Respecting Candidate Time: Exploring the Idea of Paid Interviews

Hmmm.... paying people for their time during interviews?

Interesting idea, but there is at least one potential downside.

Here's my list of pros and cons. What's yours?

✔ PROS - Oh my, YES!! to all the points mentioned in Jack Kelly's article, "It's Time For Job Seekers To Get Paid For Interviewing". Candidates are often mistreated (usually unintentionally) with delays and a lack of information, feedback, and follow-through by super-busy recruiters and managers. Candidates are often asked to invest quite a bit of time, effort, and energy with only a ✨ glimmer of hope ✨ there will be a payoff in return.

One time I interviewed for a role that required 3 cross-country trips. ✈️ I took 6 PTO days in the process; days I did not spend on a well-earned vacation.

On the third trip, when I arrived at the destination airport after flying for 5 hours, I got paged to let me know the interview was canceled because the person I was meeting with had a dental appointment! 🤯🤯🤯🤯 They had booked me on a return flight leaving in 30 minutes. 😖😫😖😫😖😫

I remember hoping his dental issue had landed him in the emergency room! 🩸 Obviously, not really. But I mean, come on! Where's the consideration for your candidate? Where's the empathy?

Naturally, I pulled myself out of the interview process because who wants to work for an organization that treats candidates like this?

✔ CONS - My concern is that if companies pay people for interviews, they will become more selective in who they schedule. They'll be less likely to think outside the box and bring in someone who has transferrable skills, but no direct experience in the role they're interviewing for. This would result in a narrower pool of candidates AND negatively impact efforts to ensure a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you're supportive of DEI efforts, you want companies to EXPAND their pool of candidates, not narrow it.

Thanks for providing an interesting idea to think about Jack Kelly. Love your mission to make more humane!

What do you think? What say you, recruiters, hiring managers, and job candidates?

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