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This seems counterintuitive, but I wonder if hiring can be more humanized by essentially making firing easier, or "dehumanizing" firing.

One big reason that companies go through the lengthy song and dance of multiple tests and interviews in a crazy hiring process with dozens of people is that trying to fire somebody is always a risk, even in places with at-will hiring. You have to worry about severance and other legal requirements, you have to worry about discrimination lawsuits. Additionally, hiring has become so expensive (multiple interviews and tests with multiple teams with multiple candidates) that it's kind of a feedback loop that incentivizes a very careful process because you can't get it wrong when you spend so much effort on it.

What should be a much more common practice is agreeing to quickly hire somebody who has a good resume and passes a basic knowledge interview, and then firing them fairly quickly without severance pay or legal risk if they don't work out. If they can't hack it in a job (the most fair job interview possible because it's literally the job) firing them should be the easiest thing in the world. This could incentivize a much easier and quicker hiring process that should take a day or two, not weeks or more. You might get it wrong a bit more often, but this should be counterbalanced by getting it right sometimes much, much quicker and cheaper.




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