Who is doing interviews across months? I haven't heard of them being more than two weeks apart at most.
Do they pay you for your time for those long multi-hour interviews?
Do they pay you for your time for those long multi-hour interviews?
Paying for someone’s time is… tricky. If a company doesn’t pay, and the candidate is willing to do the interviews, it is a signal that both are expecting positive financial outcomes overall (ie both sides foresee fit).
The moment you start paying for people to interview, that signal gets weaker. Likely compensated by stricter resume filters. Its a disadvantage for people with uncommon profiles or less experience. (And an advantage for those that have more experience and some big names on their CV)
If vJ is the perceived value of getting the job, pJ the perceived probability of getting the job, vI the value of the literal payment for going through the interview process, and vT the perceived value of one's time (and any other cost if it exists, such as travel) required to go through the process, we can represent the expected value of going through the interview process as:
EV = pJ * vJ + vI - vT
I also assume that the candidate would choose where and whether to apply based on EV for their various options.
One one end, if your pJ is close to 1 (you're highly qualified for the job and will likely get it), the result is dominated by pJ * vJ which is ~= vJ; vI and vT matter little. This means that if you will probably get the job, it doesn't really matter much whether the interview is paid (and it also doesn't matter as much how much time it takes). For top candidates, the difference in pJ * vJ for different companies should be the dominant factor, i.e. they will apply for the best jobs.
On the other end, if your pJ is close to 0 (you're applying on a long shot), then vI and vT become much more significant factors. If your chance to get the job is really low, then the interview being paid makes it significantly more attractive, and it also matters more how much time it takes. The companies that pay for interviews, and companies that are easy to apply and interview for are likely the ones with the highest EV for the poorer candidates.
Basically the worse of a candidate you are for the job, the more important it is for the interview to be paid, because with a low enough probability of getting the job, this payment becomes a big factor in the expected value of doing the interview.
Of course it's not as simple as that, because people are not machines chasing pure financial interest and have feelings about how you treat them. Also, a highly qualified candidate is more likely to have a job that is closer to the one they're applying for, while an unqualified candidate might have a much worse job, making vJ higher for the less qualified candidate. But it is likely that the relative difference in pJ is much greater between a qualified and unqualified candidate than the relative difference in vJ. The candidate's own perception of the probability of being hired (pJ) might also be unrealistic in either direction, and I'm assuming it is a good predictor of the true probability of being hired. But I think in general the rule should hold, paid interviews would decrease the quality of the candidate pool.
I mean, would you pay money to a handyman if he'd show up near your roof and showed you how he uses his tools and how he WILL EVENTUALLY work, but, not really fixing it?
However, if a for-profit company wanted me to spend essentially a full day of my time off work so that I can go and interview to make them more money than they'd be paying me - yeah that doesn't sound right at all unless you're straight out of school.
I know what you're saying with your handyman argument but that is a false equivalency.
If that was my idea not the handyman’s? Yes. I would expect them to charge for their time.
I don't think many handymen offered a chance for a two year, full-time building gig would say "sure, wire me $100 for the consultation and I'll come over", and if they did they'd be smart enough to realise they were politely turning down the job.
Frankly, "too preoccupied with the idea of getting paid for a single day of producing no output to take into account the potential to earn $xx,xxx more over the course of the year", sounds like an excellent way for employers to filter out candidates who have low interest in or confidence of getting the job or poor decision-making ability...
Yes, entitlement is possibly a good description there. It’s far too one-sided. If they had to pay they’d suddenly find ways to get “signal” much more efficiently and effectively.
Entitlement cuts both ways. Software development pays very well and largely has excellent working conditions, it’s basically a golden ticket. I know people who are essentially stuck in minimum or low wage jobs for life.
Don't for a moment miss that if "software development pays very well" then it pays the company even more than it pays you. Being employed by them is a win for the company they're not giving you free handouts, they should be willing to spend money to make money.
