Think about time invested in the purchase of an automobile or a house, relative to the cash outlay. Consider how one can get information and predictability around that purchase, as well as the known knowns and unknown unknowns.<p>For a new job from the individual's point of view, think of the life-event risk they're taking on by betting on this new firm.<p>From the firm point of view, particularly for smaller firms (1 - 50), think of the return on equity and opportunity cost.<p>Finally, think about the time spent dating before people move in together, not even get married.<p>On a time per commitment cost / risk-adjusted basis, extensive job interviews may still be underinvesting.<p>All that said, a majority of candidates can be filtered out within 15 minutes. As could, if you care, a majority of workplaces.<p>See also <i>“information asymmetry”</i> and <i>“adverse selection”</i> resulting in disproportionate number of lemons on the market as discussed in <i>“The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism”</i>: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons</a>
> “After years of tech workers being pampered, of ‘bring your whole selves to work’ and ‘work from anywhere,’ executives are now overcompensating in the other direction,” he says.<p>> “Tech industry job interviews have, of late, reached a new level of absurdity.”<p>This is funny. I wonder if with lay offs a whole bunch of people are finally realizing how abusive the tech interview is. Ive done 3 job searches and each one has been horrible, leaving me multiple times considering switching careers.<p>The one I just finished at the end of last year didnt feel any different process or expectation wise as the one I did 6 years ago. The only difference was it felt like there were less openings and more competition. But the actual interview it self was the same, just as horrible as it has been.<p>I used to give interviews for a team I got promoted multiple times with, I couldn't pass the interview they were having me give. They didn't change it though.<p>> Another worker complained on Blind that preparing for LeetCode questions requires “hundreds of hours” of preparation: “Why are we expected to do the coding Olympics for every company that wants to interview you?”<p>Cracking the coding interview came out in 2008. 14 years ago, none of this is new.
For perspective, applying for a coding job 30 years ago used to involve ONE phone interview that lasted no more than an hour, followed within a week by an in-person visit at the site. In contrast today's insanely laborious interview process sounds like undergoing the Spanish Inquisition.<p>Before the rise of FAANGs, the interview visit consumed between 1-2 hours (if it was a car drive away) and no more than one day (if a plane ride) with absolutely no homework. In-person, you talked to between 3 and 8 people. At most onerous, the discussion might involve a little pseudocode or drawing diagrams on a white board to show you possessed the skills most prized back then -- fluency in design concepts, the ability to focus and reason well, to communicate ably, and to think on your feet. Syntax skills were presumed given that you had a degree in CS and a history of not being fired from previous jobs. References were checked which also filtered out the boobs, so testing your your code fluency was overkill. Multiple rounds of phone interviews were rare; multiple visits happened NEVER.<p>Apparently these days, your academic and professional track record and references count for zero. Instead, you must show you can generate code at high speed -- as if you were a newb grad who likely might turn out to be able only to pass true/false tests in the classroom.<p>Do degrees and references now count for so little? Must the number of interviewers exceed double digits? If so, THAT's a broken system.
oh yes. i ask one advanced question when i interview. something like "what's the difference between git rebase and git pull" -- if they know you're good to go. the other route I take is to have a candidate walk me through some code they have, if they don't have any code then i don't hire them. period.
> Now interviewees are regularly given projects described as requiring just two to three hours that instead take days of work.<p>Not to disparage the subjects, but it sounds like these applicants failed the interview. If a qualified candidate is meant to complete the project in 2-3 hours and it's taking over a day, then that candidate isn't passing this test of productivity.<p>However, companies absolutely should be time-limiting their problems. Precisely because people could use more time than others and generate false positives.