“No overtime” as a hiring marketing expense

From my perspective, companies that expect employees to work overtime are doing something wrong.  But a lot of the time, that does not get through to people.  They think “hours working = features completed”. There’s a lot of scientific evidence against this idea, but it still happens at a lot of places.  So I’ve decided to take a different approach with the argument:  You should have a “no overtime” policy at your company as a marketing expense.

Despite what some may think, developers don’t like crunch time.  That means if word gets out that your company has employees working lots of overtime, it is going to be a less appealing place to work.  All other things being equal, a developer would never choose to work at the place with frequent overtime. Continue reading

Should candidates be paid for time spent interviewing?

Everyone seems to agree that the way we interview people is broken.  I’ve heard the analogy that an interview is like asking someone to marry you after you’ve dated them for an hour.  I agree with this.  It’s a big commitment for both sides and there isn’t much time to figure out if you’re a good fit.  In an effort to avoid bad hires, a lot of companies are using longer interview processes:

  1. Some companies will give candidates an at home test to work on in their free time.  I’ve heard stories of these being side projects that take up to 2 weeks.
  2. Some companies want you to take a day off for a full day interview.
  3. Some companies want you to take a day off to actually work at the company for a day as a trail run.

Should a company pay for the time that a candidate spends interviewing?

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