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Subscribe to RSSJob seekers expect to have two or three interviews with an employer before they land a position. But 10 interviews?
Ebonee Younger’s interview odyssey began in September when she embarked on her quest to land an HR manager’s position at a rental truck company.
Ten interviews and a lot of sweat equity later, Younger, who lives in Birmingham, Ala., ended up not getting the gig.
“The whole experience cost me two new suits, a new pair of shoes, $40 in stationery and postage -- I wrote handwritten notes to almost everyone I spoke with -- two paid time-off days, and $200 plus in taxi fare,” she explained.
“I'm not so much irritated that I didn't get the job, I was just disappointed in the candidate experience,” she noted. “I really believe they could have, and should have, made a decision earlier in the process.”
Unfortunately, Younger’s interview purgatory is not unusual. Employers are increasingly putting applicants through a seemingly endless cycle of interviews these days, a byproduct of the tight labor market. Some hiring managers feel they have the upper hand because unemployment, at over 8 percent, is still relatively high so they can put candidates through a hiring rigmarole. Others are just too inept to trust their own judgment, or are fearful a wrong hire will get them in hot water.
“We have found employers take a lot longer to select someone these days,” said Charley Polachi, co-founder of executive recruiting firm Polachi Inc.
“During the boom, hiring decisions were made in a snap,” he explained. But now, “there’s this perception of a big supply of people so they keep interviewing.”
Besides, he added, most managers today aren’t good or effective interviewers because budget cuts have done away with any real training on how to hire.
And it’s not just employers looking to fill permanent jobs who are putting candidates through the interview wringer. Adecco, one of the nation’s top temporary staffing firms, has seen an uptick in the number of interviews required for temps as well.
“The interview process for those applying to these jobs are more frequently being conducted as if they are being looked at for permanent positions,” said Bob Kovalsky, senior vice president for Adecco Staffing.
Some believe the lengthy process for all gigs today is all about money.
“Companies shouldn’t just settle for a seat filler because they need someone right away,” maintained Josh Tolan, CEO of Spark Hire, an online video job board. “A bad hire is more than just a mistake, it could be detrimental to the success of your team and your company.”
Tolan estimated that “nearly 46 percent of new hires fail within 18 months, and a bad hiring decision can cost a company upwards of 200 percent of a year’s salary.”
Despite such numbers, job seekers put through weeks of interviewing are beginning to feel like contestants in a never-ending beauty pageant.
Ginger Mathews, who lives in Phoenix, started her quest to land a trainer job with an insurance firm in January and eight interviews later she’s still in limbo.
This is how it all went down, she says:
- One phone interview that lasted 40 minutes.
- A few days later, that was followed by a one hour 15 minute Skype interview.
- A week later, that was followed by a 45-minute in-person interview at a corporate office about 20 minutes away.
- That was immediately followed by another 45-minute in-person interview at the corporate office, which was followed by another 45-minute in-person interview.
- About a week to ten days later, a one-hour in-person interview at the corporate office about 20 minutes away, which was immediately followed by another one-hour in-person interview at the corporate office, which was followed by another one-hour in-person interview at the same corporate office, on the same day.
She went through a similar endless chain of interviews for a sales coaching job with another employer, but ended up with no job.
Tons of interviews may seem like a good problem to have for many job seekers who have been unable to get past the online application to talk to a human being, but endless interviews and no job can be just as frustrating.
“These jobs do not come with six-figure incomes and it is not as though I am applying for jobs where I am responsible for great sums of money, or working as an aide to President Obama,” Matthews explained.
“I have to ask, is this the new norm?” pondered Matthews, who is scheduled for her ninth interview with the insurance company on Monday.
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I can certainly relate to all of this. I was laid off from an aerospace company 2 1/2 years ago. I have over 100 pages of logs of companies I have applied to since then. A year ago I went through about 2 months of interviews with a telecommunications company, which finally hired me and then laid me off again 2 months later.
The worst are the phone interviews where the manager asks you probing questions about the position, such as, "Describe how polymorphism works in C++". I took the 15-minute Wunderlich speed IQ test TWICE for Dish Network. Honestly, it's like applying to Starfleet Academy.
In the companies' defense, I can understand why they are so careful, up to a point. In some fields, it is well-nigh impossible to get rid of someone once they're hired - and very expensive, especially if the employee sues for age, race, or other types of discrimination. This is why they have you sign a non-litigation agreement before releasing your severance to you. It's a "poison pill".
Actually, I ran into this. I was asked to sign a waiver of non litigation before I got severance from a company. This to me is a huge red flag that they are hiding something and I refused to sign. I was able to leverage what I knew was going on in this company to negotiate a MUCH better severance through the court system.
