[anyfoo]

I don't know your particular situation, so it might be totally different, but I think this is commonly just a formality and a friendly chat.

It's a chance for you to meet the actual CEO (or VP or whatever in a larger company), and also for them to get to meet you in advance, instead of effectively getting "blindsided" by a new person (to exaggerate a bit).

Usually, by the time you've gotten to that point, the decision to hire you has well and truly been made. I don't know what then would need to happen for the actually rather secondary function of giving the CEO the opportunity to veto to become relevant. I'd be curious hearing about anyone who's ever experienced it (on whatever side). I guess it can be a safeguard against vastly unaligned values, but I suspect it's very rare.

But primarily, and effectively, it's usually just a meet-and-greet. And it's hard for me to blame a CEO (or VP etc.) for at least getting to anyone who's going to enter a mutual contract to effectively become part of their company.

[pan69]

> just a formality and a friendly chat

That was not the case in this scenario. I was told I would be offered the role if I came out favorable with the CEO (did he like me or not? did I jump when the said "jump"?). To me this meant that the CEO doesn't trust the people he hires. He clearly didn't trust the hiring manager's jugement and/or respected their position. The CEO delegated a task and responsibility but then felt to have to authority to override that, which maybe he does. However, that's not a culture in which I want to operate. If I was wrong, so be it, but I saw a red flag and I made a choice.

[anyfoo]

You know better, as you have all the information and we merely have a shadow of it, but that in itself still sounds like “standard boilerplate” to me.

I remember from my friends who worked at Google at the time, that everyone’s always been told that “every new hire’s contract lands on Larry Page’s desk, he has to sign off on it”, and you can probably bet your bottom dollar that Larry Page didn’t spend a lot of time on each hiring package, if any.

[consp]

I'd argue I won't work there. "The buck stops here" is never true when shit hits the fan so it's just kabuki theatre in all other situations just to take credit.

[pan69]

I wouldn't work at Google either.

If you can't trust the people you have hired to hire people then you shouldn't have hired them.

[gamblor956]

it's usually just a meet-and-greet.

Yes, it usually is. But in this case the problem was that the CEO could unilaterally override the decision made by everyone else, so it wasn't just a meet-and-greet.

[ryandrake]

Yea, it's not a meet-and-greet, as in there can be no impact to the outcome of the interview. You're definitely still interviewing. But, in every case where I got to the point of "You're going to chat with the [Founder|CEO|BigTech VP]," at that point the job was mine to lose. They're not going to waste a VIP's time if they're not serious about making you an offer. You effectively have the offer. Your job when talking to the VIP person at the end is to "sound like a likable, competent person, who VIP would be cool with saying 'yea I hired this person'." That's pretty much all you need to do.

Generally the chat with the VIP means: "You have the job, but I (VIP) want to just double check that my underling hiring managers are not totally useless."

[gamblor956]

You effectively have the offer.

No, you don't have the offer at all. If you did, you would already have the offer letter in hand and the meeting with the VIP would just be a casual meet-and-greet. When it is part of the interview process, it is very deliberately because the VIP has veto power, and thus the decision to hire has not been finalized.

Your job when talking to the VIP person at the end is to "sound like a likable, competent person, who VIP would be cool with saying 'yea I hired this person'."

As you point out, the VIP is the one making the hiring decision. Everyone before the VIP was just a filter before the actual decision-maker.

(Outside of tech) the only time it's normal for a VIP to be involved in the interview process is when they're interview for executive or other management level positions, or for a role that would be working directly with management on a regular basis. But tech likes to do things backward, and insist that a VIP wasting their time on a lower-level hire is somehow normal. It's not normal in any other industry.

[anyfoo]

That is exactly the assumption I was operating under, I even called it a "veto". Does not change anything I wrote.

(And of course the CEO can override any hiring decision anyway. The question is if they will.)

[gamblor956]

The point of my comment (and yours) was that the hiring decision wasn't actually made, because as you point out (again): the CEO's decision was the only one that mattered.

That's a huge red flag for any workplace. The only time you should ever consider taking a job at a company like that is if you're unemployed and you need the job and have no other prospects.