Entitlement doesn't "cut both ways", it's a mostly meaningless conversation stopping dismissive insult, but as far as power imbalances go one side is a company with millions of dollars and lawyers on hand or on retainer. If it's a big FAANG they likely union bust or block which is against employees interests, they possibly have stack ranking or other methods to divide and conquer employees by pitting them against each other, possibly has 'unlimited' vacation time which excuses them from rollover or payout for untaken vacation and maybe they don't approve vacation because everyone is always busy. Often they will be lobbying politicians to increase their power and decrease employee's power. Healthcare is tied to employment, which is in the company's interest and against the employee's interest because it makes leaving harder for the employee but does not affect firing or redundancy for the employer.
On the other hand you have a single lone human.
The employer also wants loyalty, often ownership of anything the employee creates on their own time while employed, often an NDR, and control over what the employee wears and says and the times they work.
And they want long days of interviews, often with terrible interview practises which don't give them good data (much discussed on HN year after year) - and they expect this effort and time which is ultimately for their benefit, for free.
Most tech jobs are not in FAANG.
> If you say "I need to spend a day doing work things on a company's terms for a potential deal which would benefit the company a lot, and I want to be paid for my time and effort" that's ... not entitlement.
I frankly don’t find it plausible that the work being done in a day or two during the interview process is valuable labor. Who is going to deploy that code and make it production ready? How would you even organise and plan that work? Is an engineer opening a PR internally with the interview code or something?
> Healthcare is tied to employment, which is in the company's interest and against the employee's interest because it makes leaving harder for the employee but does not affect firing or redundancy for the employer.
Fair. I live in a country with a public healthcare system so this doesn’t factor in for me.
It's the hiring of an employee who will make wealth for the company over their employment period which is the financial benefit, not the work done on the day. But the work done on the day is still value - it's signals of the quality of the candidate which is something the company wants (and therefore values, and therefore should buy). Second, if someone arranges for your time and tells you to do some task they choose, they don't then get to say 'I can't get value from your work so I'm not going to pay you'", that's not how things work.
> "they also deliver compensation packages that essentially guarantee a wealthy, comfortable lifestyle."
And what about the people who spent a day on the interview and did not get hired? The company gets time, effort, signal information which benefits the company ("no hire" has value too), and the candidate gets their time and effort wasted. Imagine if you had two contractors do a task you set, then turned to one and said "I'm not using your work so I'm not paying for it", how well would that go down? "Fuck you, pay me"[1] I expect. It's not like going to a shop and not buying some things, it's like asking the shops to deliver things to you and then refusing to pay for delivery on things you don't buy because the shop had a chance of getting your business so they should be grateful. (Worse if the company is constantly interviewing just to keep the pipelines warm, without any interest in actively hiring anyone right now).
Having said that, I think paying people to interview for 6-figure salary jobs (AUD) is a non-starter to me. If a company is stretching your interviews out to the extent it's a waste of time, that's a signal that it's not a place you want to work.
This is for Staff+ level positions.
EDIT: Just to state, companies do give enough time to prepare for the interview. I am only talking about the interviewing duration, not the prep time.
The culture is so different here in Australia and New Zealand.
I've done a lot of interviewing of candidates over the last 12~ years or so - here are some generalisations based on my experience and that of my peers for tech roles:
- 95% of the time it's 2-3 interviews / meetings. I have seen a single interview be enough when the person is already known to the team and the interview went well confirming and clarifying existing knowledge of the person.
- The first is usually a call with people and culture / the internal recruiter - high level intro and general culture fit. These tend to be between 15-30 minutes. You should usually know if you're being offered another interview by the end of the call - or within a few days at most and have the next (main) interview setup for the next week or two at most.
- Then if the role is for a developer / programmer or design / UX the candidate is usually sent a coding (or design) test which can be done remotely and will usually take 30-120 minutes but this obviously varies depending on the test, role, and persons abilities.
- Second is often a technical and team fit interview with two people in or working closely with the team / department you're hiring for. These are usually around 45-90 minutes. You should usually hear back about this within a day or two, and if another interview is required you would hopefully have that booked in for some time in the next week or two.
- A third is often done if the team/tech lead wasn't in a previous session - or if the interviewers can't agree or get a good feel for the candidate.