Hiring without interviews - is it possible?

#discuss

Hatred towards an interviewing process in the tech field is a common topic, but if you were to design the hiring process from scratch how would you do it?

Should we keep doing the standardized repeatable whiteboard-style interviews?

Or should it be a take-home assignment? Paid or not?

Or maybe we should move to the model of already vetted candidates where you just pick and hire?

I'm interested in the perspective from both sides - the companies and the candidates.

Top comments (4)

Denis Anisimov • Feb 20 '20

In my opinion standard practice of doing extensive coding interviews is just no fun and many companies are plainly bad at it. They are also very stressful and good at filtering out unconventional talent.

Another issue is figuring out the culture fit. At the interviews you rarely have a chance to talk about it and Glassdoor is good for gossips, but terrible for discovering good companies.

Ideal process for me, as a candidate in the past, would be some sort of apprenticeship with no long-term commitment. As a startup founder it also fits the mantra of "hire fast, fire faster". But I'm wondering if anyone else had experience with this style of hiring.

Sara Given • Feb 21 '20

I think this is a bit similar to what Automattic does - you're given a paid project that you can do part-time or full-time. At least that's what I've read/heard about. I'm assuming there's other parts, as well, but it's an interesting way to approach things, especially as a fully-distributed company.