[monster_group]

This process is quite normal. The reason is two fold - first they want multiple people to interview the candidate before making a decision, one bad interview doesn't necessarily rule out a candidate. The second reason is the candidate experience. Some candidates feel humiliated if their interview is cut short and will harbor bad impression of the company for a long time. The company doesn't want that.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> Some candidates feel humiliated if their interview is cut short

As someone over 50, that interviewed at several places, before giving up, and accepting that I'm retired, I can say that there seem to be a number of companies that actively seek to humiliate prospective employees.

It's entirely possible that it was not the usual experience, but I have found that modern HR philosophy seems to be "Always keep the employee/candidate on their back foot." Always make sure the corporation is Alpha Dog.

A humiliating interview is a great way to filter out candidates that won't roll over for the Alpha.

[nj5rq]

> modern HR philosophy seems to be "Always keep the employee/candidate on their back foot." Always make sure the corporation is Alpha Dog.

This is absolutely true. A good way of accomplishing a more submissive team is by making it more diverse. If the members of the team can't relate to one another, the less personal connection, and the more submissive each person is to the guys on top.

I am sure some people will think this is not the case and that companies just care about "making things right".

[galdosdi]

It's also a shady technique some companies use to preemptively soften up a candidate they genuinely want for negotiations. They really want you but don't want you to think that so they can get you to accept less in the negotiation. Needless to say, the antidote is to interview as widely as possible even when you're in demand, to get a more objective view of your market value. Also needless to say, it's a huge red flag for company culture. If they don't think you're great, why are they making an offer? Are all your coworkers and managers also going to be people they don't think are great but settled for anyway? Or is it that they're not very profitable and can't afford to pay for quality? Do you want to work for someone who may not be in business much longer?

[awesomeMilou]

> A humiliating interview, is a great way to filter out candidates that won't roll over for the Alpha.

Having the employee commit to more interviews is also a great way to get them into a sunk cost fallacy mindset, which might lead to them accepting a lower offer. There was an article about this on HN a while ago, where it was revealed that Meta would lowball you, unless you had a competing offer on the table (which can be hard to get when you need to do several interview rounds at several companies).

[sk11001]

For a round with a single interview, and a single decision maker, cutting things short can be a mercy. As a candidate, if you've bombed, it's a horrible feeling to know that you've failed but still spend 10 minutes at the end on asking the interviewers questions and exchange pleasantries.

But you're right about rounds with multiple interviewers - they obviously collect feedback from everyone before deciding.

[janalsncm]

I don’t buy either of those reasons. First, I’m only asking if I’ve failed. They should already know that. Second, my “candidate experience” isn’t being improved by evading a direct question. The problem is, the company doesn’t trust their employees to use their discretion. That’s a bad sign in my book.

[bdw5204]

> The second reason is the candidate experience. Some candidates feel humiliated if their interview is cut short and will harbor bad impression of the company for a long time. The company doesn't want that.

What leaves a bad impression of a company for me is being gaslit in an interview that they seem interested then getting a passive aggression rejection email later. If you know you aren't going to hire the person you're interviewing, you should let them know and immediately end the interview. That's the polite and decent thing to do.