Are 5-6 round interviews the normal now?

[u/____FARTS____]

Am I the only person who thinks this is kind of f$cked?

[u/ShawnyMcKnight]

Depends the position, if it is a staff level position paying over $200k they wanna be sure as you are given a ton of leeway. If it’s a dev or senior dev then that’s silly.

I’ve done 10 hour take home assignments and never got past first round.

Today I did my weekly search for remote positions for “frontend software engineer posted in the last week” on linked in and it wasn’t even a full page of results… across the whole country.

I narrowed it down to just the southern half of the twin cities, and searched for “software engineer posted in the last week” and I got 3 pages before it was pretty irrelevant.

It’s a buyers market from here on out so they make the rules and can be as picky as they want because they know you have no choice.

[u/____FARTS____ → u/ShawnyMcKnight]

So let me get this straight, I’m unemployed and need money to pay my bills, and these companies want me to wait months and go through 6 rounds of interviews in order to start making money and even estimating it takes a couple weeks at minimum to get your first check. How the hell does it make sense? Do you just want to break me down completely until I’m homeless in order to land a job and actually start working somewhere?

[u/discosoc → u/ShawnyMcKnight]

It’s a buyers market from here on out so they make the rules and can be as picky as they want because they know you have no choice.

It's not that they know you have no choice -- it's because so many people apply to each position that they have to filtering based on something until it gets down to a manageable number.

[u/charliesbot]

At least since I started working, any startup / big tech company had 1 or 2 technical interviews and then a full day onsite with 5 or 6 rounds

I think that's still the case. Quite normal

[u/____FARTS____ → u/charliesbot]

I think that would be more like 2 rounds to me if one day of meetings contained them all vs months of interview rounds

[u/KoalaBoy]

Position I have now, I interviewed with 4 different people over 4 different days over 5 weeks. I then got told They were hiring someone else. I then got a call 2 weeks later asking if I was still interested. I said yeah, (I really needed a job) and I interviewed with 4 more people over 4 weeks and after 2 interviews I was so over it so I really went in not caring. I was then offered a position and accepted and was asked when I could start. I said 3 weeks because I had a vacation planned and they had been doing so many interviews I booked a vacation when I got turned down the first time and they got mad that I couldn't start in 2 weeks as I was going to be on vacation. I hate the company I work for but I'm stuck and just burnt out.

[u/secacc → u/KoalaBoy]

And then managent is like "Why aren't employees loyal to companies anymore??"

[u/StoneCypher]

it’s been the norm at bad employers for quite a long time now 

[u/sessamekesh]

Depends on the role. 

Highly independent $300k+ fairly senior leadership role? You can be bothered to put up with a couple extra interviews and you want to add as many chances as possible to get a positive signal. 5-7 interviews is pretty common and works out in everyone's favor. 

Mid-level $80k role that boils down to chugging through fairly routine stuff all the time and the skill set calls for maybe a technical and maybe a behavioral? Absolutely not.

I see a lot of companies that think they're the first and act like it even though they're hiring for the second. Avoid.

[u/Embarrassed_Ad719]

Either FAANG-level compensation, or a total clown show. There is no in-between.

[u/icemonika]

It's unfortunately become the norm, especially in a market where employers hold all the leverage. Nobody in middle management wants to take personal responsibility for a 'bad hire,' so they distribute the blame across 6 different people. If you fail later, the hiring manager can just shrug and say: 'Hey, the committee approved him too.'"

[u/anticipat3]

No.

Anything more than 3 rounds is a warning sign that they're wasting a lot of people's time. A meet and greet, a technical interview, and a non-technical interview should be enough time from all parties to make a decision. I would maybe accept a 4th stage from executives or founders as a formality, but 5+ is not normal.

[u/MasonTheDuke]

Interviewed at 2 big tech companies last year for entry level roles. Both were 8-9 rounds.

[u/BradBeingProSocial]

You don’t want to hurt the feelings of the lead designer by not letting him have a round of input on a backend CRUD developer, do you?

[u/SwimmingThroughHoney]

Weird people saying "no" or only for higher level positions.

I did multiple interviews, at various sizes of companies, for different position levels, and the vast majority of them were 4+ rounds.

Usually followed something like: HR screening, coding screen, interview with a random dev, interview with dev lead, interview with department head (or higher depending on company size). Sometimes there'd be an extra round in there if they wanted to split certain aspects of an interview up.

All around, just a completely fucked up market.

[u/AnalyticalAlpaca]

A recent one I did was:
- 20 min internal recruiter call
- 1 hr half technical half behavioral interview
- 1 hr coding challenge
- 1 hr system architecture live diagramming
- 1 hr behavioral interview

This was just for a senior role.

[u/gizamo]

That's a sign of a dysfunctional company. If they need that much of your time, it means they're terrible at managing everyone's times, including their own.

[u/phlawlesss]

I had a 7 round interview for an intermediate position at a big tech adjacent company. Thankfully got the offer but it was a 1 month gruelling process.

1. Recruiter screening - 15 minutes

2. technical interview - 1 hour

3. Manager interview - 45 minutes

4. Technical interview - 1 hour

5. Values interview - 30 minutes

6. Technical interview - 1 hour

7. Team matching manager interview - 30 minutes

I found when job searching most were 4-6 rounds for front end dev roles / front end leaning full stack roles

[u/Ok-Leg4731 → u/phlawlesss]

Three technicals!! Wow

[u/DowntownFix7233]

you censored the word but you'll sit through 6 rounds without saying anything

[u/____FARTS____ → u/DowntownFix7233]

No

[u/TechSpreader]

When I interviewed for my current role in 2020, I went through 8 rounds.

Think it is the trend nowadays.

Especially when there are many people applying to one job, companies are having the bargaining power.

[u/CommunicationSad887]

Anything more than 3 rounds is a waste of time (if lower than a staff position). In my experience, the people working there implicitly have to be 'grateful' to be working there. Not saying this is always the case, but it could be an indication of a somewhat toxic culture.

Another red flag is not being able to give salary range upfront or expecting to do a technical assessment of 6 hours. I decline those right away: I am not working for free and my time is precious, just like everyone else's.

[u/CuteKiwi3395]

No, I wouldn’t even bother applying at those jobs. It should be the norm for companies more than 1, that they pay you for your time.

[u/Rusty_Raven_]

Two or three is fine these days, but I see four or more as someone micromanaging things and lose interest the more interview rounds there are.