I'm more interested to hear why 9? Why not 3 or 12. What's going on there? I've been on both sides of the fence and it's interesting to hear thoughts on it always.
Hiring is the most important thing you are doing in a company. Always has been. From my experience it's also highly dependent on how big the org is and how structured it is. No two hiring processes are alike. Common theme I've picked up when hiring people is first and foremost to do a 'vibe check' convo through which both you and the applicant get to know a bit each other, ambitions, learn about the role and do a q&a. If you have experience with this, and you know your team(s), you will easily pick up if the person fits the bill. That usually takes around an hour to two _at most_. Second part is then for the person to talk to the team itself, the team lead. Over time, I found it's best to do a live exercise of either walking through something or doing something (not leet code, just something representative as a mental exercise) while chit chatting about it which is also a covert vibe check. If that passes, third convo is back to the same person initially talked to to strike a deal (which was foreshadowed with terms on the first talk). All in all 3-4 hours total after years of pruning.
Personally - vibe check, vibe check, vibe check. Never let HR do the talk, let HR funnel candidates for a shopping list.. or in this case it seems to be essays that do that.
You have provided no evidence why your technique is superior. By applying to a maximum number of roles, you are increasing your "attack surface". Also, in many cases, when you talk to the hiring manager, they can/will funnel you towards other managers and roles with a better fit.
Well, Oxide was the only job I applied to when I left Meta in 2022. My plan was to broaden my job search if Oxide didn't work out, but even then I'd only have applied to 3-5 places in the following round after vetting the company's culture and values.
I've always preferred this kind of targeted application -- I've applied to 5 jobs total in my ~15 year career and gotten 4 offers, two of which I accepted. Everyone has their own objectives they optimize for -- personally, I care most about building monuments of lasting value.
Because I have no desire to work for "just some company". I only talk to companies where I actually know I want to work there and feel I'd be a good fit for what they do. Maximizing "attack surface" is only useful if the only thing you care about is a paycheck regardless of from where.
That’s not how it works. Interviews are like a funnel. If you don’t pass the first interview they don’t schedule you for all of the other hours just to keep going. You get dropped from the pipeline.
When a company says they have 9 hours of interview time, that’s usually the maximum time if you make it through all the rounds. If you get that far, you’re highly likely to get an offer.
You would also be surprised at how many people will actually do 10-20 long interview rounds to try to maximize their chances for the best job.
There are almost two different bubbles of candidates: Those who refuse to do anything more than a couple quick calls, and those who will rearrange their life to spend days putting in work for each job they want. I think that’s fine and everyone should do what works for them, but if you think 9 hours of interviewing is going to turn candidates away from a company like Oxide you’d be very surprised to see the quantity and caliber of applicants who line up for jobs like this.
I think you also might need to adjust your expectations now that AI interview cheating is getting out of control. A lot of companies are moving back to on-site interviews. I’d happily do 3 x 3 hour video calls more than flying and staying at hotels and renting cars to get to an office in another city just to interview.
A hundred roles a month and call backs on 10% of them? That's A) and insane number of applications and B) a really high call back rate.
I'm on the market right now due to a layoff and I have an agent that reviews linkedin every morning and cross references levels.fyi for role leveling and salary and then assess fit to my resume. I get around 5-10 _possible_ positions per day and with human judgement that's usually down to 0-2, averaging about 0.5 per day.
I hear back from probably close to 10% but that's with a highly targeted approach, not just spamming my resume everywhere. And my pipeline is freaking full. It's a full time job doing prep and participating in all the interviews.
The only interview so far that's been a huge time sink has been anthropic's. But that's because I chose it. Their take home I have the option to use between 2 and 8 hours and I used the full 8 hours because I'm highly motivated and the position is well fit to my career history.
Agree. Shotgunning 100 applications a month is not a strategy for finding a good job. It says "I don't care where I work, or what the job is, here's my generic resume, please just hire me." And maybe you're that desperate, but IMO you'll get better returns spending more time on fewer/better opportunities.
Not saying we are or aren't looking for that kind of candidate, but I _will_ say that we're very keen on the motivation to join Oxide at all, and the role you're applying for specifically.
You get worse biases by favoring people that don't value their time IMO. Not too mention it doesn't favor working people with other obligations that can't afford to give away an entire shift to interview for a job they might not get.
That's a loaded question. How about just saying it for what it is. Are you willing to spend 9 hours today (not counting the other interviews you have to do for other companies) for a X% probability of getting a job at company A which you like Y amount.
If X and Y are large enough sure. Most of the time X is hidden and Y is hard to gauge.
You work 2000 hours in a year. You ideally have an employer you like and stay with for many years. That's not worth 9 hours of your time?
I'm more interested to hear why 9? Why not 3 or 12. What's going on there? I've been on both sides of the fence and it's interesting to hear thoughts on it always.
