Does any company need 6 rounds of interviews?

Leading authorities in recruitment now use AI to assist with selection and are considering whether references add any real value when technology such as blockchain has the potential to allow the fast and accurate verification of work histories.

Yet while such innovations are advancing the world of recruitment, there is at least one Australian organisation that still maintains as standard a six-round interview process for all roles, regardless of seniority.

A contact of mine has just been through this interview process. It involved a functional interview, skills interview, cultural interview, peer interview and two Skype interviews.

The job on offer was not a CEO position, but a standard mid-level role in a mid-size company. Many of the questions asked were repetitive, with little apparent communication from one interview stage to the next.

This made me reflect on the time commitment this company expected from both the candidate and their existing employees who were conducting the interviews. What insights could possibly have been gained from the fourth interview that couldn’t have been obtained from the second?

Maybe there is a level of arrogance involved. Perhaps this organisation believes that their standing in their market is so strong that any candidate should be happy to go through such a lengthy process for the possibility of working for them. Or perhaps there is a consensus culture in which people struggle to make decisions.

More likely, someone designed the recruitment process a while ago without input from others, and it has since taken on a life of its own.

In my experience, two face-to-face interviews are usually sufficient to gain all the necessary insights required to make an informed hiring decision. Of course, there will also be some form of initial assessment to ascertain who gets to the interview stage, and perhaps some follow up conversations to iron out the details.

But the face-to-face formal interview component of any recruitment process can normally be restricted to two solid meetings.

I am interested to hear from anyone who has a different view. Do six interviews result in better hires or people who stay longer and perform better?

Cover image: Shutterstock

This article first appeared on LinkedIn on 4 July 2019.