Bad Processes for Applications And Interviews

Interview and application processes at many organizations generally requires a massive overhaul across the board, but for IT related jobs in particular. Some of the below, highlight the glaring truths about such recruitment practices:

• Providing puzzles to solve that no one in their right mind will ever need to do on the job
• Providing codility or hackerank tests that anyone can cheat their way through them
• Asking bookish questions to test memorization skills or to impress upon the candidate
• Asking questions that are totally irrelevant to the role function
• Asking one to do a test, like why? Do you ask a builder to build you a sample wall before you hire them to build you a wall?
• Coming into an interview with certain assumptions about the candidate even before interviewing them
• Asking them badly worded questions like "what gives you energy?"
• Asking someone to do pair programming. Do people naturally talk out loud in any job function, ever heard of anyone pairing in other job functions like finance, admin, marketing, operations?
• Having excessive amount of interview stages
• Having bad attitude or being unprofessional while interviewing a candidate
• Hypocritical behavior, like making a candidate wait for a long time for an interview, but having an issue when the candidate is running late
• Having silly tests that have no basis
• Applying for one role but trying to interview the candidate for another role without candidate consent
• Messing around with candidates and wasting their time during application and interview stages
• Not providing application and interview feedback. Providing feedback is a requirement if want to be in compliance with GDPR as part of processing and storage of candidate information.
• Changing the job role part way through an interview process
• Interviewing candidates before securing funding for the work
• Not being honest about the job role
• Over selling and underdelivering on the job function
• Using terms like cultural fit to justify their biases
• Expecting certain educational backgrounds that are unnecessary for the job function
• Showing interest in a candidate purely on basis of where they got their degree or which company they had previously worked for
• Not focusing on candidates practical skills
• Giving candidates silly tests to do through out the interview stage
• Making candidates feel uncomfortable during interview stage
• Not providing water or asking for refreshments before a face-to-face interview
• Not listening to what the candidate has to say or not letting them speak
• Evaluating candidates purely on basis of likability and subconscious and unconscious biases
• Rejecting candidates for roles just because they are women or part of a minority group
• Rejecting candidates for roles on basis of religion or other such prejudices
• Not being considerate and respectful with candidates
• Being overly distrustful and pessimistic of candidates through the entire process
• Not answering basic questions of candidates that would help them evaluate the job function
• Being difficult, unapproachable, and not being forthcoming with candidates
• Taking too long to provide feedback or not providing any at all
• Not realizing that job interviews are a two way process
• Rejecting candidates for using american english rather than british english for spelling words
• Rejecting candidates for grammatical mistakes and being too pedantic
• Rejecting candidates based on their looks and appearances
• Rejecting candidates based on disability and not being sufficiently accommodating
• Changing interview times or cancelations at the last minute
• Purging the entire job application database so the candidate who might have spent time on the application has no chance to be reviewed, and likely has to apply again
• Advertising for jobs that do not exist
• Advertising for jobs but having a preferred source of candidates
• Advertising for job where the job title does not match the job description
• Advertising for job when the job has already been filled
• Using job ads as a marketing gimmick
• Asking for age, date of birth, and race on the job application
• Not focusing the application and interview to what the job actually requires and entails
• Not interviewing candidates on their relevant merits
• Using silly benchmarks and psychometric tests
• Not reviewing every job application and candidate
• Using non-technical people to pre-screen candidates who have no background for the skills required for the job function 
• Using job titles rather than the context and content of work when evaluating job applications
• Screening candidates by keywords and not context and content of work
• Making it difficult for candidates to approach organizational recruitment teams for enquires or feedback
• Not acknowledging job applications nor the deletion of job applications
• Refusing to shake the candidate's hand after an interview
• Using cognitive and prejudicial biases to screen a candidate
• Having badly designed job application forms
• Having poor communication skills as interviewer but expecting amazing communication skills from interviewee
• Going off on a tangent and losing focus
• Rejecting candidates because they didn't feel comfortable or like your pet dog or cat in the office
• Being rude and offensive to candidates
• Talking about diversity awareness, but not having much of a diverse workforce in the office, nor displaying an open-mind about diversity of cultures
• Using excessive stereotypes and generalizations in communication with candidates
• Not being careful with using gender pronouns
• Using innuendos whether sexual or otherwise to invade privacy or personal space of candidates
• Don't ask silly questions like "how are you" during a lockdown period or when there is a pandemic as you could likely expect a diplomatic answer, in many cases the candidate could find the question on the whole quite inappropriate, given the circumstances of the situation
• Don't expect a candidate to have video on during a virtual interview session, in fact you should not even care what the person looks like in first instance