You can negotiate that yourself, I did and got three months of severance v. their offer of very little-to waive my rights to sue them. I would not have done it although I had a great deal of reason to sue them for a hostile working environment.
Wow! And I thought that I was the only one! I am on my fourth interview with a major coporation. After the last interview I was told by one of the hiring managers that I would be called the next week to let me know IF I was moving on to the fifth interview. It has been over three weeks with not a word. Hey! I'm a big boy (age 64). Just let me know where we are! A simple communication (which has been lacking so far) will do. I'm afraid that the old "no news is good news" saying doesn't apply. Do you think that they might think that I am toooo old?
Three interviews MAX, IF you are interested. More interviews than that, even though a buyer's market, these companies are clueless. Move on to your next best opportunity. Just tell them you have had three interviews. Take you or leave you. Quit being so desperate. It truly is not worth it, your emotional energy spent for a potential big payout, to go through eight interviews, and ultimately be rejected anyway. Your time is better spent drinking at the local bar. It's probably a better networking event anyway. Corporate America is showing massive greediness in this phase of the economic cycle. It's just a fact.
I think it's stupid. I interviewed for a position at a local university. During the process, the guy I was interviewing with originally (the first two interviews by phone) all of a sudden LEAVES the company. Then I wait a week for his replacement to bring me in for the in person interview and they didn't like what I wore so I wasn't hired. Corporate America needs to pull their head's out of their asses and hire qualified candidates and stop looking at what blouse they're wearing when considering a position needs to be filled.
sounds like they're trying to let the applicants decide who gets hired by seeing who will justkeep coming to interviews. i wouldn't want to work at a company that can't get someone hired in less than 5 interviews, they're not very organized, inept and have horrible time management. not to mention if a position comes open, since it takes so long to hire someone, the other employees will be splitting up extra work for a longer period of time.
Sometimes I wonder had I bowed out after interview 5 would they have given me an offer. I tell you, 10 interviews was exhausting and mind blowing. Oh well. Lesson definitely learned.
It is an interesting question--if after 4 or 5 interviews, you tell them "look, I've been twisting in the wind for weeks now. Make an offer or I walk" would they? I wonder if they're waiting for a candidate to call them out on it.
what could they possibly not know by interview 5?
You mean that I am not the only one experiencing multiple interviews? It has been a slow with slower communication process through 4 interviews. The National Sales Manager was my #4 interview. I was promised a phone call the next week that would let me know IF I would go on to the next interview.....REALLY! If I do not know enough about someone and their fit with my company after 4 interviews, something is wrong. Is it my age (64)? The process is painfully slow. Hey, I'm not interviewing for the CIA! Let's get it on! Is it just me? Are there more contract/1099 positions being offered since it lowers their risk?
Interesting that after almost 5 years of a bad economy - people are finally complaining about this issue. In 2008 I cannot tell you how many times I was sent through marathon interviews. Employers are getting really idiotic and executives tend to micromanage the hiring practices. Which means you have to keep seeing people - you have to interview with the entire team, the sister team, the matrix team - all of whom have a say in whether you are hired or not.
Some of these potential "coworkers" might even have reasons for not hiring you - like they don't want anyone who might be better than they are.
One of these days - we will remember who has done this to us - and they will get what they deserve. Hopefully no one will interview with them ever again.
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
I was "RIF'd" from a previous company, and recently saw they were hiring for a position similar, but lower on the payscale/totem pole than I'd had previously. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING I couldn't handle or hadn't handled before.
20 minute phone interview, to be followed by two 90 minute face to face interviews.
Um. What? I USED TO WORK THERE. THERE ARE ONLY 50 EMPLOYEES. Every person I would have seen in interviews was someone with whom I'd worked for at least 3 years.
I did some soul searching and decided that, for now at least, I'm better off where I am. It just didn't smell right.
1 Resume and 1 interview or they're just jerking you around. Otherwise, they're using the " take a consultant to lunch variation". If they ask "how would you or here's a problem", they're just trying to figure out something their employees can't accomplish.
If it takes you that long to make a decision, you know you're just not one of those stars they look and know they can bet on. In fact, why are you whining, clearly they're going out of their way to find folks that would justify hiring you in some ways or another. Besides, if you think it's not fair to you, then just walk away. Let them play their games with someone else, I mean you don't think it's worth it right? Why bother?
If you are able to land a job after only 10 interviews, consider yourself lucky.
Sadly, this IS the new reality. The economy is so weak and the glut of talented candidates so great, companies can do anything they please - get used to it. The worst part is, the people they have doing the interviews do not have the sense of a 7 year old and have no business interviewing ANYONE for a position.
The newest stunt? I receive calls from recruiters 1-2x/week. The first question out of their mouths? "How much of a CUT are you willing to take?" They can do this because so many people are desperate for work, they will bid down many thousands of dollars, just to get a job - any job......sad........
