As a 40-year old who has been in the industry long enough to have a very healthy set of references to back me up, I conversely find it annoying that my time is wasted by people who want to subject me to half a dozen levels of interviews where I'm mostly doing silly shit like reversing a string in place or doing their stupid variation of a Fermi question.<p>Yes, interview me for fit (on both sides), but subjecting me to an endless barrage of technical interviews where you ask me questions I've heard dozens of times before is much more likely to get me to drop out of the process than subjecting me to not enough is. The article says they skipped "one of the final interviews" suggesting there were multiple already... And within one interview I can assess the skill level of the people interviewing me without having to attempt to intuit it based on how many of the "Microsoft questions" from the 80s they found on Google to ask potential candidates.<p>Are you sure the candidate was "spooked" because you didn't interview him or her that one final time? The article doesn't do a good job of explaining if that is speculation or verified feedback from the candidate. There are a billion and one reasons why someone might give you a pass.
My guess is that this wasn't the only thing that spooked the candidate. To be brutally honest, anyone talented enough to merit an expedited decision like that would probably be awfully bored working at a company in the online faxing space. More importantly, they probably already had a competitive offer from a company in a more interesting space.<p>The only thing I can think of that would be more boring than working at an online fax company would be working at one with a series of meticulous HR processes.
I'm sceptical. How do they know they spooked him? There are no details lost on that. Did they just jump at him with a number? Or did they clarify they thought he was a great candidate, making them willing to skip some steps?<p>All good companies i've ever worked at had a fairly fast hiring process as they knew what they wanted and did research on their own on me, while the ones that stuck to the numbers ended up being full of incompetent or outright inhuman people.
The conclusion bugs me because it takes one data point to deduce a general rule.<p>Yes in that specific case, perhaps the candidate was spooked by the speed of the offer, but next time might be the opposite: another candidate will get tired of the lengthy process until you get to the point and will drop out in favor of a company looking for more than ticking all boxes, especially as it might be a red flag that the environment isn't flexible enough to adapt.<p>So don't feel bad for following your guts and making an offer: if he really had been the perfect fit, he would have felt the same way.
I've felt like the candidate in the story before.<p>For one company I interviewed with, the questions were all straight-forward. I finished 30 minutes early and they had no more questions to ask me.<p>If the interview process can't differentiate from someone who is merely ok and someone who is amazing then the company will be likely filled with people who are only merely ok. That isn't a company I want to work for.<p>Compare that to a place like Google where if you claim you are an expert at a language, they will have the language creator interview you.
Seems like most companies disagree with this, great people get preferential hiring treatment and get to skip interviews. The story of Zuckerberg taking candidates on hikes is a good example.<p>I wonder if it would be as effective to just tell them what you're letting them skip and why.