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Comment by mpeg | Hacker News Reader

Last year in a moment of career uncertainty I applied for a job at Meta, I think it was a M1 role in data engineering – I ended up giving up a few interviews in when I realised I still had 3 more interviews to go, I think for a total of 6, the recruiter didn't really explain the process very well.

I found the whole process pretty dystopian – no idea what product you'll be working on, they first give you a generic interview and then you get matched; the people you interview with are clearly very detached from you as a person (I'm sure it's great to reduce bias in hiring, but it feels very weird) because they know they're unlikely to ever interact with you again whether you get hired or not.

Also didn't like that there was no talk of compensation range, so I wasn't sure if they could even match my salary (I know they pay very low comp in the UK compared to US)

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I had a similar experience.

* bad recruiter, communicated poorly, mishandled scheduling

* interviewer was ice cold when I started performing poorly, could not hide is impatience to end ASAP

* ghosted

I get the impression the top tech companies also have the worst recruiting practices.

My Meta recruiter three years ago was excellent, answered questions really well and was very flexible, transparent, and responsive with scheduling. Probably my best interview experience so far, although I ended up accepting a different offer for a more senior position. The stars were aligned then, though... I was already working at a prestigious company, had competing offers, and performed well on the interviews (I suspect at least 1-2 "strong hire" or equivalent.)

The market was quite different back then.

They have a ton of highly qualified candidates. Why would they focus on optimizing the experience from the viewpoint of the candidate, when they are spending so much time and money cherry picking?

Because the supply of candidates aren't infinite and people talk and compare notes. At a certain point, a company _will_ become unattractive to the best candidates.

Looking at you, Amazon...

Whenever I hear that kind of argument I think to myself 'Youre right. This kind of thing needs to be regulated.'

6 rounds of interviews is insane. a law that said that prospective employees must be paid for their time to interview at a rate equal to the published salary or wage would go a long way to cutting this kind of bullshit.

I think we should allow companies a lot of freedom in how they hire. Outlaw discrimination in a few clear categories and leave it at that. If their interview process sucks enough then they'll miss out on good candidates and lose in the market. If you feel it's not worth your time then don't interview there.

Personally I've found that the companies with intensive interview processes pay twice as much as everyone else, so in the long run I'm compensated for the extra time.

Went through this recently.

Spent around 4 hours doing a coding homework, followed by 7 interviews, then ghosted for a few days. Chased, and it was then a "thank you for your time, no ta" email.

> I found the whole process pretty dystopian

And you didn't even go to the office and see the Orwellian "MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS" and "WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN'T AFRAID" posters, or the internal newsletters put over the urinals, so you can read about HHVM while taking a leak.

Move fast and break things sounds the opposite of Orwellian.

Having all caps imperatives glowering down at you from the walls is what he was going for there

nice use of language

Imagine a foot stomping on the face of humanity again and again for all eternity.

That sounds like the sort of broad hiring practice that large corporations sometimes do to select recent graduates: a general filter of candidates, followed by managers picking the nost promising candidates, and a final round of interviews with one or more teams that are interested in you.

Salary is unrealistic to discuss early when they don't know which specific role you will be filling, and how much they want you.

That said, for more experienced people the process tends to be much more personalized, to the point where the very first person you talk to may be the hiring manager or their superior.

I guess I wasn’t expecting this process for a management role, I know that at the level I was interviewing I’d be one of hundreds/thousands in Meta but I would have expected a bit more of a personal touch for a role that required 10-15 years experience.

The actual interviews were actually very well thought out, great no-bs questions focused around my experience in specific scenarios, and my approach to people management. Just very impersonal.

> Salary is unrealistic to discuss early when they don't know which specific role you will be filling, and how much they want you.

Does this mean that this kind of hiring process is not feasible in states where listing the salary in job postings is mandatory?

That's very odd that they didn't give you a comp range. I know that when I interviewed with them they gave me ballparks for a few levels which was helpful in my decision making.

>I know they pay very low comp in the UK compared to US

What else did you expect? US wages in UK/EU? They don't pay higher wages in the US out of the goodness of their hearts, they pay it because the US market forces them to. They'd gladly pay European wages or below in the US if they could get away with it.

Lower UK pay was not the complaint. Knowing if they would be competitive to the current (UK) job was the issue (as I read it).

Exactly, I was pretty highly paid for the UK market so I was worried that I’d go through the whole process and then they’d present a total comp that was not a significant upgrade.

As the OP says in the article, I was also worried there was no clarity on what level I’d actually be, so I was worried they’d try to demote the role to M0 which on levels.fyi is lower than my comp was.

> I was pretty highly paid for the UK market

If you're already highly paid by your local market standards and you're also happy with your current job, it's not worth the hassle going trough a six stage interview as you've probably already reached the point of diminishing returns.

I'm guessing the GP expected them to tell them something useful about compensation earlier in the process, so that neither party would waste time evaluating a deal that couldn't possibly work.

I agree, that's pretty shit to not mention the salary range at the start, but Meta and FAANG wages in general are quite well documented already on levels.fyi, even for Europe, so it's normal to expect something in that ballpark as you go into the interview process.

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