Why use 5+ rounds of interviews?

fret_wimp2

Many of the large multinationals now have a recruitment process spanning 3, 4 and even 5 rounds of interviews.

The whole process can take a month or more. I can see how a 1st round may be necessary to weed out any bluffers and people who just are not qualified, but whats the deal with having 3 rounds after that?

Is their logic that they will be able to narrow down the candidates to the best candidate? I see this as flawed from the start, as good candidates will not wait a month for a recruitment process, when you can join a smaller company after only 1 or 2 interviews.

Also, are they becomming over picky? I mean one guy on the pannel may decide he does not like one thing on a candidates cv, and discount that candidate, even if he could have been the best person for the job.

Thirdly, who can sit around and wait a month or more for the "chance" at a job?

Is it arrogance or is there some skued logic in use?

Nody

I can't recall any job I've done that has not had at least two, if not usually three or more steps. First being recruitment firm/HR, second being direct manager of the open position, third being manager's manager and/or collegue.

As for waiting so long or being picky; it is the employeers market, why would they not be picky? Esp. since they will need to investigate time and effort to train the person up before they are productive you want to make sure you get the right person for the job if possible. Now if you think it is to long then by all means go for the small firm and be done with it then.

fret_wimp2

Nody wrote: »

Now if you think it is to long then by all means go for the small firm and be done with it then.

No need to get narky about it, i just wanted to see some valid view points. It goes without saying that I have the choice to go for smaller companies if i so chose to! Apart from your last line you make so me good points. thanks.

Also, FYI, a collegue done 4 interviews in the last week. Some were quite long (3+ hours) but after just one interview with each company he got an offer from 3. Some were small companies, but a few of them, large financial institutions were far from small start up's/mom and pop shops.

Seems if you get into the high end of the market in your area the multi level interviews dont happen also.

Evonatron

From big MNC to the local accountants down the road companies are now in a position to be extremely more picky when it comes down to recruiting. There is no standard for what is acceptable, I have worked with MNC companies that have hired a person from a phone interview when they have been based outside the country, other depts in the same company would have at least 3 phone interviews. Other depts would need to meet potential employees face to face, up to 3 times before offering a position. Other companies bring in aptitude testing which can be a full 3 hours sitting for temp employees as well as permanent employees. I have worked with companies that have hired a person after 20 mins and were happy.

It all depends on the hiring manager and what they would prefer to do. If they post is urgent and they need to fill it asap, if they are waiting on a person to leave and they may prefer for the post to vacant before starting an new employee. If the post is a maternity cover and they are waiting on dates and then waiting on the person to actually take her maternity leave this takes longer. If it is a new post altogther and they are testing the water to see what different types of people can bring to the company.

I have seen employers change job descriptions based on interview as there may be more to the role that they havent thought about or they may need to see people with more or less experience to make their mind up.

If I speak to a person who is looking for a new jobs, I would advise them that it will be at least 6 months before a suitable roles arises. If they start an interview process alot of these take at least 6 weeks before the role begins. Alot of employers start the process 2 months before actually needing the person to start. It is most of the time a long process.

I work in the recruitment industry and these are my thoughts from dealing with countless employers from various industries. But again I'm sure there are alot of other people that would have different opinions on it. I would never advise a person to put all their eggs in one basket and wait on a job, I would keep telling them to go and apply for as many jobs as they are suitable for. I have seen companies lose out on hiring the right candidates because they had such a long interview process on numerous occasions.

Vim Fuego

I survived a 4-round Google interview process back in 2006, I'd say it's even more of a bitch now given the growth of the Dublin office and the added layers of management. I was a grad at the time, whole process took at least 6 months. About 2 months before I got the gig, I had been working a month at another place. Felt like such a **** bailing after a month but them's the breaks.

I do think it's a bit ludicrous though. Fair enough if the candidate is already in a job and is willing to wait it out but sometimes you need to take a job to get the cash flowing.

I'm in a similar holding pattern with another MNC at the moment

red menace

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Many of the large multinationals now have a recruitment process spanning 3, 4 and even 5 rounds of interviews.

The whole process can take a month or more. I can see how a 1st round may be necessary to weed out any bluffers and people who just are not qualified, but whats the deal with having 3 rounds after that?

Is their logic that they will be able to narrow down the candidates to the best candidate? I see this as flawed from the start, as good candidates will not wait a month for a recruitment process, when you can join a smaller company after only 1 or 2 interviews.

Also, are they becoming over picky? I mean one guy on the panel may decide he does not like one thing on a candidates cv, and discount that candidate, even if he could have been the best person for the job.

