Weird experiences applying to jobs - is this what a candidate's market is like?

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I have around 2 years experience in my field after graduating. It's known for being a field where there are a shortage of candidates. There's nothing particular impressive or stand-out about my CV; I just happen to work in a bit of a niche area that is currently doing well and is expanding.

I applied to 5 jobs recently. I heard back from all of them. For each of them, I had a screening 'interview' with internal 'talent acquisition', for all of them they barely asked me any questions and spent most of the 15-30 minute call selling the company in terms of flexible working policies, benefits, etc. They each asked my salary expectations and I gave a pretty modest bump to my current salary in line with current market rates and they each told me that the salary range for the role is higher.

I then have to do an assessment (normal in my field), and after passing it the talent acquisition/HR then shares my CV with the team, and comes back saying that the team 'want to chat' or 'want to meet me' or some other casual kind of description, and then a 1-hour call is put in on Teams which is an interview. There's not really any mention of how many rounds of interview there will be or anything. I've had Teams invites updated to invite more people, for example one role I applied to was in the overarching 'parent' company and I've got head of departments joining from several of their companies.

I'm not sure for each of these different companies why they have all not referred to an interview as an interview or made any indication as to how many rounds there will be? Is this a recent thing? To be more casual with prospective employees? Or does it suggest that there will be many rounds of interview and this is just the first stage?

I can only compare it with the interview for my current job, where I was told really clearly what each stage of recruitment would entail, and ahead of the interview I was given a presentation to prepare.

Bumping to see if anyone else currently applying to jobs has experienced similar, or anyone working in talent acquisition who has any insight?

Also reading back the OP I just want to reemphasise that I'm not bragging or showing off. Like I said there's nothing particularly standout about me as a candidate, it's just my industry happens to have a shortage of people at the moment

I think its hard to know without knowing the industry and its norms. I'm in financial services and our path is very much recruitment agent contacting me usually, selling the company, rewriting my CV, then maybe two/ three rounds of interviews.

It would be normal in the first interview for them to lay out their expectations in terms of how many rounds and timescales I find.

Try getting this moved to Work because it’s not really an AIBU.

🙄

I think this is quite normal these days. You are vetted by HR, which might be ‘round 1’ then the next round would be a Teams chat, which is very much an interview. In some cases they might invite you back to meet with a key person who couldn’t attend the Teams meeting but if they have included all interested parties on the panel then they should be able to make a decision.

Maybe the lack of available candidates in the field has reversed the usual dynamic so they're not really expecting you to try and convince them to employ you, but more the other way around.

I think it's probably normal? My son has had a recent interview that seems like this. He didn't know how many rounds there were, only that he'd got through to the second round. That ended up being the last round, but he didn't know that at the time. He was asked technical questions in one round, but during the final interview was surprised that he was hardly asked anything and they did most of the chatting. He did get the job. He is about to be a graduate.

I think it is much more normal than it used to be. Back in the nineties when I was in your position, you'd write a good covering letter with your CV and they'd make a decision from that about whether they wanted to see you. There might be 2 rounds of interviews, or an assessment day but that would be it. I've been helping DS apply for apprenticeships this year and it's been ridiculous, IMO. He's had detailed application forms, written exercises, then zoom meetings, face to face meetings, tours of places, more interviews and then nothing for weeks until he rings and they tell him he was just beaten by someone with a better fit. Fortunately, he's just got his dream role somewhere where he used to volunteer, which was just an old school application form and a face to face interview, but this is a tiny local organisation. Bigger companies seem to have hoards of employees just to faff about in the prelim stages of recruitment and create work for themselves. No idea why.

Ask the question! Why wouldn’t you ask… what are the next steps?

Show some initiative and ask what the intruder recruitment pathway is?

Yes I'd agree, this seems to be the current trend in recruitment. Very different to 10 years ago. I was jobhunting last year and it was very much like this - I was often left wondering "Is this an interview? Or something else? If it's an interview is it the second round?". There was often no clear pathway on decision making and the discussions were very much about selling the company. It happened with a few different organisations - all large - so I just assumed that is how it is now.

This. We've just recruited a few people into specialist roles in the civil service.

There was an application form, candidate statement summarising suitability for the role and a single video interview of shortlisted candidates.

As we didn't have a huge number of people to choose from we made offers to just about everyone interviewed.

Hi OP, what you've described is very much how my most recent corporate interview went so I would say it's normal. I would say that my company is fairly relaxed as well, so it made sense that the interview process was relaxed too.

I just accepted a role yesterday. I changed my status on LinkedIn to open to work guy contacted me (I am in a niched area of financial services) we had a 45 minute chat he called some of my past employers and offered me the role. even gave me 35 days holiday no probation period and 10k over the initial salary he was offering. I start may 1st so I would say when you are top of your game In a niche industry it moves very quickly. Why mess around ?

Is your field in e.g. new media, tech, Saas type of thing? If so this kind of approach is entirely normal - almost as though 'we're a cool bunch of kids, hop on this teams call for a quick chat' and that sort of thing. It's tedious but it does also reveal the people you'll be working with. Given you seem to be in a strong position then take the lead and ask questions about how many rounds there are?

Yes, definitely ask about Intruders.

Ah yes, I think this is the post pandemic remote working trend, especially the casual team meetings and adding bob and all and sundry at the last minute.

To them it's just another teams call in the diary to pop onto.

@SnarkyBag ,the sort of comments the OP will get can depend on where a thread is, which is why sometimes there will be a suggestion to move it.
When I do it, it's usually because the query will be specific e.g. about a plumbing or knitting problem, so it will be better in a specific section of the site.

We’re trying to hire at our place, not in HR or management but they’re quite open and it’s so tough finding candidates. Embrace it and definitely make Them work for you

Thank you all - it's really interesting to hear.

For context I work as a medical copywriter, so having writing assessments is a very normal part of the recruitment process. I guess it helps that I'm currently doing the same job just in a different company, so that probably speaks for itself that I'm capable of doing the job

Ach, I'm just very jealous. I can't even get beyond the automatic application submitted acknowledgement, much less hope to have some courting from who I apply for.

If you don't mind me asking, what training did you need to get into your line of work? There's a nurse in the household (not me) who knows they are coming to the end of their years being able to cope with the physical demands of looking after patients and really does not want to go into management or teaching, but something like medical copywriting would be ideal.

It's whackadoodle just now. I am mid job change, applied for 2 roles via specialist agencies both at companies I'd worked with previously and which usually have 2 if not 3 formal interviews

Both made offers after 1 interview

I started in an entry-level role with a degree and master's in Biological Sciences. I do have one colleague who was a nurse, and another who was a pharmacist