> I’m a HM at a big tech company with this format as well. Honestly, I really like it.
The truth is that nobody likes being interviewed. Getting tested and judged by strangers isn’t fun.
But developers also really don’t like being surrounded by unqualified developers who slipped through a weak interview process. They also don’t like having significant numbers of their teammates fired and replaced all the time because the company had “hire fast, fire fast” interview styles. It’s miserable and slightly terrifying to work at a company where nobody really wants to invest much time into building relationships with new hires because many of them are going to be PIPed out before the year is over.
So while the interviews may not be fun, the reality is that strong developers really appreciate the outcome of such a rigorous process. It also helps protect people from becoming false negatives because they didn’t mesh with a single interviewer or struggled with a single interview problem.
So now we’re at this weird equilibrium where devs simultaneously hate the interview process for themselves but appreciate it being applied to everyone around they (even if it’s not immediately obvious).
> The truth is that nobody likes being interviewed. Getting tested and judged by strangers isn’t fun.
I do. It might be because I'm way better at performing in interviews than in the actual job. It's also way more exciting to do. I have also done interviews on the hiring side of the table, and that's not nearly as enjoyable. However, especially finding people to work with you is quite rewarding.
> the outcome of such a rigorous process. It also helps protect people from becoming false negatives because they didn’t mesh with a single interviewer or struggled with a single interview problem.
Not really. When I was at Google there were tons of candidates that would get passed on because of one of the interviews going badly.
> the outcome of such a rigorous process. It also helps protect people from becoming false negatives because they didn’t mesh with a single interviewer or struggled with a single interview problem.
Only if we assume the managerial class doesn't use this extended process as a chance to do politics and if we assume a longer interview results in better matches.
My experience in casting actors (different field I know) is, that after a certain duration you will get diminishing results. You can tell most of the time within an 20 minutes or less of someone could do the job or not. The rest of the hour is needed to figure out how they work in different situations.
What I would never do is have my existing actors interview them. They can veto someone, they can tell me what they think, but why on earth would I let them interview someone?
Funny, last time around it wasn't the interviewing that got to me, but the nightmare of lining up and going through interviews while also having a young baby and working full time. I remember working during the baby's naps on the weekend and then doing take home quizzes / online tests at like 10pm and like, barely scraping through.
I considered applying for Google at the time, but the combination of the famously arduous interview process, AFAIK both in terms of the time taken and difficulty (for which the recruiter recommended taking further studies in advanced data structures and algorithms) meant that attempting it would be silly.
The truth is that nobody likes being interviewed. Getting tested and judged by strangers isn’t fun.
But developers also really don’t like being surrounded by unqualified developers who slipped through a weak interview process. They also don’t like having significant numbers of their teammates fired and replaced all the time because the company had “hire fast, fire fast” interview styles. It’s miserable and slightly terrifying to work at a company where nobody really wants to invest much time into building relationships with new hires because many of them are going to be PIPed out before the year is over.
So while the interviews may not be fun, the reality is that strong developers really appreciate the outcome of such a rigorous process. It also helps protect people from becoming false negatives because they didn’t mesh with a single interviewer or struggled with a single interview problem.
So now we’re at this weird equilibrium where devs simultaneously hate the interview process for themselves but appreciate it being applied to everyone around they (even if it’s not immediately obvious).