Thirdly, who can sit around and wait a month or more for the "chance" at a job?

Is it arrogance or is there some skewed logic in use?

Is that not way more likely to happen in a 1 round scenario?
Most places that have multiple rounds of hiring will have a hiring committee who can look at the results and feedback of the multiple interviews and find the best fit for the company?

The company is not there to facilitate you getting a job quickly they are trying to find the best candidate

padma

it seems to be in place in order that the interviewer has a full time job interviewing people.

Cgoodie

I've just been offered a job after doing 5 rounds of interviews (4 phone interviews and 1 face to face). This was for a large MNC and from applying for the job back in January it's taken 4 months to get to a start date in May (woohoo)!

I think now employer's can be as picky as they want because there is so many people looking for jobs now and they want to make sure they have the right candidate.

But if I had other offers or had applied for other jobs I wouldn't have hung around waiting on them to get back to me if I had a better offer on the table. I think now getting a job is a waiting game and employers have the upper hand in that sense.

Mr. Loverman

I would not work for a company who require 5+ rounds of interviews. Reeks of "elitism" i.e. dickheads.

common sense brigade

I agree with you OP. 5 ROUNDS of interviews is bordering on insane. im in situation where i need to relaocate so im looking for work. at same time trying to book holidays off at short notice to attend interviews. the process in big companies is exhausting. and one thing i have noticed is its also gone extremely slow here in Ireland. you could be more than 2 months waiting for an offer. Another thing i find crazy is the amount of Ridiculous HR style / Behavioural questions interviewers now put Employess through. I work for a large company and it took us 4 months to employ a position recently and after all their exhaustive interviews and pointless questions the girl left after 2 days! i had to laugh. the position could have been filled within 2 weeks if they got their fingers out. HR is to blame. The culture of HR departments in Ireland is a sham.

scico rocks

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

I would not work for a company who require 5+ rounds of interviews. Reeks of "elitism" i.e. dickheads.

Just sounds like they have a bad HR division with nothing to do........

Royale with Cheese

I sat a test and did 3 interviews for my current job, I can see how each one served its purpose. However I've heard stories of companies like Google having 10+ stages to their interview process. I really can't see how that's beneficial, just smacks of the HR department giving themselves something to do.

doolox

Full employment

helimachoptor

I'm starting a new position for a large MNC with a local office here in Ireland just 2 interviews. All in all it was about 3 weeks from the call about the first interview to the job offer.

In saying that I had a couple of recent interviews with the same MNC for different jobs. I found out through contacts in the company afterwards that in each case the hiring manager hired someone from their last company. But in that case there were 3 rounds of interviews + aptitude tests. an anwful waste as it seems the new employees were pals with the boss

red menace

I think 10+ is a bit excessive

But I think that the following is plenty

Phone screen
HR interview
Peer Interview maybe 2
Manager Interview

Hiring a new person is a pretty big investment for the company it costs time and money to hire someone and train them up so they can do their job.
Would you buy a car without thoroughly checking it out first?

Pythia

I interviewed for a place (a US company) where they made me do

an initial phone interview (1)

another phone interview (2)

an interview day where I was interviewed by 3 people separately (5)

another phone interview (6)

another normal interview (7)

After all that, they still didn't offer me the job, they said they wanted to talk to my references BEFORE discussing salary, benefits, etc. I got fed up and had got a job with another company in the mean time.

In my current job, I did one 45 min interview and got it.

seraphimvc

this, i guess it tells alot of how incompetent the job of some recruiters/interviewers are. seriously, wth, if any interviewer takes more than 2 interviews to decide who is the one they are gonna hire, he/she is just wasting the time and money of the company and the candidates. i havent heard anything like this except in ireland O.o

Chessala

For the job I am currently applying I'll have my 2nd interview on Monday. Had an initial interview+test with the recritment agency, next will be a skype video interview (as I live in Wexford and the job is in Cork) and if I heard right there will be another face-to-face interview afterwards.

x in the city

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Many of the large multinationals now have a recruitment process spanning 3, 4 and even 5 rounds of interviews.

The whole process can take a month or more. I can see how a 1st round may be necessary to weed out any bluffers and people who just are not qualified, but whats the deal with having 3 rounds after that?

Is their logic that they will be able to narrow down the candidates to the best candidate? I see this as flawed from the start, as good candidates will not wait a month for a recruitment process, when you can join a smaller company after only 1 or 2 interviews.

Also, are they becomming over picky? I mean one guy on the pannel may decide he does not like one thing on a candidates cv, and discount that candidate, even if he could have been the best person for the job.

