When James Bore decided to look around for another job, he saw a security engineering role for a major finance company that seemed like a good fit.
He sent off his resume and cover letter via a recruiter and before he knew it, he was offered an interview. But what followed wasn’t an offer, it was another interview, and then another, two separate coding tests, a panel interview, and a presentation.
‘I thought it was just the seven stages, and then they decided to extend it, because they hadn’t reduced the candidates by enough,’ James tells Metro.
The now 42-year-old explains the company wanted to make it an 11 stage hiring process, after he’d already sunk 14 hours of work into their tasks and interviews.
‘It just made me feel like it was a complete waste of time,’ James, from Woking, explains. ‘It wasn’t that they were offering more money than any of the other roles I was looking at. The work wasn’t more interesting, so at that point, I thought I’d save them some effort.’
James had the luxury of two other offers at different companies after just one or two interviews, but he still experienced the painful system of skills-tested hiring.
James’ experience was back in 2018, and long-winded job interviews have only become more commonplace since.
As of this year, 85% of companies prefer this rigorous skills-based hiring to a resume and interview, which has seen an 8% decrease in the last 12 months, according to TestGorilla’s 2025 survey.
Employers see more success with these methods, with 82% of companies satisfied with the employees they’ve hired this way, compared to just 67% who didn’t.
But as a result, landing a job is taking far longer than it used to, with companies place value on multiple different tests to identify promising applicants.
Role specific tests are deemed the most effective hiring tool, with 75% of employers using these to screen candidates, while self-report tests were valued by 31%, and assignments and work samples used by 16%.
But this rigorous process isn’t necessarily working in the employers favour, with 50% of hiring companies admitting they lost good candidates because the process took to long, according to Indeed.
It takes on average 4.9 weeks for a company to hire someone for a role in the UK. For government roles, it takes six weeks, while banking and finance follows just behind at 5.9 weeks, says StandOutCV.
James is just one of 64% of jobseekers who have abandoned an application because of the lengthy delays.
‘It requires so much effort to be sunk in, and I don’t believe 11 rounds of tests and interviews brings any benefit to companies,’ James says.
For those who don’t have a job to fall back on and are in need of employment, James feels lengthy processes like this ‘abuse the power imbalance’.
‘They obviously don’t respect potential employees’ time, so they aren’t going to respect their actual employee’s time,’ he adds.
‘More rounds doesn’t mean you’re getting more out of it. Ultimately, what you need to know is, can the person do the job and can they get on with the people they need to get on with? If you need more than one or two interviews to decide that, you’re doing something wrong.’
Jim Moore, employee relations expert at Hamilton Nash, agrees. ‘Long drawn-out interview processes can end up exhausting applicants and decision-makers alike,’ he tells Metro.
‘Anything beyond three or four interview stages would suggest that the business isn’t making effective decisions. If an organisation needs 11 interviews to choose, it might be a sign of risk aversion or a lack of internal alignment.’
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He adds that while it’s acceptable for businesses to ask candidates to complete assessment tasks, they should be wary of using the process for free labour.
If you’re doing trial shifts for a company, Jim says you may be able to be paid minimum wage. Ultimately, no job warrants 11 rounds of interviews and tests.
‘The more stages a candidate endures, the more demoralising any rejection can feel,’ he adds. ‘As a candidate, see such exploitative practices as a sign of a workplace culture that doesn’t value your time.’
That’s not somewhere you want to work.
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