Comment by tsak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tsak | Hacker News Reader

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I once applied for a job at Canonical. This was their process (roughly two years ago)...

Thank you for applying for Software Engineer. The application process has several stages:

- Initial screening (done)

- Personal essay (this stage)

- Culture interview

- Standardised aptitude and personality tests

- General interviews

- Recruitment screen

- Technical assessment

- Role-specific interviews

- Hiring manager interview

- Executive interview

The current stage is your personal essay. Please take some time to answer the questions below. We’re looking to get a sense of who you are, what’s important to you, and how you communicate. If you’ve already completed this when applying for another role, please feel free to copy/paste from your previous application.

- Beginning in your high school years, through university and into your career, what have you done that you consider exceptional?

- Why do you want to work for XYZ?

- How are you involved in open source software?

- What are your strengths as a software engineer?

- Describe your experience as a Go software engineer.

- Describe your experience with distributed systems.

I'm sorry, a 10-stage application with at least 5 different interviews? How many weeks is this going to take? This feels like FAANG-level recruitment.

Am I so out of touch to expect an application, one interview and maybe a technical assessment for most IT/CompSci jobs? Wouldn't the probationary period be way more effective to see if you fit into the team/company/culture/etc.?

I interviewed with both Canonical and Meta 6 months ago. The Canonical process is far more intense, and yes, it's a big time investment "on spec" for a candidate (I'd estimate it at 7 man-days, 4 for the written essay alone), along with 10 interviews.

They do read the essay carefully, which is what the OP's article is all about.

I'd rather a company take time to do a thorough assessment of a candidate rather than cavalierly hire one with a high likelihood of dismissal during the trial period, as they may have left an existing job to join.

At the same time, they are probably losing a lot of talented engineers because other companies have much less effort in their hiring process.

Is the compensation at Canical that much better than other companies that makes the extra effort worth it?

> Am I so out of touch to expect an application, one interview and maybe a technical assessment for most IT/CompSci jobs?

My information is a decade+ out of date, but Google would perform a recruiter/CV screen, then a technical phone screen, then five technical interviews on one day. And this was all before your CV got in front of the person you'd be reporting to, and before they could say whether they were offering interesting work.

Many other tech companies, having seen Google's success, have decided to ape their interview process.

Bet they don't offer Google levels of prestige or salary though.

It comes across like a sort of cargo cult recruitment.

> I'm sorry, a 10-stage application with at least 5 different interviews? How many weeks is this going to take? This feels like FAANG-level recruitment.

At least one of the FANGs only has 3 or 4 steps, one being a HR contact and another a phone screening.

A 10-step process goes way beyond that.

> Am I so out of touch to expect an application, one interview and maybe a technical assessment for most IT/CompSci jobs?

No, you're not out of touch. Most companies are more like this (although my experience is that most companies will do two interviews -- one that is more social and meant to measure "fit" and one more technical.)

If you're going to be leaving another job to work at a company, you want to find out if it's a cultural fit _before_ that happens, not during a probationary fit.

But that doesn't happen here - it's the hiring company evaluating that, you don't get a choice. Unless you mean that subjecting you to this horrendous process signals which kind of company they are, so that you can bail in time.

Honestly if I had all those hoops to jump through I'd go and work somewhere else.

I actually didn't bother after they revealed their process to me.

That's insane. But at least they tell you the process. I particularly appreciate them mentioning "personality tests" because that's a level of BS that I'm personally not willing to engage with. Telling me about it up front warns me that I would be a poor fit at the company, and so I can avoid wasting the time of both of us.

> Standardised aptitude and personality tests

Really?! I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

You're probably thinking of "Griggs v. Duke Power Co." which was about IQ testing.

The restriction only applies to tests which are not a reasonable measure of job performance.

So for example, a test of strength might be allowed for delivery drivers who have to safely handle heavy items, when it wouldn't be allowed for software developers.

From what you wrote, sounds like one of the best. At least it sounds better than most other interviews I had that were basically random.

Lots of companies have standardized and well documented interview processes.

canonical’s is indeed a disaster, it’s onerous for applicants (hey that simplified outline doesn’t say it but you can expect between five and fourteen interviews - seriously I know applicants who had fourteen interviews).

Another thing it doesn’t mention is the fact that there’s really no dedicated hiring and interviewing team at Canonical - all engineering teams “pitch in” (read: are forced to) with resume and written interview reviews, as well as in-person interviews.

This wastes a tremendous amount of expensive engineering time, and a lot of this is due to poorly screened resumes. It was very frequent for me to interview a candidate and wonder how they made it to that stage when it was clear from looking at the resume during interview prep that they were totally unsuited for the role.

Source: former Canonical who like everyone else, was forced to “participate” in the hiring process.

10 Steps are about 7 too many.

Writing a Personal Essay after, what sounds like, an automated email is not something I would consider as a good interview process.

For most software companies no. For top software companies... I might do it. The problem is with NoName companies that think they are Google or in this case Canonical.

I personally wouldn't bother for basically anyone. Even Jane Street isn't this arduous.

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