Thirdly, who can sit around and wait a month or more for the "chance" at a job?

Is it arrogance or is there some skued logic in use?

At the end of 5 rounds only idiots are prob hired...:rolleyes:

I would not waste my time applying for such jobs, any job i got I nailed it after ONE interview.

Lol at the resources companies spend on so many interviews

red menace

x in the city wrote: »

At the end of 5 rounds only idiots are prob hired...:rolleyes:

I would not waste my time applying for such jobs, any job i got I nailed it after ONE interview.

Lol at the resources companies spend on so many interviews

So if you weren't offered the job after the first interview - thats you done?

BostonB

padma wrote: »

it seems to be in place in order that the interviewer has a full time job interviewing people.

Thats probably the only reason for these bizarre number of interviews.

seamus

Its popular. Nothing else to it. In reality nobody knows how to find the absolute best candidate through an interview process - sometimes its instinct on the interviewers part, sometimes they screw up.

The trend in the 90's was started by Microsoft to ask inane questions unrelated to the job in an effort to find clever people. It failed, but everyone else copied it for ten years before realising it was ****e.

This is the same. That multiple interviews will find the best candidates. Sound logic if you're lookIng for someone who's good at interviews. Complete HR nonsense if youre looking for a qualified candidate.

Irish_Elect_Eng

Every seems to be focused on the negative side of there being too many interviews, but let me offer another perspective.

In one of my roles with a MNC there was a practice of "not letting the good guys get away" in other words, if you interviewed a candidate that did not suit the role that you had on offer, you would pass the candidate back to HR with the recontamination that the candidate was unsuitable for the role but that you were recommending him for another open role. In that case sometime a candidate was interviewed several times.

In another engineering company it was policy that for all significant hires (such as Senior Engineer and higher) that all candidates had to be interviewed by all department heads as the competence of the candidates would impact all their departments. Other companies doe a 360 degree interview process where all of the team need to interview a new team member,this seems to work well in some creative jobs.

(But it is true that some companies just have poor HR processes or to controlling managerial structures)

But normal process would have been:

• Screening Phone Call. (10 - 50 Candidates)
• Phone Interview. (10 - 20 Candidates)
• In House Interview with Peer. (1-10 Candidates)
• In House interview with Manager (1-3 Candidates)

Note:
Some companies have been burned badly by hiring the wrong people are very conservative when hiring.
You cannot under estimate the damage that can be done to a good team by hiring the wrong candidate.

StupidLikeAFox

doolox wrote: »

Full employment

Or promote nepotism

InReality

for the first year an employee has no job security so it makes even less sense..

Mr. Loverman

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

In one of my roles with a MNC there was a practice of "not letting the good guys get away" in other words, if you interviewed a candidate that did not suit the role that you had on offer, you would pass the candidate back to HR with the recontamination that the candidate was unsuitable for the role but that you were recommending him for another open role. In that case sometime a candidate was interviewed several times.

I don't have a problem with the above, and I would bet most people here are the same. I have experienced it once myself and it seemed like common sense.

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Other companies doe a 360 degree interview process where all of the team need to interview a new team member,this seems to work well in some creative jobs.

As someone who hires people, I find this sort of interview technique to be pointless. For a start, there will be people on the team who are unsuited to
giving interviews, and there will also be duds on the team who you don't want involved in the interview process, etc.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Many of the large multinationals now have a recruitment process spanning 3, 4 and even 5 rounds of interviews.

The whole process can take a month or more. I can see how a 1st round may be necessary to weed out any bluffers and people who just are not qualified, but whats the deal with having 3 rounds after that?

Is their logic that they will be able to narrow down the candidates to the best candidate? I see this as flawed from the start, as good candidates will not wait a month for a recruitment process, when you can join a smaller company after only 1 or 2 interviews.

Also, are they becomming over picky? I mean one guy on the pannel may decide he does not like one thing on a candidates cv, and discount that candidate, even if he could have been the best person for the job.

Thirdly, who can sit around and wait a month or more for the "chance" at a job?

Is it arrogance or is there some skued logic in use?

1 round doesn't buffer jack poo. Plenty of imbocils get through the first round, you only have to take a look at any job out there, plenty of fools in positions they shouldn't hold. The more rounds the better it is.

Who has a month to wait? About 500,000 unemployed and the other 500,000 who absolutely hate their job, 1 month wait is nothing.

omen80

5 rounds is very excessive. I think 2 is plenty.

