[avitzurel]

Here's my perspective.

(I am writing in a snarky way to convey a message)

1. If you're using recruiters, you're already losing. Especially if those are recruiting agencies that "hide" the name of the companies.

The cold emails are just ridiculously hideous.

2. Use as little hyped up words as you possibly can. You might change the world, but everyone else is saying the same thing and people are getting sensitive about it.

3. Impact - Emphasize what is the impact of the role. Why do you need my skills, Not just an engineer skills, why do you need me. If you don't need me I don't care what you need, post on LinkedIn for all I care.

4. The mail needs to come from the CTO with as many details as possible about the company. Not how much money you raised and from which VCs, everybody raised money and everybody as VCs behind them. I could care less. What are the technical challenges, what's the roadmap, what challenges are you facing that you need me to solve and help with.

5. Compensation - "Competitive salary" means nothing. I don't think it's relevant to me at all. You need to be specific about the compensation levels. If you wanna give a range, that's also fine. If your range stops at X and I am making X+50%, I know we are too far apart, we could save each other the trouble.

6. Interview - If the interview requires more than a single day, I don't care. If it requires whiteboard, I don't care, If it requires multiple processes and screens, I don't care.

It's all about managing friction. Just like acquiring a customer on Google or Facebook. If the process has too much friction, I don't want to go through it. I just don't. I'm happy where I am and it's not worth my trouble.

All of these may sound elitist, I get that. I really do. But if you want really senior engineers the targeting is different than people that just finished bootcamp or have 2-3 years of experience.

[adwww]

I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle.

They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test.

Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that says "OK" after a conversation in a bar and save myself a lot of friction.

[ryandrake]

Exactly. Here's an example: I once had a chat over coffee with a hiring manager for a smallish company that seemed interested in me. We talked about my background and accomplishments, went over a few example problems to see how I'd work through them, discussed a little about the company and the project. Everything was going great, and he seemed pretty pleased. At the end was a handshake and "You seem great for the job. I'll put you in touch with HR!" So, what are you thinking? I know what I was thinking!

So HR gets in touch and says "We would like to bring you in for the first set of interviews next week some time, when would work?" I said, "Uhh, there must be a mistake, I already talked with the hiring manager, I thought you were calling to discuss salary, benefits, start date, etc." HR: "Hmm, no, that's not right. Did you even fill out our application online yet?" Conversation was pretty much over from my standpoint at that point. What a crappy experience and a waste of time!

[kafkaesq]

Had a similar-ish experience once -- meeting the hiring manager for coffee, knowing this would be a prelude to a standard onsite interview (which I was fine with).

And it was a very productive discussion. We talked about a lot of some pretty high-level stuff, both technology-wise and business-wise -- possible failure modes in their fraud detection process; customer acquisition strategies moving forward, etc.. Not in a fuzzy, "whatever" way -- but in a serious, analytical way. You know, high-level, adult stuff.

The weird part? When I got the schedule for the interview (btw several more hours in length than the "couple of hours" we had initially talked about -- but we'll let that slide for now), the first thing they wanted be to do was come in at 9 AM for a session on "logic problems" -- you know: pirates, gold coins, poisoned wine bottles -- for a whole hour.

To which I wanted to say, "Wait -- didn't we just have a conversation in that cafe demonstrating exactly the level of critical thinking skills you're looking for (arguably at a much more nuanced level, in fact), and applied actual, real problems -- not silly, made-up puzzle problems?"

But of course I felt too shy to just come out and say that. So made up some excuse about "accepting another offer", instead.

[withdavidli]

Someone needs to train that hiring manager. They gave you no heads up about the process. There might even be a chance the hiring manager didn't know you would have to interview afterwards if the company was small enough. Did you contact the manager afterwards? If the company doesn't have a defined process the manager might have been able to talk to HR to directly give you the offer.

[felixgallo]

On the downside, then you're working at a company that hires its staff by bar conversations, rather than by attempting to determine competency and mutual fit.

[twic]

A rigorous interview process is a huge plus for me. Not because I'm a masochist, but because I want to work with people who are at least as good as me. A company that hires after a conversation in a bar is likely to have a much wider range of abilities.

[0xCAFEFARE]

Just because an interview is rigorous doesn't mean you will be working with competent people. It can often mean the exact opposite.

[twic]

How so?

[avitzurel]

I'd go work for that company over a multiple days interview any day. If you talk about the right things, it beats any interview (IMHO of course).

[Clubber]

I'm the same way. A full day interview is just silly, multiple day interviews, no way. Look at my resume, meet me, decide, make an offer. If it doesn't work out, fire me, but don't play this silly game of multiple interviews with multiple people that don't really talk to each other or coordinate. It makes the company look like they don't know what they are doing and/or are indecisive. You can keep that.

[jiaweihli]

I strongly disagree with this. I've been on the other side of the fence, trying to hire people for an early-mid startup (5-40 people) as an early employee.

There are more people than you'd expect who can talk the talk but can't code at the same level. In the majority of companies, I'd bet there aren't too many openings for engineers in such a narrow role. If you don't want to work with an 'idea person', would you want to work with an 'idea engineer'?

Multi-day interviews are likely overkill, but a full day interview is completely fair. There's no need to do 4 back-to-back algorithm whiteboarding sessions, but testing other aspects such as data modelling, general architecture, and coding style/ability are all high-signal.

