What happened to common decency in the hiring process?

It has gotten a lot worse over the years. I think part of the problem has to do with HR taking over the hiring process whereas traditionally the actual managers that the candidate would work for would have a much more active role in the process. The problem with HR departments is that they are, in my experience, completely unqualified to do hiring and often act more effectively to keep good candidates away rather than get them face time with prospective employers. The whole hiring process has devolved in so many ways, but then management in general is becoming a lost art. As a society, we are collectively losing our ability to organize and manage ourselves.

That isn't just in the Valley. It's all over. I don't know if it is simply more prevalent there versus other places, but when I was actively interviewing just before I graduated from college, I could count on one hand the companies that I had more than 1-2 technical interviews with and didn't take longer than 45 days from start to finish to give me a decision. It was very routine for companies to wait a full month before supplying me with a final answer.

There were plenty of companies (I'm guessing around 50%) that simply never responded back to me, even if I sent them an inquiry about where I stood in the interview process.

I think the worst one was a company that: - did an initial HR interview with me, then asked to me come back 3 weeks later. - sat me down for a 3 hour long "Skills Examination and Aptitude Test" (think SATs mixed with the ASVAB, "If you turn gear A, which direction will gear D turn" kind of stuff) - never called me in for an actual Technical Skills test - gave me an offer for a position that I didn't apply for, was not relevant to my skill set, was 15k lower than I expected for the position offered, and that I wasn't interested in.

Some of the companies I've talked to were dreadfully slow and got to the point that I simply didn't even remember talking to them when they finally responded. When they finally responded, I'd look up the last time they contacted me in a spreadsheet I kept and ask them why it took them X months to respond. The usual answers were, "we had so many applicants"/"The previous HR employee left"/"That position is no longer open but we wanted to consider you for another"/etc.

This is unfortunately very common! I experienced it quite recently, when I had to make a decision between 2 jobs. A guy from a recruitment agency who I had interviewed with, made me postpone deciding for the two jobs, as he was "dead-sure" he could get me two interviews for consultancy assignments (which I was more interested in), within "early next week".

The entire week came and went, and I didn't hear from him until a few weeks later. It was a "Are you interested in position X? Oh sorry about not getting back to you last week by the way".

To me this was the most rude treatment I have ever gotten in relation to a hiring process. They persuaded me to akwardly stall the two other companies, which I did (but really shouldn't have), and then never even bothered with a phone call. I respect that people are busy, and normally I wouldn't really mind - But actively making you postpone other plans, and then not get back to you is quite over the top.

Such behaviour reflects extremely bad on the company / recruitment agency, and they are doing themselves a major disservice. I'd never even consider getting my next contract through those guys, I'm not going to recommend their positions to my dev friends nor to any potential clients that could use their services.

Another agency always got back to me, phoned or mailed with good news or bad, always accessible and courteous. They've since gotten tons of referrals from me, because they are worth it.

It's so easy to shine as a company in this particular area, since a lot of HR and recruitment people have a tendency of treating people like a disposable commodity.

Unfortunately, yes. I'm not sure if it's directly related to the fact that HR is a high volume function and there aren't any objective metrics that track how gracefully non-selected candidates are degraded or if legally, it's better to say nothing at all. I also have some suspicions that many posted jobs are posted on spec, which is to say that they are 'in the pipeline', but not authorized to actually hire.

In the current job market, it's easy to get sloppy with practices like these. It is rude, but such is life.

Personally, I've had endless reschedules, interviewer no shows, long dark periods (even when the outcome has been positive) and no response (after being flown for on-site interviews). It's not specific to company size, stage, industry, location, etc. As I mentioned above, it probably has to do with a lack of managing the feedback loop of non-selected candidate satisfaction.

Interesting. I'm curious what types of technology the jobs you are applying for are using. Being a ruby developer in London is much the opposite experience. People bending over backwards to contact you and more job offers than candidates. I've never had anything other than very quick feedback, and feedback 100% of the time. The worst was around a 1 month delay.

It seems as though people's courtesy levels are proportional to the demand for skills. I guess more people want to work in the Valley than in London. You also hear horror stories about the video games industry.

One time this girl I was dating interviewed at the company I worked for. Even though I kept asking the hiring manager to let us know how she did, he would always say "oh yeah, let me get the feedback" and he never did. After a couple of weeks I gave up, because either he was too lazy to bother responding, or he was too afraid to break bad news, both which aren't admirable qualities.

Lots of companies think that a human/humane reply to the outcome of the hiring process is another additional cost which simply needs to be automated as much as possible. The thinking borders on "if this person is not going to be hired anyway, why spend time and cost informing him/her. Probably best to just let him/her take the cue that no reply means rejection."

The other piece of the puzzle is that companies often interview based on projected or possible needs, e.g. next quarter's potential staff increase or in preparation for the acceptance of a proposal. Therefore, an actual decision about "the position" may be months off when the project is a go or may never occur should the project be cancelled.

I will add that companies also will interview people simply out of a general interest in the candidate, a relationship with the recruiter, or because they are someone's girlfriend even when there is no intent of hiring the person anytime soon.

Interviewing is a skill. Like any other skill, it takes time to develop and practice. You can just look at some of the ridiculous job postings on HN to realize that a lot of companies, in particular startups, are letting anyone participate in the interview process.

What you are experiencing is a mix of amateur hour and hubris.

Honestly, it's just another symptom of the depersonalization in the employment market. As long as there is a surplus of qualified* workers, then there is little reason to treat people humanely.

*for values of qualified from "keyword-rich resume" and up.

wait... you mean they aren't actually going to get back to me?

Yes! the last interview I had with a very well known company lasted 3 months from the first mail from recruiter to his last email. It went weeks in between phone interviews to schedule the next one and often involving me to send few mails to ask for feedback. And for onsite he forgot about sending a confirmation mail and it took several mails to arrange a onsite interview which took 3-4 weeks of delay . And its not that I did poorly in interviews and they have to think twice for next interview and often my interviewers gave me their email to contact incase of any delay. And this is not one off experience there are few more companies and recruiters who doesn't respond for days until I send a mail. I do interview candidates for my team we often try to get feedback on the same day or next day so we can decide upon to hire or at least update candidate on the status.

Same as it ever was.

This is true with Rite Aids in Pittsburgh as well!