A Reddit post claiming candidates should be paid for interviews sparked a massive debate. Are tech interviews getting out of hand, or are candidates delusional?
The tech job market is a bit rough right now, and developers are burning out just trying to land a gig. Amidst this chaos, a spicy take recently surfaced on Reddit: The idea that multi-round interviews are basically unpaid labor, and it should be legally required for companies to pay candidates for their interview time. Yep, you read that right. Demanding a paycheck before day one. Predictably, the internet lost its collective mind.
The anonymous OP posted a meme complaining about the current hiring system, captioning it with: "This should be the law."
Adding fuel to the fire, a user named QuizzicalWombat shared a grueling horror story about the modern "recruiting hell". This guy spent the ENTIRE month of January interviewing for ONE position. Check out this ridiculous gauntlet:
QuizzicalWombat had to hustle hard, prepping late into the night after clocking out of their current job. The result? They didn't get the offer. By the time the recruiter called to offer a "feedback session," the candidate was so mentally drained they just declined it and moved on. This story triggered a massive debate on whether candidates' time should be financially compensated.
While the post got over a thousand upvotes, the comment section was a literal warzone.
Camp 1: The Pragmatists The senior folks immediately called BS. Resident_Cable4946 brutally pointed out: "This doesn’t make any sense. Why would they pay me a full day for a one-hour interview?" Another user roasted the OP, calling it the classic "I have no idea how the real world works, but it SHOULD be this way because I want it to" mentality. Someone else just dropped the legendary r/im14andthisisdeep subreddit tag.
Camp 2: The Defenders of the Working Class A few brave souls defended the idea, pointing out the opportunity cost. If you have a job, you usually have to take unpaid time off (PTO) to do these multi-stage marathons, which genuinely hurts the wallet.
Camp 3: The Macro-Economists User 1994bmw dropped the mic with basic economics: "This will make job hunting even worse. Seekers will get fewer interviews." If companies had to pay to interview you, they would gatekeep the hell out of their application process. You wouldn't even get a call unless you're the second coming of Linus Torvalds.
Let's be real, folks: Demanding to get paid for an interview is a pipe dream. An interview is a two-way street. Both you and the employer are investing time to see if there's a match. The HR and devs on the other side of the table are also taking time out of their actual work to talk to you.
However, the real villain here is the 7-round interview process.
Fellow code monkeys, listen up: If a company designs a 6-stage process and asks you to build a full-stack e-commerce app as a "take-home test," that's a massive red flag. Some shady startups use these tests as free labor to fix their backlog. If you must do a project, just deploy it, record a Loom video, or host it somewhere. DO NOT hand over your source code until the ink on the contract is dry. Honestly, you'd be better off spending that time learning new tech or investing in some crypto instead of doing free labor.
TL;DR: Stop dreaming about government-mandated interview pay. Level up your skills so you have the leverage to say "No" to toxic, drawn-out recruiting pipelines. Now, close this tab and go fix your bugs!
Source: Reddit - This should be the law
