On convoluted hiring processes

I recently came across a job description where they outlined their "simple" and "transparent" hiring process:

• introduction call to discuss the company and your experience (30 mins)
• portfolio review (45 mins)
• design exercise and app teardown – a "live whiteboarding exercise" combined with a repeat of the portfolio review but for a different audience (75 mins)
• portfolio deep dive with a founder (60 mins)
• meet the team and another app teardown (90 mins)

So over the course of 5 hours you'll do three portfolio reviews, two app teardowns, and won't even meet the team until after a founder has weighed in.

It's not the worst process I've seen recently, but it's definitely the most redundant. And this isn't a startup hiring designer #1 — this is an existing design team, and this is their hiring process for their open individual contributor role.

It wastes everyone's time. Multiple people at the first review. Multiple people at the "design exercise." And this doesn't account for the debriefs you'll probably need.

Then there's this founder deep dive. Why? Is the founder going to do the hiring? Do they trust their leaders to make these decisions, and if not, why all this rigmarole of portfolio reviews when it's mostly subordinate to the hiring decision?

Here's the hiring process I've developed over many years of hard lessons: screener (30 mins), hiring manager interview (60 mins), portfolio case study presentation (60 mins). Rarely I'll ask for a peer or manager to do a final interview if I feel like I'm getting conflicting signals and want them to drill into a specific area.

All told, 2½ hours for the candidate, 2 hours for me, 30 mins for the recruiter, and an hour each for the 2-4 folks on the case study panel (plus an hour for debrief). As a leader, the onus falls on me to use time wisely, and my time as a leader is cheaper than putting the team through multiple rounds of context switching that come from portfolio presentations.

I can usually tell you if they're getting an offer by around 35 minutes into their case study panel (that is, of course, if they made it through the interview with me.) Part of it, of course, is the panel members backchanneling me as it goes, but I've developed a decent Spidey sense based on presentation performance and how they handle the panel's poking and pushback. Sometimes I just don't know, and that's what the debriefs – and a potential final round – are for.

"Hire slow and fire fast," yes. I absolutely agree that you should keep the quality bar high and don't just jump at "good enough." But you don't need multiple portfolio reviews and whiteboards to figure that out. What you need is a clear sense of the sort of person you're after, communicating those requirements in your job description, and making sure the team knows the values and practices that make the team work well enough to be looking for them.

To me, these convoluted hiring processes a lack of confidence the hiring managers have in the very processes they created.

I guess my message here is Don't Waste Anyone's Time. Set goals and expectations. Make sure everyone, including the interviewee, understands the process and what's expected. Make sure the Decider has what they need – and knows what they need – to make the hire/no hire decision. And when you bring your team or leaders into this process, make sure their time is well-used. Your team is already overworked and stretched thin; make hiring meaningful and worth the context switching.

Most importantly, as a leader all this is what they pay you to do. Spend your time setting expectations, writing clear requirements, and making sure every minute everyone else spends is time they feel is well spent. You have that title because you're being asked to do the drudgery that keeps things moving. The success of hiring starts and ends with you.