Uncertain financial times–a potentially (but maybe not) looming recession, high inflation, 10+ million job openings–means that if you are a company looking to fill a role, you might be facing that decision with some trepidation. Hiring is expensive, and you want to pick the right candidate who will be happy in the role, work well with your existing team, add value, and jive with the company’s culture and values.
However, that doesn’t mean you should make candidates partake in an extended interview process.
Ten Round Interviews?!
More and more, job seekers are reporting horror stories of interviews lasting five, seven, ten rounds, having to prepare hour-long presentations at short notice, answering questionnaires with information that isn’t relative to the job, or making it to the final round only to find out the CEO is actually awful.
We get it, we do–extended, forensic interviews give you more time to ask in-depth questions and really get a feel for the candidate, and in a perfect world it would always work out well with the right candidate being hired and fitting right in. The risk, of course, is that you will have qualified candidates drop out of the process due to frustration, logistics (many people have to schedule interviews around their current job and don’t want their employer to know they are interviewing elsewhere,) or the worry that they will have to subject future hires to the same process should they be tasked with adding to the team. If you have multiple final candidates, it’s inevitable that you’ll subject all but one of those people to a grueling, intensive process just to be told they didn’t get the job.
Not a good look.
Nope–Four or Less is Enough
As it turns out, four interviews or less is enough, according to Google, and four interviewers is plenty. They conducted a lengthy review of their hiring process and found that after four interviewers, each subsequent interviewer’s feedback provided diminishing returns, and more people to talk to and more rounds of the interview process increased the risk of a qualified candidate dropping out of the selection process.
What you think is a thorough hiring process might actually be a whole bunch of red flags. Want tips to streamline your hiring process? We’ve got you.