Not only does this disincentivize HR from running fake vacancies or stringing multiple candidates on just to keep their options open, but it also solves the problem of unemployed people job-searching effectively working full-time for free. The fact that companies would have to pay to hire workers would mean they try to make the selection as short and effective as possible.
Edit: From the business POV:
- Businesses would have a limited budget for hiring so would limit process to 10 applicants and would have to pick those randomly. Less time spent on interviewing but also might miss the ideal candidate. Although the difference would fall sharply with larger pools.
- And 000s of people now stuck wo any appls at all (although better than writing fake, futile appls), and no money. Not enough jobs on the market would translate into not enough paying applications for them to be able to substitute unemployment benefits.
Edit: this post seems to have gained some traction. Do you think I should try writing to my MP and suggesting it? I live in the UK where fake interviews are a real problem right now
I already can’t get an interview, this would make it impossible.
Yes sure I would love to be interviewed then everywhere everyday
Lmao Have you tried getting an interview lately?
So start a company and pay for candidates. What’s stopping you? If it’s the best business model you’ll make millions or billions
Collective action problem:
A collective action problem or social dilemma is a situation in which all individuals would be better off cooperating but fail to do so because of conflicting interests between individuals that discourage joint action. The collective action problem has been addressed in political philosophy for centuries, but was more famously interpreted in 1965 in Mancur Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action.
A great many things that would be good for society are not feasible to be the first/only one to do. The world would be vastly safer if there were no nuclear weapons, but in a world where other nations have them it becomes self-negating to not have them. The only way to get the social benefit of all companies doing something is to legally mandate it so there is no disadvantage.
I miss hired.com It was a hiring platform that tipped the scales a little in favor of the interviewee. You could take an assessment to prove your basic competence in programming and thereby cut out a round of interviews.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a professional interviewee.”
If companies have to pay for every interview, I doubt they’d do as many so you’d have a hard time getting enough interviews to make that viable.
Companies already pay a ton of money to utilize indeed and all those sites. Any cash they’d pay you to interview pales in comparison to what they’re already spending on the unfilled job.
I don’t think it would cause a declining number of interviews. If anything, it might cause interviews to go up, once employers can see the drop in the bucket of spending the interview represents.
True, then there could be a charge to accepted candidates who then reject the job to block the emergence of such an “occupation” as well. But then if one legitimately declines because of the salary, hmm… idk… Maybe to avoid this, the money should go to some governing board…
The sad reality
I agree 100%
I, too, hate job hunting, but I’m having a hard time seeing where unemployed people have to work full time for free, unless it’s a working interview.
Generally, my out of town interviews include paid airfare, hotel and meals to do the interview, this has been the professional standard since the 1970s and before… Yeah, it’s “unpaid time” but the expenses being borne by the company in the process are pretty obvious, and not insignificant.
Now, I can easily imagine today with AI HR screeners playing games of 20,000 questions before admitting you to a face-to-face round, yeah, that’s gotta be annoying. One way to win those games is not to play, only deal with companies that respect your time - I understand all too well that sometimes there aren’t any - but if they’re wasting your time like that during the interview process, odds are high that they don’t really have anything to offer anyway.
At more of a bottom-end job hunt, in high school I drove down the beach stopping in at every hotel filling out applications cold - low investment on my part. Four months later, I got a call back, apparently I was the only application on file.
Generally, my out of town interviews include paid airfare, hotel and meals to do the interview, this has been the professional standard since the 1970s and before… Yeah, it’s “unpaid time” but the expenses being borne by the company in the process are pretty obvious, and not insignificant.
Oh, what industry were you in?
Medical device development (engineering, sometimes software)
You’re getting into the weeds about the definition of “work.”
Any definition of “work” that excludes calling, writing applications (AKA writing reports), emailing, interviewing (AKA meetings) etc. also excludes many paid positions.
hear hear. it should include any assesments to.
Agreed
Looking for a job now and a single company so far has has taken 6 hours of my time.
Two for the initial requirements for applying, the reading their 5 page information, writing a cover letter, etc.
Then two hours on a screening interview, and the initial interview, though that second one went from 1 hour to 1 hour 45 minutes so it was actually 6 hours 45 minutes
Then two more hours on a technical interview
This is where I’m at now, and i still am looking at two more one hour interviews with higher up, then the CEO herself.
That’ll make over 8 and a half hours IF I get the job.
If I don’t get the job, man, this was a fucking waste…
In principle, jobs should be a mutually beneficial relationship. I give them resources, they pay for that but in reality, the balance 100% tipped to their side
I have to apply for jobs, they dont have to apply for employees
I have to write cover letters and separate letters to tell them how much i love their company and how badly i really want to work there and how much I’ll sacrifice for them
They interview me on their turf, their rules. We don’t get to interview the company. Some companies allow us to ask a few questions, but that’s it.
Shits fucked up
working full-time for free
Like, working full-time for free to find a job?
