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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

Not only does this disincentivize HR from running fake vacancies or stringing multiple candidates on just to keep their options open, but it also solves the problem of unemployed people job-searching effectively working full-time for free. The fact that companies would have to pay to hire workers would mean they try to make the selection as short and effective as possible.

Edit: From the business POV:

  • Businesses would have a limited budget for hiring so would limit process to 10 applicants and would have to pick those randomly. Less time spent on interviewing but also might miss the ideal candidate. Although the difference would fall sharply with larger pools.
  • And 000s of people now stuck wo any appls at all (although better than writing fake, futile appls), and no money. Not enough jobs on the market would translate into not enough paying applications for them to be able to substitute unemployment benefits.
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[-] sunsofold@lemmy.zip 8 points 23 hours ago

If companies have to pay for every interview, I doubt they'd do as many so you'd have a hard time getting enough interviews to make that viable.

[-] BillCheddar@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

Companies already pay a ton of money to utilize indeed and all those sites. Any cash they'd pay you to interview pales in comparison to what they're already spending on the unfilled job.

I don't think it would cause a declining number of interviews. If anything, it might cause interviews to go up, once employers can see the drop in the bucket of spending the interview represents.

[-] sunsofold@lemmy.zip 1 points 15 hours ago

How would it make them go up? It currently costs zero, and adding the cost of that pay doesn't change any other expenses for recruitment contractors. Even if they don't view it as a significant cost relative to the full HR department, they'd still either ignore it and maintain current rates or view it as an avoidable expense and minimise it. I don't see a mechanism for increasing them unless the law gave them some backdoors to, say, pay below standard wages while asking candidates to do work as part of the interview, effectively turning them into sub-minimum wage workers for businesses where that might be useful.

[-] BillCheddar@lemmy.world 1 points 5 minutes ago* (last edited 4 minutes ago)

Because people involved in hiring have no idea what they are spending to find and hire employees. Once they learn what they're spending and on what, they'll definitely agree to spend a tiny bit more to ensure the upfront investment pays off in a good employee.

EX: My company, we are currently hiring another accountant to join the team. We've spent somewhere in the range of $20,000 so far trying to fill that role. I expect we'll get closer to double that by the time these dipshits find the right person.

So we're talking about, say, $30,000 in expenses to find the new employee.

What would an interview pay? A few hundred dollars, max? Let's say $100 to make the math easy.

If we interview 5 people for the job and hire one, we will have spent $30,000 + $500, or $30,500. If we interview 10 people for the job and hire one, we will have spent $30,000 + $1000, or $31,000.

We doubled the number of interviews (much larger pool to find the right candidate) and the overall cost was only 1.6% higher.

A savvy manager would significantly increase interview numbers for a small increase in cost. Big benefit, little downside.

this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
567 points (100.0% liked)

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