Companies invest so much time and resources in screening because the of a suboptimal or unqualified employee is far greater than the benefit of a good employee. A poor fit employee is a major drag.
It's precisely so you can gauge their performance on the job without any risk to the employer.
So what's the issue here?
But companies are being needlessly pedantic about only wanting to hire "the best of the best" and nothing else will suffice as if they're all working on problems the scale of Google or Astra Zeneca.
Here's a recent article saying that "EU jobs crisis as employers say applicants don't have the right skills"[1].
Well then, train them or be more flexible since people can also learn and train themselves if you give them the chance. No candidate will have 100% math to the skills you want.
[1] https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/04/08/eu-jobs-crisis-...
We hire like it's hard to fire people!
I think you're quite mistaken here.
Come to Europe and see, the job market is basically frozen, while people on HN say in the US they have so many jobs options right now that they can be picky about only choosing the ones with 100% WFH, while here I can't even get replies to jobs demanding commute to the office every day.
You don't know how good you have it over there.
Who said anything about high pay? A lot of people, me included would trade pay for the ability to 100% WFH which si much more abundant in the US than in some of EU.
If anything the risk is for the employee. But if companies stop trying to be Google and stick to their actual level of prestige, employees wouldn't have to do a multi week/month interviewing marathon just to get a foot in the door, and it balances out, easy to get your foot in another door.
I don't know if it's cargo culting, ego, or what, but non of the hiring practices so many companies carry out make sense. Pick top 10 resumes, spend 2h interviewing each, offer 3 month trial or at-will hire/fire your top pick. Saved you 50-100k in recruiter costs.
Maybe getting sued if they fire candidates fitting DEI or other protected class?
1. In order to get a job, a person need to quit one. If there is a risk (in form of trial period), why to accept such an offer? As result, best candidates pass, or at least stick to existing positions longer. Or pay raise must be more significant.
2. Reputational harm: read about Amazon's hire-to-fire practice. And try to guess, why a lot of people do not consider employment with Amazon.
3. Work harm: any new employee is investment. It has to be onboarded, and it is a heavy load for the accepting team.
Of course, it heavily depends on the job market segment. I know software eng. only. If most candidates are unemployed, trial period could be a blessing. In the current market, why would I even apply (and spend my time on the interview?