview and that I waste time. Most companies value your time with zero.

which can hurt your self-esteem / motivation for the next interview.

Worst thing that can happen is that you get hired by a terrible company with a toxic work environment that doesn't respect its employees. That's wasting way more time and energy than any wasted interview.

So if you see red flags and have other options that look more promising, walk away.

I find the market for lemons analogy to be unconvincing.

It makes sense if employers sold employees to other employers, but it falls apart in the standard labor market.

If I am currently employed and job searching, it is because my current employer is a lemon, not me. The prospective employer should be focused on determining my value to them. Everyone has some value (possibly negative, in extreme cases) and if we both agree then we should both be happy.

In this context, an employer could be a lemon for a million different reasons.

No, it does not. It is information asymmetry.

A good employer assumes that only bad employees are left in the market. As do good employees think that only bad employers are looking via job ads.

Hence more and more god jobs are filled via referrals from fiends etc. I basically think the same about job ads. Why bother applying?

Yes, there is information asymmetry. For sure.

But the market for lemons does not describe the labor market. Good companies grow and need more employees. Good employees do not get market-competitive salary adjustments and thus look for different jobs. It's the complete opposite!

There are exceptions, without a doubt.

EDIT - and let me also say that if the market for lemons accurately describes the labor market, why is it that tech is the only industry with such broken hiring practices?

" Good companies grow and need more employees."

Yes. But it is incredibly hard to get into a good company.

"and let me also say that if the market for lemons accurately describes the labor market, why is it that tech is the only industry with such broken hiring practices? "

In other "tech" industries it is the same. How do you get into a blue chip company?

1. contacts of your parents

2. contacts of your professor at University

3. you work for a start-up that they buy

In my experience this is true for 9/10 people I know.

I did my PhD in NYC and I once was asked in an interview for a med-sized medical company what the street name in Brooklyn is with all the hipsters. Think deeply what could be the reason for such a question.

I get what you're saying, I just don't agree. Fair enough.

Did you answer "all of them"?

I don't understand the question. But regarding the street in Brooklyn (this interview as in Europe), obviously they did not believe I really got a PhD there and lived there. Totally insane. Today I would walk out in such a situation. At that time I answered like a diligent student.

Very much inform him, because probably he's the one receiving the drawbacks of an arcane hiring system out of HR's dream... even 5 interviews sounded a lot to me but maybe that's just my experience.

On a different topic: what's the diversity manager interview for? And what's the point of a diversity manager?

Our company just got one and I am honestly unsure what is its purpose beyond being able to say 'see, we are doing stuff'. I am not sure I am even being cynical here. I am relatively certain it is basically a business need now to appear like you are doing something.

That said, I have zero idea why diversity manager would interview anyone.. it is not like I am going to change my demographic based on it..

I went through a process in my actual job and it was similar. 30 minutes video, some questions and you get a certificate to hang on your wall, if you do well. If you are emphatic and know what is wrong and right, you will pass. The certificate ironically didn't handle UTF-8 well and names other than Bob, James, Suzy were displayed wrongly , which isn't that great for belonging, diversity and etc.. I think we are all constant learning on that areas.. even the experts.

thats a rather large oversight. makes me doubt their expertise.

Promoting diversity is more than just counting the blue people and then the orange people and making sure the numbers are the same. It also involves making an environment that's inviting to different groups of people. They want you play a role in that even – and perhaps especially – if you're part of the majority group.

I suppose you could reasonably argue that there is value to that approach, if you are optimizing for it. That said, anecdote incoming, I have this one buddy, who is not very welcoming, but is very good at what he does. Frankly, I think the company would be in a much worse position were it not for him. As a manager.. what do I want more of?

I guess they would look whether he's a jerk to everyone equally hehe. Of course there are limits of this, and at some point no amount of genius can compensate lack of teamwork.

And what if people want to work at a job focused on their technical field, and not on diversity? If the mission of the company is some diversity thing than it's their prerogative to test whatever views they want to test about it. But for anyone who actually wants to spend their time doing developer work, it's a big red flag that you might not want to work there.

All companies do more than just a single thing. People work there, which makes a healthy work environment automatically important to any non-psychopathic company.

> And what if people want to work at a job focused on their technical field, and not on diversity?

Then companies that care about diversity would be right not to hire them.

I looked again in their initial email. I was expecting more a presentation about their view on that, but reading again, it's written something like: "in that part, there is no right answer, we are going to talk about what diversity, inclusion, and belonging mean to you.".. so sounds like people are evaluated on that. Probably there is no right answer, but there are definitely wrong answer. Now I'm curious myself.

> we are going to talk about what diversity, inclusion, and belonging mean to you.

Genuinely curious. Do others see this as a red flag? That would be an immediate deal breaker to me, as it suggests the company is dominated by political obsessions. I know this sort of this has become more common, but having it in the hiring pipeline seems quite extreme.

Ya this is a huge red flag. And concerning if this becomes a norm. Interviewees and employees need to push back on this nonsense

but I imagine that it is standard in any FAANG? The company that I work now, got the IPO and a diversity department, with mandatory course with test, at the same time.

Yes, I would never consider a place that had this. Assessing the overall level of politics vs work in a company is important to me (am I going to have to introduce my "pronouns", nod and agree to all the right kind of slacktivist stuff the company posts on social media, participate in ongoing political activities as part of work, while being unable to have any unorthodox opinions of my own). There are a lot more subtle signs to look out for, but the presence of an actual diversity officer that tests your orthodoxy is about the same in my mind as the USSR having political officers present in the workplace to make sure people were good Soviets.

