How many stages of interviews did you have for professional job?

[snakesally]

Currently going through recruitment process and Ive got through and had second stage interview few days ago ( first was screening phone call with recruitment manger so not sure it counts )how many stages did you have for your job? Particularly interested in corporate, professional jobs.

Ps I'm just intrigued if I could possibly have like 6 stages to go through or is two normally the limited. I had 1st interview with CEO then second with head of the particular field I'm trying to get into. Would you imagine that would be it?

I've never heard of someone having more than three interviews for a job, with one usually involving a presentation of some sort. Six interviews would be taking the piss tbh. An employer should be able to make their mind up after 2-3 interviews, and usually very high positions have probation periods of at least 6 months, sometimes even a year.

My thoughts too @NightNightNight I'm hoping I either hear that I haven't got it or get an offer made soon. I hate all the interview stress and faff

My current role, interview with HR business partner, interview with hiring manager, 2 x presentation, and 2 x interviews with senior people who you’d working with

@alwaysraining123 omg that's so many. Gosh you deserved the job after that!

Worse one was an online test, then cv/application, panel interview. Manager interview. Pre employment = 5 year professional, academic and personal references, 2 types of ID, national insurance number verification, credit check and finally dbs. I think most gov jobs are the same, and don’t even pay well

@Gsds oh my goodness that's just being a pain in the arse for the sake of it!

It’s certainly feels like it at the time 😑then 6 months probation

It varied widely. I had three for my current role, I had like 4-5 for some roles I didn't get.

Between 5 and 8 in my industry. It's very rare for it to be less than 5. I had 6 for my current role.

Usually 3: talent manager to assess suitability; hiring manager to discuss role and team and dig into experience + capability questions; hiring manager plus another stakeholder or two to assess fit and additional specific scenarios

When I hire for my team I do the same

Do you not think 4,5 interviews is somewhat excessive? Surly 3 is sufficient?

I had four interviews for one job and then bowed out after it became clear they wanted me to gradually meet like 30 people over the course of several months before deciding to take me on. The fourth of those was absolutely awful and rude as well, and my contact at the company who'd recommended me had started sending me drunk / creepy texts. Got another (better) job mere weeks later, two interviews and done.

@sicklycolleague what an ordeal for you 😫 I'm still waiting to hear from the company. Problem is it's a global company and the main people are in different time zones so it's making things slower. It's so annoying waiting, especially if it's gonna be a letdown in the end

I interviewed for Goldman Sachs once and I believe they do about 7. I decided after interview 2 and them telling me they would "own a part of my life" that it wasn't for me and bowed out!

Good luck @snakesally - everything crossed it will be good news. But yes we work multinationally and it can be annoying - there is basically no good time to meet people based in Australia 😫

Worst I know of was DH’s series of interviews for a job in a bank. 33 separate meetings, with 28 different people over the course of a week, and split between London and New York.

I should add my own too. I was approached for a job at a fund manager, and they had me in at various times over more than two years before deciding that they wanted to reorganise and do away with that role entirely.

At least DH got a good job on a good wage at the end of his process.

4-5 in my experience

33 separate meetings is ridiculously onerous and inefficient @ImWell!

I think it really depends on the job and the company. I’ve experienced interviews that involved:

• 5 different things all in a single day: 2 presentation tasks, one sort of chat, a written exercise, and a panel interview. This was not framed as an ‘assessment centre’; just a stupidly convoluted ‘interview’ process.
• A presentation then a panel interview.
• Several panel interviews with embedded short presentation tasks
• 3 interviews with increasingly onerous task requirements (over a period of several bloody weeks!)
• a chat with a recruiter, a technical interview, a chat with the head of the division (termed cultural fit), then a final interview with the head of the team.

All professional jobs. Range of sectors.

Yes, it was very over the top. To some extent it was doubled-up, as there were teams on either side of the Atlantic that he’s be working with, but they also wanted him to meet every person he’s be working for (I,e up to CEO) and who would be working for him.

Theynwere hard interviews too, ranging from asking him to derive the equations of motion from first principles to explaining (to the man who’d invented it) how the latest options pricing model worked.

Sounds like overkill. And, actually, I’d worry it was indicative of a lack of trust in others’ judgement. It shouldn’t be that everyone needs to interview a candidate because you should be able to delegate it and trust the judgement of the much smaller number of people involved.

That would put me off.

I interviewed for BlackRock a while back and it was 2 HR screenings, a written test and EIGHT interviews. Then they went with an internal candidate. Massive waste of man hours for everyone concerned. It was only for a VP role!

The interviews were one after the other, so I had one day with 4, one day 2 weeks later with 3 and then 2 weeks after that met with one of the Executive Committee.

I'm currently interviewing in the third sector and it's been a phone screen, an interview, a group interview, another group interview and a 1:1 with the executive director.

Test and then two interviews is the norm I would say? Unless very senior.

But actually with smaller companies there can also be a CEO/exec level meet thrown in