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Ask HN: Why companies don't pay candidates for showing up at their interview?

4 points by bsvalley ↗ HN
Interviewing is very painful and time consuming for candidates, plus, companies spend a lot of money for that. Why companies don't pay candidates for showing up at their interview?

Potential outcome: Companies would attract more "talents" by filling up their pipelines with a lot more qualified folks (assuming they'd still decide whether or not you're worth bringing on site). Something like $1000 per onsite and big companies could literally 10x that for very special candidates. On the other hand, I could actually make money by showing up and taking a day off work while going through the most painful step of our profession.

What do you guys think? Could almost turn into a full time job for certain people :)

5 comments

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cimmanom
What problem would this solve?
ta43637347434
One thing that's been grinding my gears lately is multi-hour coding challenges for positions... I'm not aware of any other industry that does this, and it gets really irritating after your Nth coding challenge (because N Queens or Fizzbuzz are so important to know!).

I'm actively ignoring job positions now where they seem to think it's a great idea. "Gee, wow, thanks I can spend hours of my time and potentially get nothing out of it? Thankyou sir!"

Sevii
I am posting all coding challenges on my github now. They don't own the code unless they pay me for it. After a while I will tell people please look at the many coding challenges I have completed and posted on my github profile.
philipkglass
I'm one of those people who dreads implementing even basic code like "visit every node in this binary tree" while someone watches me. I never have to do that on the job. I never had to do it in school. I hate having to do it in an interview. OTOH, if you give me a challenge to implement a solution for a problem and let me work on it on my own, I often do really well. I'd rather spend 3 hours on a harder problem in a comfortable environment than 20 minutes in a live coding environment with someone watching. I understand that some people are much happier with fast, live coding exercises. I'm fine with that; I don't think that there's only one way to find good candidates.

I think that the difference between take-home problems and live coding is akin to the difference between being able to write a thoughtful essay and extemporaneous public speaking. I try to avoid the latter. And I also understand that some particularly selective employers may want someone who can extemporize essay-quality material on the spot. That's ok too. I recognize my limits. I'm not going to chase those positions.

(Not that Fizzbuzz takes anyone hours.)

MarkCole
I don't see that this solves any problem in the interview process.

This would just incentivize people who aren't going to take the job to apply. People would specifically apply to interviews just for the money with no intention of ever taking it. There would probably even be people who are wholly unqualified who would study and fake resumes etc just to make money from turning up.

On the other hand, I do believe that doing any work after an interview should be compensated in some way, even more so if they plan to actually use the work product for something. Travel to/from an interview should also be compensated in my opinion.