[ryandrake]

Look at it from the candidate's point of view. Depending on what company I'm working for, I get 10, maybe 15 crappy days of paid time off that I have to split between vacation, sickness, and YOUR interview. If you take an entire day of my time, I can only do that max 10-15 times in the year, and that's if I don't get sick and have no vacation. I'm going to highly favor a company that does not make me blow one of those days entirely.

Multiple days? Not a chance.

[Clubber]

I agree. If it's between two companies that pay "competitive rates," and one company wants me to interview for an hour and one company wants me to interview for a day, I'm not going to waste a day.

If you were paying 2x rates or real equity, ya I'd slog through a day long interview, but I bet you aren't.

What does your company have to offer that would compel me to spend 8 hours interviewing that another company doesn't?

[user5994461]

You need to charge more if you get two competitors for you.

Maybe they'll be only one company willing to pay then, maybe that will be the one with the one day interview :D

[jiaweihli]

Yeah, I get that. There's not a good way to interview for many companies within only PTO.

Something that's worked well for me in the past is to secure at least 1 good offer - compensation you feel comfortable with, recognizable brand, but still an offer you're willing to walk away from - and then give notice.

Then, after leaving, spend additional time (up to 4 weeks) interviewing with all the other companies you want to. Keep in mind that many companies offer a sign-on bonus, and using it to cover this in-between time is high-return, likely more so than buying a new car/vacation/entertainment system.

You can be upfront about this break in your interview loops - "I'm no longer working at company X, but I have a very competitive offer from company Y and considering several other ones." There's no guarantee you'll be able to keep all the offers you receive (many of them will explode), but you should have a steady pipeline.

Whenever you feel comfortable, you can exit the pipeline, and begin negotiation with the outstanding offers you have. Last I did this, I went onsite ~15 times among even more interview loops.

[user5994461]

While I agree with the concept, I think it's dangerous.

There aren't that many good companies to work for in any area (even in SV), to have 10 on sites simultaneously, and you might burn bridges for later [e.g. don't reapply before 1-2 years policy].

IMO: If there is that much interest for you, you need to charge more.

[user5994461]

You're kidding right? You americans only got 10, 15 days top per year? really?

I have a hard time taking seriously a company that doesn't give me 25 days in EU. (better be with 25 sick days :D).

[Clubber]

Ya, standard is 2 weeks starting off, then it increases over the years. You also usually have to actually accrue those two weeks over an entire year. Usually caps out at around 5 weeks or so.

For me it isn't the PTO. Say I want to interview at 10 companies to see which is the best fit. That's 10 days of interviewing. If they are all 3 day interviews, that's an entire month.

I get tired of talking to people about nothing after an hour. If someone wants to bring 5 people for me to talk to about smalltalk and nothing really of substance, I won't do very well.

20 years ago, a friend who worked for a guy who would hire 10 people then after a few weeks, fire most of the ones leaving just the best. I live in an "at will" state. I guess most people just don't have the stomach for that sort of thing, so they try to make up for it with 3 days of doing nothing really relevant to the job.

[twic]

Perhaps my openness to longer interviews reflects the fact that I get 25 days of leave a year. Plus public holidays. And sick leave.

[user5994461]

As someone who's been at such a startup. The best tip I can give you is HackerRank.

Make a 1h test, NO fancy problems, just the basics. Think: summing some numbers, displaying some stuff on the console.

That doesn't substitute to the on site but it goes before to ensure a minimum level and some screening.

It's win-win for everyone. It's efficient and straightforward. On the top side, it's easier for the candidate to take 1h whenever he wants than to schedule a full phone call that will ruin half a day for both of you.

[TheOneTrueKyle]

Yeah, I'm not wasting vacation time on your multi-day interviews.

[d3mchi]

I feel that a multi-day interview or a longer process helps weed out those who aren't interested in your company, just interested in a job, but I can agree some companies overdo it. As for meeting with multiple people who don't talk/coordinate, that sounds more like something that takes place in a larger company, whereas this article was about new startups, where I imagine communication would be stronger.

[avitzurel]

It weeds out everybody who isn't desperate for a job and taking those multiple days interviews with anyone that offers them.

[Clubber]

>who aren't interested in your company, just interested in a job

Every founder thinks their company is great. People who want jobs will happily reinforce that delusion to get the job. Some companies are better than others, but most of it is really boring stuff. I guarantee that everyone working at your company is there because they need a job.

[user5994461]

multi-day is TOO long. There is no exception to this rule.

It's not even about being attractive to juniors, seniors or mid level. It's just looking for desperate, even if you have a brand name.

[avitzurel]

That's how I moved jobs in my last 3 positions. Find me, meet me (coffee, lunch), meet the team for some ideas/brainstorming. Make me an offer I can't refuse.

Screw the rest, seriously, it's just not worth the trouble.

A couple of weeks back I saw a repo on Github. Preparing for an interview @ Google. It was a mile long. Never doing that.

[user5994461]

I'm wary of companies that say yes after a quick conversation in a bar (That is, unless I've got friends there I've made companies with before and I come highly recommended). Maybe that makes sense for < 10 people companies who are just starting out and can't get any better.

[GoToRO]

"Competitive salary" means "we pay the same crappy salaries as everybody else". Your salary will increase only if their competition increases salaries and people start to leave (hence "competitive").

[ryandrake]

Exactly. "Competitive salary" is one of those phrases that cause me to instantly filter out the job posting and help me move on to the next one.