I've done some hiring on a small scale. The jobs were for low-paying office jobs. I first look at the resumes to determine what skills they have. Then I do interviews and during that time they are given a short test to evaluate their skills on a computer. That's it. I don't do phone interviews. The candidates were not being hired to answer the phones so what's the point? Those endless interviews are ridiculous.
Wow, that is ridiculous, I would have lost my patience after so many interviews! The most I have ever had were 2 for a job. I can feel their pain though as I was going through several temp agencies at the time, some of which were a good 30 miles away, and all of which required expensive street or garage parking and no reimbursement or validation of the parking. It's hard to cough up over $100 in parking when you're unemployed, and especially if you get nothing out of it. I feel terrible for these people. Sometimes it's better to stay at your current job than to go through all this, and for nothing, like in Ms. Younger's case.
This is disgusting, and it does not surprise me at all. I have been looking for a full-time job for years....YEARS. Consulting doesn't cut it. I can't tell you how many times my resume just SITS on their desk for WEEKS just before getting a damn phone interview. And those f'ing RepubliCONS just want to kill unemployment insurance (I haven't had any for a year...no income, except very, very seldom consulting gigs). They have NO IDEA what Middle America is going through. The corporatization of this country has reached all-time high...a plutocracy. Yes, they know it's a "buyer's market" on their side, so they d*ck people around for months to get one job....very low-to-medium paying job at that. It's deplorable...but this is the economy Republicans LOVE. They dare complain that it's OBAMA's economy. No....it's STILL Bush's economy, but Obama inherited a complete disaster. Economies don't turn around from disaster in two years. That's like saying a person who is 250 pounds OVERWEIGHT needs to lose the weight in two months. It doesn't work that way. And, it PARTICULARLY doesn't work that way when you have a completely obstructionist, Right-wing Senate and House (yes, we don't have the 60 votes necessary to get ANYTHING dones in the Senate. So, it is a right-wing obstruction group of Senators who will say NO to EVERYTHING).
This is a new normal in trying to get a job. I guarantee, if there aren't big changes IMMEDIATELY to eradicate these types of plutocratic practices, it will definitely be a tale of two countries...just like sleeze ball, but brilliant, John Edwards always said. he thought we had a country of the Poor and the Rich then, in 2008? We did, but the gap is even far, far greater today. It has been exacerbated precipitously by what was already a disastrous, on-the-brink economy in September 2008.
Obama should @!$%# the R's, and just issue an Executive Order, JUST LIKE W DID TO GET HIS WARS UNDERWAY, and KILL the Bush tax cuts. The rich are not job creators. They're pigs who keep on gobbling up more real estate, jewelry, and investments....they don't create ANY jobs. They dick five people around for a lousy $45,000/year job by putting them through ten interviews. This is sick. It's time for people to take it to the streets...and boycott all their work all together. Let their bosses scramble to take care of accounts, clients, repairs, lawsuits, and everything the "minions" do to keep their companies rolling along. Everyone making under $130,000/year should just say screw it, I'm boycotting my 80-hour/week job that should be paying me twice as much, and let my @!$%#ing supervisor or CEO take care of the work. See how they manage without their workers. People should be marching on Washington.
I had a similar situation when I went for 5 face to face interviews for a management job and did not get it. This took place over six weeks. By the end of the fifth interview I felt like saying "If you take this long to make a decision on hiring someone, I would hate to be in a management planning meeting with you guys." Probably a good thing I didn't get the job. I very much dislike 'paralysis by analysis' types of management teams.
She's lucky they didn't hire her. Can you imagine having to work with these indecisive people?
I was applying for a job at Google last year, and went through a total of 11 different interviews, phone and in person at their Kirkland location. At the end of it, though I wanted to work there and it looked like a great place to work, I didn't get the job. The whole process took 2-3 months. No biggie though, I now have a great 6 figure job instead and get to work from home whenever I want, I get to work whatever hours I want, etc. I typically work 60+ hours a week, but mostly by choice
I too had a similar experience - My initial Skype call with the HR Head in the UK was awesome. She clearly indicated that I would need to speak to 7 additional people as the position was for the US HR Head and would need to interact with the 4 BU heads, COO and CEO - hence I felt it was justified. Skyped with the 7 Execs(in Austria, India etc.) - all very good calls - the CEO was awesome. After the last in person meeting, I was told by the recruiter that the feedback she received was that they were not sure they could put me in front of their clients - it was not on the JD but I had a lot of experience dealing with clients in my previous stints - it was a very frustrating end to what were just otherwise awesome skype calls. I went back to my database and realized that the last person who meet with me had interviewed with my previous company and was not selected - maybe that was the real reason
I've gone through this myself interviewing for restaurant management with a large company. I had two phone interviews with a recruiter, then I drove 50 miles for a 1 hour in person interview, then I drove about another 50 miles for a second in person interview at a second location, and finally went to a third location to do a job shadow day for an entire evening. At the end of all of this I was told it might be up to three weeks before I heard anything while they continued interviewing others for a new location they are opening, and that was just over three weeks ago.
