I've been in the industry for 10 years now and I've never seen this at all. I know a couple of people that applied to Google, and they reported that it was a fairly gruelling process, but apart that, I haven't even heard from friends about people going through anything approaching 8 hour interviews.
> I haven't even heard from friends about people going through anything approaching 8 hour interviews.
Is this a joke? "All-day" interviews are so common as to be the usual expectation.
And while they aren't always a full 8 hours, it's not unusual for them to be 5-7+ (including giving candidates a lunch, and interviewing them during it while they eat).
I wonder at what point this becomes self reinforcing. They need the 8 hour interviews because only the most incompetent will tolerate it or the ones with full time jobs already can't make the time for the interview.
I recently, in the past two years or so, interviewed for a (contract-to-hire!) position at a major airline. First I had a 30-minute phone screen. Not bad, did great on that. Then they had me out for a two-hour face-to-face onsite, which I had to take time off of my current job for. The feedback I got was positive, so they wanted me to come back AGAIN for another set of two two-hour face-to-face onsite interviews (which, again, I had to take time off for). My first face-to-face interview showed up 30 minutes late and kept me for two and a half hours, so I was late to my next interview, who kept me for another two hours.
I've done tons of interviewing and I'd say that 1 hour on the phone + 6 hours in person is the MINIMUM interview length I've ever seen. It goes up from there.
This does not seem to vary across company sizes, locations, job level, etc. Everybody copies this horrible process.
