

Jobs to Fill, Employers Wait for Perfection - dyno12345
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/business/economy/despite-job-vacancies-employers-shy-away-from-hiring.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all

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mapt
I pose an alternative hypothesis: They do not, in fact, have jobs to fill.
They are seeking to add outstanding talent, but they're not hiring unless they
see it. What has changed is that it has become advantageous to leave phantom
job listings open as advertising for anyone of outstanding talent. (where
'outstanding talent' means 'someone who was already employed doing this
precise same thing, but left because your competing firm is his only means of
getting a raise')

An employer with jobs to fill, at the end of the day, is going to want to fill
them. He's going to have _trouble_ if he doesn't fill them. It will be a
_problem_ for the company if the jobs go empty. Yes, they may technically be
job listings, but the jobs are not, on average, designed to be filled. Any
listing that stays open longer than a training program would need to bring an
average applicant up to spec represents a job that for the purposes of the
unemployed, the economy, and the company, statistically doesn't exist.

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joonix
This is really outlandish and predatory behavior. It should be illegal to
interview anyone more than 3 times. If they want more, they should be required
to compensate for travel, time spent in interview, etc.

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geebee
This was frustrating to read, and I feel pretty bad for the candidates. The
only mitigating thing I can think of here is that it _does_ cost the company
money to spend so much time on interviews as well (though the cost to the
candidate is typically personal, whereas interviewers themselves usually don't
foot the bill from their own paychecks).

The thing that really rankles me (discussed in an earlier HN thread) is the
"homework" assignment. It sounds like they asked this guy to produce a sample
video. The reason I don't like this is that it places a large burden on the
applicant with no corresponding investment of energy from the interviewer.
I've been in a similar spot where I was asked to write a sample program (the
"rule" was to spend no more than 7 hours on it - almost a full workday). I did
this and sent it in, waited 2 months, and then finally got a call from a
recruiter telling me that they had decided not to pursue me as a candidate
anymore. I can only guess that they didn't like my code, and I can guess as to
why, but I'll never really know. What I do know is that they found a way to
place all the inefficiency of a long, drawn out interview process on me with
no cost to themselves.

If they'd given me a detailed analysis of the code, I'd feel less irritated,
even if I'd done it all wrong. I understand why they might not want to do
this, for legal and other reasons. But I really do hope employers see the
problem with asking for a full workday from a candidate, followed by two
months of crickets chirping and a one line brush off from a recruiter.

I know, I know, if you really need a job, you'll put up with almost anything.
That's why this kind of thing happens.

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edandersen
This is the classic "we will make a position for the right person" tactic.

Some firms put ads out just to get a constant stream of applicants through so
they know what the current job market is like, plus they get the benefit of
looking like they are "growing". In reality they will only hire scalps from
competitors or glowing recommendations from current employees - neither
example in the article appears to be one of these cases.

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purplelobster
What I would like to say is "If it takes more than one on-site visit, then I'm
out", but I know in the end that I'd have to deal with it because as a job
seeker you have no choice. The hiring process and job market is a small but
not insignificant part of why my life goal is be to be my own employer. I
don't like to be at the mercy of interviewers and be judged by how I perform
whiteboard coding in an extremely stressful situation.

~~~
matwood
_The hiring process and job market is a small but not insignificant part of
why my life goal is be to be my own employer. I don't like to be at the mercy
of interviewers and be judged by how I perform whiteboard coding in an
extremely stressful situation._

People say this all the time, but is an interview really more stressful than
starting your own company? You impress a few interviewers with a bit of code
on a whiteboard that you reviewed the afternoon before. Big deal. How is that
any more stressful than having to impress generally much larger groups of
people to give you money?

Stressful is putting in months of work and still not making it. Stressful is
worrying that your latest update is going to piss off your best customer or
mess up a possible upcoming sale. Stressful is seeing a deadline that has to
be met in order to get the next sale done. I could go on. I guess what I'm
saying is that if a whiteboard coding session stresses you out then you're
going to have a tough time being your own employer.

It's all about perspective, and frankly a whiteboard coding session sounds
like a good time at this point.

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purplelobster
It's a very different kind of stress. Might be different for you, but an
interview for me is like running for your life from a lion while trying to
solve a Rubik's cube. I can code, but I find that I'm unable to perform very
well in those situations. The financial stress and the stress of getting
something done in time is something I handle pretty well in comparison. I
would also like to emphasize that it's a "small" part of the reason, not a
very big one.

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snowwrestler
There is a factor in the ever-expanding hiring process that the article does
not touch upon: the ever-increasing set of liabilities and regulations that
accompany each new employee.

Today there are tens of thousands of pages of federal and state regulations
that pertain to hiring and firing, including regs pertaining to taxes,
discrimination, work hours, retirement funding, facilities, materials, health
care, leave, wages, and more. Each one exists for a good, defensible reason,
but in aggregate they have an effect on companies.

As more and more potential liabilities come in the door with each new
employee, companies feel more and more pressure to _get it right_ \--because
if they don't, they could easily be facing a lawsuit or criminal prosecution.

~~~
brzed
I understand what you are saying, and it certainly has an element of truth,
but I don't think it's as valid as many companies think. The liability
exposure occurs in the hiring process not the onboarding process. When they
interview these people MULTIPLE times and act (if you use the articles
examples) in bizarre ways during that process, the liability and prosecution
risk is already there.

It may very well be the reason some companies do these things, but its not
going to help them a lick. Hiring incompetence is an obvious sign of what the
work environment would likely be.

It seems that most people in this country have just accepted the interview
process as a 1 way thing. It's not, it shouldn't be, and the examples of why
its broken are readily apparent.

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eli_gottlieb
_More than two months later, he said, “They still haven’t given me my start
date.”_

Well that's just fucking cruel.

