[onlyrealcuzzo]

In normal conditions - I wouldn't be surprised if >20% of people interviewing aren't really interested in working at the company.

You need competing offers to get a good offer - so you need to interview at places you have little interest in actually working for.

I would expect a lot of these people either got a good enough offer, or good enough competing offers, or just didn't get an offer from where they actually want to work - so don't need competing offers.

Additionally, there's a lot of people that interview for practice just to keep fresh for when they do need a job, and a lot of people that interview at a few places as practice before they interview at the places they're really targeting.

I'd expect a lot of no-shows from this cohort.

[ryandrake]

On the other side, in normal conditions, I wouldn't be surprised if >20% (probably far higher) of companies interviewing candidates aren't really interested in hiring anyone. They may be getting a pulse check on the hiring market. They may be interviewing simply to check off due diligence, but intend to only hire their already pre-determined candidate. They may need to have backup candidates if an offer they just extended falls through. They may be trying to pre-vet candidates so that they can quickly hire later if headcount suddenly opens up. They may be doing it because simply company policy is to always be interviewing.

A lot of the process seems to be performative and not really being done for the purpose of matching a real job seeker with a real job.

[siva7]

I doubt that is true. Interviewing candidates is a huge time sink for which every manager i know of would rather want to skip.

[anikom15]

I would be surprised by this, given every time someone left at a company I worked for scrambled to get someone new and seemed to have no real infrastructure for actually hiring someone beyond maybe automated résumé software. If a recruiter was involved at all it would be a contractor, bur otherwise everyone involved in the hiring process were just people with enough experience who ‘volunteered’ their time to do interviews and rate candidates.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Possibly 20% of companies - but I really doubt 20% of positions.

[Akronymus]

Over here we have requirements for applying for jobs to receive unemployment, to a ceetain degree. There are quite a lot of people who "just gimme the stamp". (Usually those got reported to the AMS)

[fzzzy]

What's the AMS?

[Akronymus]

Sorry, somehow had that one slip in. "arbeitsmarktservice" basically the austrian unemployment office.