[jodrellblank]

> "I frankly don’t find it plausible that the work being done in a day or two during the interview process is valuable labor."

It's the hiring of an employee who will make wealth for the company over their employment period which is the financial benefit, not the work done on the day. But the work done on the day is still value - it's signals of the quality of the candidate which is something the company wants (and therefore values, and therefore should buy). Second, if someone arranges for your time and tells you to do some task they choose, they don't then get to say 'I can't get value from your work so I'm not going to pay you'", that's not how things work.

> "they also deliver compensation packages that essentially guarantee a wealthy, comfortable lifestyle."

And what about the people who spent a day on the interview and did not get hired? The company gets time, effort, signal information which benefits the company ("no hire" has value too), and the candidate gets their time and effort wasted. Imagine if you had two contractors do a task you set, then turned to one and said "I'm not using your work so I'm not paying for it", how well would that go down? "Fuck you, pay me"[1] I expect. It's not like going to a shop and not buying some things, it's like asking the shops to deliver things to you and then refusing to pay for delivery on things you don't buy because the shop had a chance of getting your business so they should be grateful. (Worse if the company is constantly interviewing just to keep the pipelines warm, without any interest in actively hiring anyone right now).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U