Maybe they just don't want to hire overtly racist or sexist people who might threaten their diversity? It doesn't have to be political obsessions. How many stories have we had here about companies that had a toxic culture with overt sexism? If you want to prevent that sort of thing, having someone who's job it is to prevent that sort of thing might help.

I honestly don't know what the reason for it is, but I do tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I suppose it could also just be meaningless theatre. If people have real-life experience with diversity managers, I'd love to hear them.

> Maybe they just don't want to hire overtly racist or sexist people who might threaten their diversity?

No. And even if this were true, having some kind of diversity specialist quiz people to see if they are racist (for what definition?) would still be ridiculous.

Companies have policies for employees about workplace behavior like racism, harassment, safety, whatever. If they are concerned about workplace discrimination, there are normal corporate ways of dealing with this. Having a diversity interview is something entirely different, and seems much closer to being asked if you're a communist or a christian. It's patently absurd, and a sign of a company that has lost all focus on actually building something.

Dang, this has some "Political Officer" vibes from Soviet times. So they are gonna do thought filtering too now

Haha, yes I commented exactly the same thing above before reading your comment. This is screwed up, and I hope it's an isolated thing that causes them to lose good people.

> Should I inform the hiring manager why I'm giving up on that?

I would. I've gone to battle with HR over candidates that I've felt strongly about, and I've always won. In my experience, you're dead-on about the TODO list.

One big company I interviewed with really annoyed me in the interview process, despite not being quite as many stages as this, and I told them I was done when they asked for me to do the next stage.

Years later, some recruiter I talked to said, "I know we passed on you a few years ago". I guess it's good that they were taking responsibility?

Sometimes I have the impression that even if the job position is already closed, they keep doing the hiring process, because the HR team is there, being paid, so why not just keep people busy, right? What do you think?

I would have a much more charitable interpretation. At its heart, most organizations are always on the lookout for great people. It's a really bad sign if you don't have room to hire someone great if you find them.

> Then I was informed there were 2 more rounds (a system engineer interview, and a diversity manager)

A Diversity Manager? Is that a joke?

What would that interview even look like?

To me, the fact that this company is paying staff to conduct these non-technical interviews for technical staff would be a red flag that they clearly can't allocate resources adequately.

Do you mind if I ask so that I understand - would the total number of rounds have added up to seven or nine (i.e. had you finished round four and five before you heard from the second HR person, or only the third)?

Is it your understanding that the new hiring process includes all of these steps, or that you ended up in the middle of both the old and the new one and that there was some overlap?

Anyway, judging from your story it seems to me like they’ve been very disrespectful of your time. I always ask up front what exactly the process will be, and I would’ve taken it as a bad sign if in the middle of it they had come and told me ”oh by the way we’re experimenting with how we’re doing this, we’ll need you to do a few more interviews than we told you earlier”. I don’t have unlimited time on my hands.

So, without disclosing which FAANG company was, that is an extract from the e-mail that I received, after I've got a green from the hiring manager and after code review:

"Hi $MYNAME,

I know that you have already sent over your interview availability but we are in the process of moving to a new interview process so wondered whether you..."

Thanks, I think I understand. You had completed three steps, thought there were two left, but out of the blue you were told that there were actually four more, because that's the new process they're moving to.

I've never interviewed for a FAANG, but I understand that they can and need to be very picky, and can typically get away with things like seven round hiring processes. I still think it's disrespectful of your time not to let you know the whole process up front, and then sticking to it.

Best of luck to you!

That’s absolutely ridiculous. I would absolutely inform the hiring manager. It’s important to be polite/sympathetic since it’s probable the folk on the other hand don’t know exactly what happened and how you got ground between the process transition gears by being there at exactly the wrong time.

It’s also a good sign the company might be in disarray and every day might feel like that there.

Anyways, sorry, from the profession as a whole. A lot of us are doing the best we can (even these individuals might be), but hiring generally sucks at the lower levels and gets easier as you become more senior (that’s been my experience).

Good luck!

>Then out of the blue, I get an email from another HR employee saying that they are testing a new hiring process and now I would have to go through a 2 x 90 minutes pair programming session, with two different engineers, then talk with one engineering manager, then the diversity one, then if everything went well, I would get a job offer ...

Wouldn't it make sense to talk with the diversity officer at the very first? I am assuming if you don't tick some diversity checkbox, you'll have much lower change to get hired regardless.

Correct if I'm wrong, but I think it's really hard to evaluate it through a zoom talk, unless a candidate comes to a job interview wanting to make a clear point about his/her views. I was expecting more of a presentation about the company's views in that matter.

Thinking on the hiring process as a CI pipeline, I think filtering out people that cannot code is easier and less time consuming, than going through some 1:1 call with their diversity manager.

TBH, "diversity manager" was already a red flag, confirmed later on. IMHO it tells me that HR, with the backing of senior management has gone off track.

I see it as "we'll be judging you basing on your skin color rather than your knowledge and skills".

Maybe. Or maybe the interview is to weed out candidates who exhibit wrongthink. Neither option is appealing.

Yes please inform the hiring manager.

I'd have pulled out as soon as I understood they had a diversity manager

please inform the hiring manager, for the sake of others

Tell them you were tested once and don't care to be tested again. They can make a decision based on the information they already have.

Yes, you should inform them.

diversity manager - wtf??

> And actually my question to HN would be: Should I inform the hiring manager why I'm giving up on that?

Ignore their calls and emails for 90 days, then after 6 months email them and CC everyone you got an email from during the first three rounds telling them that you have decided solely based on their hiring process that tech corporations are bad and you are starting a wood chipping business instead.

That would be funny, and it would certainly feel good, but if you want to actually convey feedbback it's counterproductive

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