I recently interviewed with a few major software companies in the Seattle area and I really do think the interview process is broken.
All interviews started off with a phone screen, then if that went well, I moved on to an in depth on site interview.
I think where the process breaks is the phone screens. This is where the companies were the most risk averse, when this is really where they should be willing to take the biggest risk.
I did a phone screen with two different divisions of a different company. One wanted to fly me out, the other decided they were looking for someone with "better coding skills" which is weird, since they didn't have me write any code during the interview. I didn't really feel like either interview with the company went that much better/worse than the other, but it resulted in drastically different outcomes. I flew out for the first division and was offered, and took, the job.
When one division of your company hires someone that another division thought wasn't qualified, I think you probably need to rework some parts of your hiring process.
My solution? Invest a little more time in your phone screens. Don't do just one, unless the person is a COMPLETE moron. Try a few people and get different perspectives. It's not fair for the candidate to lose out on the opportunity because they got a bad interviewer and it's no good for the company to lose out on the candidate just because the interviewer had an off day.
All interviews started off with a phone screen, then if that went well, I moved on to an in depth on site interview.
I think where the process breaks is the phone screens. This is where the companies were the most risk averse, when this is really where they should be willing to take the biggest risk.
I did a phone screen with two different divisions of a different company. One wanted to fly me out, the other decided they were looking for someone with "better coding skills" which is weird, since they didn't have me write any code during the interview. I didn't really feel like either interview with the company went that much better/worse than the other, but it resulted in drastically different outcomes. I flew out for the first division and was offered, and took, the job.
When one division of your company hires someone that another division thought wasn't qualified, I think you probably need to rework some parts of your hiring process.
My solution? Invest a little more time in your phone screens. Don't do just one, unless the person is a COMPLETE moron. Try a few people and get different perspectives. It's not fair for the candidate to lose out on the opportunity because they got a bad interviewer and it's no good for the company to lose out on the candidate just because the interviewer had an off day.