Hiring is the most important thing you are doing in a company. Always has been. From my experience it's also highly dependent on how big the org is and how structured it is. No two hiring processes are alike. Common theme I've picked up when hiring people is first and foremost to do a 'vibe check' convo through which both you and the applicant get to know a bit each other, ambitions, learn about the role and do a q&a. If you have experience with this, and you know your team(s), you will easily pick up if the person fits the bill. That usually takes around an hour to two _at most_. Second part is then for the person to talk to the team itself, the team lead. Over time, I found it's best to do a live exercise of either walking through something or doing something (not leet code, just something representative as a mental exercise) while chit chatting about it which is also a covert vibe check. If that passes, third convo is back to the same person initially talked to to strike a deal (which was foreshadowed with terms on the first talk). All in all 3-4 hours total after years of pruning.
Personally - vibe check, vibe check, vibe check. Never let HR do the talk, let HR funnel candidates for a shopping list.. or in this case it seems to be essays that do that.
That’s not how it works for the applicant. Many people are applying to nearly 100 roles a month.
Suppose you get interviews on 10% of those. That’s 10 interview pipelines, and if every company had this policy, 90 unpaid interviewing hours.
Like the comment elsewhere in this thread, candidates will find other roles before your interview gauntlet concludes.
> Many people are applying to nearly 100 roles a month.
Spotted your first problem. Don't shotgun apply to anyone and everyone. You should only be applying to jobs you actually want.
You have provided no evidence why your technique is superior. By applying to a maximum number of roles, you are increasing your "attack surface". Also, in many cases, when you talk to the hiring manager, they can/will funnel you towards other managers and roles with a better fit.
Well, Oxide was the only job I applied to when I left Meta in 2022. My plan was to broaden my job search if Oxide didn't work out, but even then I'd only have applied to 3-5 places in the following round after vetting the company's culture and values.
I've always preferred this kind of targeted application -- I've applied to 5 jobs total in my ~15 year career and gotten 4 offers, two of which I accepted. Everyone has their own objectives they optimize for -- personally, I care most about building monuments of lasting value.
Because I have no desire to work for "just some company". I only talk to companies where I actually know I want to work there and feel I'd be a good fit for what they do. Maximizing "attack surface" is only useful if the only thing you care about is a paycheck regardless of from where.
That’s not how it works. Interviews are like a funnel. If you don’t pass the first interview they don’t schedule you for all of the other hours just to keep going. You get dropped from the pipeline.
When a company says they have 9 hours of interview time, that’s usually the maximum time if you make it through all the rounds. If you get that far, you’re highly likely to get an offer.
You would also be surprised at how many people will actually do 10-20 long interview rounds to try to maximize their chances for the best job.
There are almost two different bubbles of candidates: Those who refuse to do anything more than a couple quick calls, and those who will rearrange their life to spend days putting in work for each job they want. I think that’s fine and everyone should do what works for them, but if you think 9 hours of interviewing is going to turn candidates away from a company like Oxide you’d be very surprised to see the quantity and caliber of applicants who line up for jobs like this.
I think you also might need to adjust your expectations now that AI interview cheating is getting out of control. A lot of companies are moving back to on-site interviews. I’d happily do 3 x 3 hour video calls more than flying and staying at hotels and renting cars to get to an office in another city just to interview.
A hundred roles a month and call backs on 10% of them? That's A) and insane number of applications and B) a really high call back rate.
I'm on the market right now due to a layoff and I have an agent that reviews linkedin every morning and cross references levels.fyi for role leveling and salary and then assess fit to my resume. I get around 5-10 _possible_ positions per day and with human judgement that's usually down to 0-2, averaging about 0.5 per day.
I hear back from probably close to 10% but that's with a highly targeted approach, not just spamming my resume everywhere. And my pipeline is freaking full. It's a full time job doing prep and participating in all the interviews.
The only interview so far that's been a huge time sink has been anthropic's. But that's because I chose it. Their take home I have the option to use between 2 and 8 hours and I used the full 8 hours because I'm highly motivated and the position is well fit to my career history.
Maybe Oxide isn’t aiming to hire people who apply to 100 roles per month.
Agree. Shotgunning 100 applications a month is not a strategy for finding a good job. It says "I don't care where I work, or what the job is, here's my generic resume, please just hire me." And maybe you're that desperate, but IMO you'll get better returns spending more time on fewer/better opportunities.
I don’t understand this. Applying to 3 jobs per day doesn’t sound crazy. It’s certainly not so many that you can’t tailor your resume to each.
Not saying we are or aren't looking for that kind of candidate, but I _will_ say that we're very keen on the motivation to join Oxide at all, and the role you're applying for specifically.
You get worse biases by favoring people that don't value their time IMO. Not too mention it doesn't favor working people with other obligations that can't afford to give away an entire shift to interview for a job they might not get.
That's a loaded question. How about just saying it for what it is. Are you willing to spend 9 hours today (not counting the other interviews you have to do for other companies) for a X% probability of getting a job at company A which you like Y amount.
If X and Y are large enough sure. Most of the time X is hidden and Y is hard to gauge.