For free
Companies should be searching for employees
This concept is why I have a deep respect for DuckDuckGo as a company. When interviewing there for a SRE position, the round 2 and 3 interviews included coding challenges. They paid (IIRC) $75/hr based on the maximum time they wanted candidates to spend on each assignment. I ended up not getting the position, but they’re the only company I made it to the final decision step with that I didn’t feel was wasting my time.
Is this c/unpopularopinion?
So then a person could make his living by interviewing for jobs he’s not qualified for and could never get? I guess that probably wouldn’t happen.
I didn’t used to hate the long interview process until I applied for a job that had me fill out like a hundred questions for background information. It was like, “Have you ever been convicted of embezzlement for an amount greater than $500?” No. “Have you ever been convicted of embezzlement for an amount less than $500?” No… “Have you ever been convicted of embezzlement for exactly $500?”
Did you know that if they can guess your crime with enough specificity, legally you have to admit to it? At least that’s what I assume, based on the questionnaire. Like, “Have you ever been convicted of violating the endangered species act while crossing state lines in a class C vehicle on a Sunday?” And I’m like, “No, but you’re so close!”
Anyway, I got the offer, but then they rescinded it when I asked for more money.
After about 10 years experience in the field, my interviews tended toward the whole day kind of thing. Different companies do it differently, but basically if you’re going to the effort of bringing a candidate to the company, might as well grill 'em for most of a workday. Some group interviews - those are pretty intimidating: a room full of people who know what they want and you guessing what it is they actually do. Mostly a series of one-on-ones, the most hostile one-on-one interviewer I ever had turned out to be the guy whose desk I was about to take over, shuffling him from a window seat back to an interior cube - he really really didn’t like me in the interview, I gently mentioned it to my boss-to-be he just blew him off “don’t worry about him, he’s always like that…”
So then a person could make his living by interviewing for jobs he’s not qualified for and could never get?
That’s already a flaw of the current system, so no change means no new downside. People receiving unemployment usually have to prove they’re looking for work, but there’s not usually a requirement that you’re applying to things you’re likely to get.
If you call unemployment “pay” - it’s such a small amount compared to a real job it’s ridiculous, but on the other hand: you’ve got no other sources of income so: jumping their hoops is the best way to get some money coming in.
It’s weird. I was applying for an engineering tech job and they asked if I’ve ever knowingly violated the second law of thermodynamics, but wouldn’t tell me if it was a deal breaker if I had. Anyway that place burned to the ground before I heard back on my interview anyway.
I think a way forward is to make the government handle the hiring process. The companies put a fee into escrow, which is paid to the government if no hires are completed or retained.
The government interviews potential hires, anonymizes and DEIs, retains resumes and information from job seekers, creates the infrastructure for reviews to be left by people for a company’s work conditions, and so forth. If a pattern of false jobs emerges, the government can prevent the company from issuing further offers for 3 or 4 months, with a heightened penalty for the escrow thereafter. If people are consistently hired and retained, the escrow penalty is reduced.
Corporations shouldn’t be responsible for hiring, because they are strongly incentivized to do bullshit.
I am not opposing but there is a big risk here.
Essentially there are 2 customers,
The company wants a worker, but the worker a company.
In a current hiring process if your not a fit for the company well thats end of story… but not with a centralised third system who is hiring for many different companies where they can hire you for another company instead were you are a better fit.
Sounds good on paper for now but.
The government needs you to work to pay taxes. The job of the government worker is to make sure the open positions are filled. Neither requires you or the employer to be long term happy with the deal.
Over time they will drown in crap positions that are technically legit employment but that no one actually wants and the government will get pressured to fill those positions.
So when you walk in, and you don’t instantaneously manage to sell yourself as one of the prime few worthy of the actual decent jobs everyone wants, they will try to push you in all the shitty ones till you stop coming back.
Then there is also you can’t really ban someone from employing someone directly.
Interviews actually cost the company. They have to pay those people interviewing you, and not working for clients at that time. That’s why I don’t see many applications going to interview phase at all. Most applications are just filtered by AI, or some HR and it never goes to the actual hiring manager. And they don’t interview unless they are pretty sure about wanting to hire the candidate. At least the companies without ghost jobs do that.
But HR only interviews are probably different, they might do interviews to justify their job.
OK, but who does it cost more? The person being interviewed is also burning opportunity and time but we assume it’s free because no one is paying them?
Sounds like it wastes both sides’ time and money, but measuring up to determine who is wasting the most time and money doesn’t really help anything other than furthering Whataboutisms.
Ideally, we change to a system that doesn’t do that (nearly as much).
It makes me wonder why companies chose to waste to many people’s time then if it costs them money too. Perhaps that cost hurts them less than the interviewees?
The world of business is FILLED with people more interested in their own leisure than the company’s benefit at every level. Everyone knows about the slackers making minimum wage but every time you hear a company has hired a contractor, that’s a manager looking at the choice between A) putting in the time and effort to hire an employee, train them, integrate them into the team, and manage and support them as they do necessary work, or B) just writing a check from company funds to the contracting company and taking off early to get a few beers with their buddies, and wouldn’t you know it, somehow it seems like the answer is always to spend the company’s money.
