Most companies do have pathologically bad interview practices. The usual thing it to cargo cult off of other companies interview practices or be based off of some idea that has been seen before.
IIRC their claim is they are trying to avoid bad hires more than skip good hires. I haven't seen any data though that their interviewing methods achieve those results. If I was to guess why they do it that way it's just because of momentum and lack of any "known" good alternative.
What's interesting about these practices is that the _best_ candidates will have no patience for this and say "no thankyou" so they're not getting the cream of the crop. Everyone, even an obvious bad fit, should be treated respectfully and the interviewee's time and schedule should be honored.
Maybe. I tend to think that's a cynical take. Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice.
This is a...youthful...industry, and a lot of junior people (with "senior" titles!) are out there doing interviews. It takes experience to become a good interviewer, and if you've never had that experience, you don't know what you don't know.
Interviews only exist as a tactic in the goal to bring on valuable people. While it's surely important to bring on good people - and not bring on bad - this just seems to be one of those nebulous skills like 'leadership'. Everyone trying to 'nail it', and its not a skill you're going to get exactly right anyway.
I'm tending towards - give up on trying to nail the optimal method of accessing talent.
You have to interview there's no substitute for having a conversation with someone. Then, hire someone as a contractor. You'll see how good they are on the job with a more limited investment, and hire them f/t later if they're good.
Also, I find these 'code for me now' sessions rather undignified - but its a world of young people, and young people are more likely to put up with demeaning worthless crap.
That said - that way of conducting interviews pretty often makes you feel like a jerk. And that is uncomfortable for both sides.
And I believe this is why this discussion always keeps popping up. And it makes you discard a lot of "possibly great" candidates at the cost of "almost none of them bad".
I am sorry, but I really don't think any company would deliberately interview a "bad" candidate. It is extremely expensive to interview and hire - I don't think anyone would agree to spend time on a candidate unless there was some chance.
That said, sometimes companies may take a flyer on someone, sometimes people just bomb interviews, sometimes it's just a very bad fit. Learn from it and keep going!
Not for practice, but companies do interview people they have no intention of hiring in order to fulfil internal policies or improve diversity metrics.
I'm pretty confident it's just luck of the draw. At both companies, giving interviews is an expectation for promotion, so many interviewers don't particularly want to be there and some are bad at hiding that fact.
Higher leadership positions rarely rely on interviews and those that have them tend to use them as a formality.
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