this is pretty close to the process we have here at <undisclosed bay area company>
And indeed, if you had to go through all this it means they very seriously considered you for the position.
Now, the expenses they made mean little (even for a far poorer company) compared to the mistake of recruiting someone that did not fit.
There's many reasons why someone would not be selected and sometimes it's just that people didn't "click" really.
I know that most of the time, recruiters word is "if you're not sure, better not hire than to make a mistake" and sometimes people who could have been accepted and made a positive contribution to the team get refused. There's even a bit of luck in that.
Thanks for sharing, though. I've never applied for Apple - albeit I guess engineering jobs get more tech stuff in the facetime interviews ;)
Why is this the case? As a hiring manager, I often lean heavily towards the "hire them and if they don't work out, let them go" camp. I've gotten a lot of great teammates that way and only one that didn't work out. But the one that didn't work out killed the interview and was ridiculously smart. All the ones that did poorly in the interview and had little experience ended up being some of my better engineers.
Because there's a prevailing idea that once you hire someone, there are huge legal and logistical barriers to letting him go. I don't know how true it is, but that's what people believe.
theres a lot of reasons, its more expensive to hire, form and fire than not hire for one.
Then, there are relationships with colleagues and between employees regardless of performance, if you fire very rarely then your employees are happier, everyone's happier and performance is better.
Basically, you always take the smartest risk you can, and quite often, that means no hire when you're not too sure.
"Now, the expenses they made mean little (even for a far poorer company) compared to the mistake of recruiting someone that did not fit."
Please explain. I hear this a lot but it's never substantiated other than by vague references to employees being able to sue for being fired. Yes, some employees do sue, but there generally is no ground to do so, even when the employer has misbehaved. In my experience, it's actually incredibly easy and cheap to fire someone. You might lose a couple months' salary, but generally even that won't be a total loss as you're likely to get at least some decent work even out of a bad hire.
This depends on the job. If other people can do their job without one who has been fired then it's quite cheap. On the other hand, in software industry, there are often teams of specialist with different expertise and their jobs depend on one another. In such a case, firing one will interfere with every one else and you will take a loss in decreased productivity for everyone. E.g. you fire a member of a 5 people team on a project with 100 people total. So that team productivity drops 10% (it was a bad hire after all so there is not much loss) and, hence, the whole project slows by 10%. Now you pay the remaining 99 people 10% more to get the same work done.
And indeed, if you had to go through all this it means they very seriously considered you for the position. Now, the expenses they made mean little (even for a far poorer company) compared to the mistake of recruiting someone that did not fit.
There's many reasons why someone would not be selected and sometimes it's just that people didn't "click" really.
I know that most of the time, recruiters word is "if you're not sure, better not hire than to make a mistake" and sometimes people who could have been accepted and made a positive contribution to the team get refused. There's even a bit of luck in that.
Thanks for sharing, though. I've never applied for Apple - albeit I guess engineering jobs get more tech stuff in the facetime interviews ;)