Recruitment agencies really annoy the sh!t out of me.

x in the city

red menace wrote: »

So if you weren't offered the job after the first interview - thats you done?

would not waste my time with jobs that need

a/ ASSessment centres

b/ 6,000 interviews

c/ behavioural %hit


that is all. I look at the hiring procedure before i apply

Denerick

This is the kind of crap that makes me even more misanthropic than I already am.

G-Money

I think 5+ rounds of interviews is idiotic. I've worked in a few places over the years and I find that 3 rounds of interviews to be the norm and to be more or less acceptable. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of interviews, I hate doing them, but I think 3 rounds is pretty much enough.

Unfortunately it is an employers market out there so they can try to make people jump through as many hoops as they want in order to get the right person.

I know one particular company where I did 3 rounds of interviews and the 3rd round was the last round and it came down to me and one other person. When I got the PFO HR said the team went with the other person as they had worked with them before. I got reasonably good feedback but it wasn't long before I started to wonder was this other person already lined up for the job from the beginning and the interviews were just a sham in order to satisfy some employment legislation.

In those types of situations, I say let them hire whoever they want and don't make them interview other people. Who wants to waste their time interviewing for a job that they have zero chance of getting and which is already lined up for someone else.

shoegirl

The only occasions I've come across this is where the job spec wasn't really properly set in stone and they are still feeling their way, but more frequently the reason is basically that they have at least 4 different decision makers but are not able to get all 4 into one room at the same time. Unfortunately it generally indicates a company with poor organisational processes and lack of interpersonal mutual respect.

Its more annoying when you are contacting on daily rate, as generally it means a full day off with no pay - very unattractive if you are nearing the end of a contract that isn't up for renewal.

shoegirl

seamus wrote: »

This is the same. That multiple interviews will find the best candidates. Sound logic if you're lookIng for someone who's good at interviews. Complete HR nonsense if youre looking for a qualified candidate.

Agree on the trend of looking for "clever people" (that was a total misinterpretation of various studies that found that given an opportunity and appropriate training, many candidates with non traditional backgrounds would perform just as well if not better than traditionally qualified candidates - it never worked here because of the sales/keyword search mindset of recruiters).

However I don't think the multiple interview thing is down to HR waste, I think the problem is that too many people are involved in the decision but not empowered to take it, or unwilling to take responsibility for deciding. I did interview a few people for a role a few years back, and I really felt that it was wasteful because my idiot colleague was in there too and kept asking the candidates several times over "what did you do in your last job?"

A lot of interviewers don't prepare properly for interviews, don't consider what qualities they are looking for and what kinds of things to focus on.

I think 5+ rounds of interviews is just pathetic. And it's incredibly unfair on people who are already working.

A mate of mine just got a job at a multinational in London after doing 5 interviews, but he was on the dole the entire time with nothing else to do and living at home with his parents. I'm working full time (in a respectable but badly paid job) because I need a roof over my head - I simply cannot keep taking entire days off for interviews. I can't afford to lose days of pay for a company who might decide not to hire me after months of keeping the candidates hanging on. I'm certainly not alone in this situation. I would say that working, any job, is much better than being on the dole, yet these fashionable selection processes pretty much rule out people who work full time. I wonder how many great candidates they never get to meet because they can't dedicate months of their life to a recruitment process.

In the past, most people got their jobs after only 2 interviews. I've never done more than one interview. I can see the benefit of 2 or 3, but after that it just becomes timewasting, IMO. They think making people jump through hoops will get them the keenest and brightest candidates. It won't. It will get them people who can afford, time-wise and money-wise, to spend months looking for the perfect job. Another case of elitism.

fret_wimp2

I got offered the job! after 5 interviews. But, and here it comes. It took quite a while for them to get back to me after my last interview.

I informed them of my situation and that I needed to know in a hurry ( redundancy problems), and would appreciate it if they could speed up the final decision making process.

Was told I would hear by Monday. I got no call on Monday so wrote it off and made some arrangements to meet with other companies.

I since got 2 potential offers ( to be confirmed on Tuesday at meetings), and after all that company A comes back and are "delighted to offer me the position". I know a lot can change and those offers are not yet set in stone, but still with a little luck I will have some good options.

Had they called me Monday i would have taken off their arm with how quickly i accepted the offer. Now, I have some potential options.

Long interview process and stringing potential candidates does not pay, not in this case anyway, so far.

BostonB

I had the same experience, did one interview for a job, they then changed the spec, (combined two previous roles into one) and called me back to interview again. They offered me the job a bit later, but by then, I'd had accepted an offer from somewhere else.

That said I would doubt anywhere has problem filling places. So they don't really care about losing people due to any delays.