On one side I dont mind and I will do what I have to to get a job, but at the same time I dont see why it has taken at least six weeks to go through this process and still not even know if I have a job or not. It feels liike Im stuck in some kind of limbo unsure whether I should keep looking or wait knowing I left all the interviews with a good chance of getting the job.
When I spoke to my recruiter even he said this is more or less what its like these days in the job market. Like I said before I will do what I have to do to get the job even if that means 10 interviews, but I don't like it much. I also spent a lot of money driving around, for parking downtown, on clothes, and time in general trying to go through this process and I still don't even know the outcome of my efforts.
Jeff - By holding out hope, you allow them to indirectly string you along. It's unhealthy. Re-take control of your life. If they eventually want you to come back for more interviews or offer you the job, you should ask pinpoint questions upfront before more fully re-engaging them. Think of it this way. If human resource personnel, managers and employers treat job candidates this way imagine what it could be like as an employee. Up to this point, how would you describe their ability to communicate, keeping their commitment to timelines, and following up with you? Your first and ongoing impressions of the company should be just as important to you as they are to hr and hiring managers.
I recognize that people need jobs and want to work, BUT as this process drew longer and longer some waving red flags should have gone up in the candidate's head. Through the candidate's words in this story, she began having concerns and feeling weary and anxiety about the ongoing interview process, the company and the job, which should have been indicators that this was not a good situation - not even in the short term. Withdrawing her candidacy should have been considered because when those elements before, during and or after the interview process and or prior to receiving a job offer, you're foolish to ignore them like she did. These things should suggest that the company is unlikely an unsuitable place. She should have listened to her inner voice. Intelligent people do.
I wonder how many people have been through 2+ interviews and have actually gotten the position. I believe we still judge people by first impressions, and the company has already made their decision after the second interview.
I went through 2 interviews max and ended up with the position....though I didn't hear from them until about a month later after the second interview. They simply called and said if I was still interested, the job was mine. They also explained when I came in on my first day why they waited; they wanted to wait until after the holiday season (it was Christmas,New Year's) for me to start. That was almost 2 years ago, still here! I am pretty grateful and lucky considering the horror stories I'm reading here. The best advice I can give is to keep plugging away...and pray on it.
Sorry to say but this process is most likely NOT driven by the folks in human resources. Unfortunatly many hiring managers claim to be the experts and want to drive the process requiring those non-decision makers to get involved in the process. Then you have people who really shouldn't be in the process involved in the process and trying to get a consusus on the candidate becomes a joke.
At my company, we limit interviewers to 5 at the very most. We make sure key decision makers are involved and have this down to a 3 steps process. We provide training to all managers on interviewing skills (and provide coaching along the way). HR is a strategic partner at our company (sometimes the hardest obstacle is our managers...but we do out best to guide them.)
I so sympathize with all of you. I have been through the mill with job interviews since I was laid off in December 2008. Yesterday I got the final kiss off on a position where I'd had 2 phone interviews, a personal interview, a request for a copy of my last PowerPoint deck (which as everyone knows you do not get to take them away from an old job to a new one), and finally have been through 2 drug screenings thinking..."Finally, I have a position, it's my turn!" Only to received a call 10 days later to tell me they'd found another strong candidate (younger that me) that they will fill the position with. I am SICK of the entire cycle!!!
She's complaining about 10 interviews?! In the nearly three years I was out of work, I got turned down more times than I can count. Not just from professional jobs, either. Do you know what a hit to the self-esteem it is to have two degrees and 20 years in the workforce, and be turned down from a gas station job because you have "no experience?!" This lady needs to get a life. Compared to others still struggling to make ends meet, she's had it easy.
Sensibility goes a long ways. With your education and 20-year work history I wouldn't have hired you either. People qualified to work at a gas station are a dime a dozen. The hiring manager knew you likely were in it for the short term. She was seeking someone longer term, so you were eliminated. What possessed you to apply there anyway? To do so suggests you are targeting the positions you are most qualified for. In these times, targets and efficient use of resources are key.
You weren't hired because you are clearly overqualified, that simple.
Peter, I'm sorry to hear about your experience with the gas station. However, I would hardly call 10 interviews easy. It was an exhausting process and although I was disappointed, I learned a lot about myself during those 10 interviews. I'm glad this article could start the dialogue and give people a chance to voice opinions on the interviewing process. Best of luck to you.