2 3. 5 When Kath interviewed at a tech company some time back, she would not 1 have guessed her journey would take her through six rounds of interviews over three months. She was optimistic given the positive signs she picked up, but things went quiet after round six. When she called to ask, the company told her they needed more time. A month and a half later, she was told she did not get the 5 job because she was not a good fit. Kath is not an exception. Software engineering manager, Mike Conley, posted on LinkedIn his experience attending three rounds of interviews and being told there would be another six later. His post has since been viewed 2.6 million times with 4,000 public comments of support. There was also a happy ending; Mike was later offered a job by a company that saw the post. 10 When being asked on why some companies are putting candidates through seemingly interminable rounds of interviews, veteran recruiter James Lodder offers a few reasons. First, the company may be looking for a specific person with the experience to handle a critical but tricky project. For instance, getting a project manager for a multi-million-dollar project can be catastrophic if 15 the wrong candidate was picked. Then, there is the nature of work. If it is highly specialised, time is needed to filter out candidates who seem to have the requisite technical skills on paper, but they might not fit the culture or other requirements. TalentKraft co-founder Eugene Goh says a typical consulting firm puts applicants through up to four rounds of case study interviews. Lasting no more 20 than 45 minutes, each asks applicants to review an ambiguous problem statement and come up with best-case solutions. This mirrors real-life scenarios where solutions are not binary or clear. The test can show an applicant's thought process. logic and communications skills when they present them to the senior directors. Other roles like software developers also require technical coding tests. 25 But barring these exceptions, there are no compelling reasons why an interview must go on longer than necessary, yet many companies practise that. Why? First, there may be a lack of alignment within the hiring team usually made up of the recruiter from an agency, a HR representative and a hiring manager, especially when it is a new role with few precedents. As a former recruiter, I had 30 a poor experience with a small engineering company that best illustrates this. Each time they finished interviewing a candidate, they would revise the job scope and description. Because it was a new role and they were not sure what exactly was needed, they kept iterating with new insights from every applicant, and that lengthened the interview process unnecessarily. Shouldn't there be a proper 35 standard of procedure (SOP) in the first place? In addition, marathon interviews can also be prevalent in big companies where roles are matrixed and there are multiple stakeholders. Someone I know interviewed at a technology giant recently. Only at round five was he told he was too expensive. However, salary expectations were laid out in the application 40 process, so in this case, there may have been a lack of communication between HR and the hiring team. For instance, the hiring manager may feel the role is a junior one (often after feedback from an earlier phase), but this information is not