[hsuresh]

I am building a product/startup [1] to address some of the problems you mention, and as a result, I've been talking to hiring teams at several companies, so I can give you some reasons why the processes are bad.

* Hiring is a marketplace, and supply/demand is not always balanced, so most issues related to job search/hiring is due to this.

* When a company posts an ad for a job, they usually receive about 150-200 applicants within 2 weeks, thanks to job boards, LinkedIn etc. Unless it is for specific high-skilled jobs, in which case, they receive hardly any applicants at all.

* Most of the applicants are usually not a match for the job, but given the number of applicants, recruiters rely on resumes, social profiles etc to shortlist about 20 applicants.

* Tests and assignments are quick means to filter, hence their popularity.

* Not much of an incentive to keep applicants posted at every step, plus, managing communication with a few hundred applicants for multiple positions is hard - so you're most likely to receive only automated communication from the hiring team.

I believe that having a clear specification of the job, that can be checked/validated with applicants is critical to ensuring a smooth, fast interviewing process.

[1] - Shameless plug to my startup (in beta) - https://www.interviewpass.co. If any of you are interested in using InterviewPass in your hiring, drop me an email at [e-mail] - happy to help set it up for you.

[marcinzm]

The problem as I see it is that good applicants don't bother with job boards. When you have recruiters banging on your door and begging to handle all the details for you (and provide proper communication) it's no wonder candidates don't bother applying. That, however, means the expectation is that job board candidates are bad and desperate. So companies will filter them more aggressively than recruiter candidates. So candidates now have even more incentive to go with recruiters since it actually gives them a better chance to get hired.

[hsuresh]

That's true. Recruiters provide the initial screening, which is lacking in a job board.

But the hiring process is broken beyond the initial screening as well, biggest reason being lack of incentives for the involved parties to close a position quickly.

[marcinzm]

>That's true. Recruiters provide the initial screening, which is lacking in a job board.

It's not just the initial screening. They actively go out and find candidates who otherwise wouldn't be looking for jobs directly. And as I said before, those tend to be prime candidates since they get so many recruiters they have little need to apply directly.

>But the hiring process is broken beyond the initial screening as well, biggest reason being lack of incentives for the involved parties to close a position quickly.

Again, recruiters are a solution to this because their paycheck is based on closing the deal. They will hound the company and the candidate to get the process finalized.