Introduction

The IT industry has unashamedly given us the 21st century as we know it. Unimaginable achievements of science and technology have given birth to companies that have radically transformed our habits: how we call a cab, order food, optimize time. The cosmic successes of tech giants have turned the heads of the people who manage products. Today, a team of 30 people can change the experience of millions in literally days - by updating a couple of features in an app. But the parade of successes has a downside. Behind the scenes of technological progress is an increasingly unsightly recruiting picture. Many companies, intoxicated by their own triumphs, have turned hiring into a drawn-out ordeal where candidates face irrational requirements, dozens of steps and dubious tests. And it's especially amusing to watch mid-sized companies try to copy Google or Meta without their brand, processes, or accountability. In this text, I share my reflection on modern HR practices in IT, their effectiveness and impact on professionals. The question is one: isn't it time to bring basic humanity back into the hiring process?

Irrationality in hiring processes

One of the first manifestations of this limit was in recruiting. Many companies have stretched hiring processes to the point of absurdity: weeks of waiting, months of interviews, endless tests. But the problem is deeper than bureaucracy.

The root is the incompetence of the hiring party. More and more often you hear not "we're looking to hire" but "we want to look like the company they're looking to get into." HR and recruiters often don't understand the technologies they work with, don't track trends, and don't know the limitations of the tools. As a result, qualified professionals are forced to answer irrelevant questions or explain basic things to people who aren't even trying to understand.

But candidates are not university lecturers. No one is obliged to endlessly "chew out" their subject area. The social battery is not infinite.

It's worth asking: isn't HR incompetence a reflection of management mistakes? Perhaps the top management made a wrong bet, entrusting the selection of personnel to people whose moral and professional qualities leave much to be desired.

The result is obvious: time is wasted, talents are missed, companies' reputation is ruined, and candidates increasingly ask themselves: "Should I really go to work at the factory?".

Often, drawn-out processes mask hidden problems: financial instability, lack of strategy, internal conflicts. Sometimes companies stretch hiring intentionally, creating the illusion of high selectivity. But this tactic turns against them.

And the psychological effect is enormous: long interviews undermine confidence, cause stress, and demotivate. It especially hits young specialists.

We are already facing a paradox: there are vacancies, there are specialists, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to connect the two because of unsustainable hiring processes.

Inappropriate questions and assignments

The problem of inappropriate questions is a symptom of a deeper crisis in understanding human capital. Questions like "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" in IT sound like a museum piece. In an industry where technology becomes obsolete in months, a candidate can honestly say, "In 5 years, I'll be raising geese" - and that in no way reflects competence.

Questions about personal life or politics are a direct route to segregation and the creation of echo chambers. And copying logic problems from Google in small companies is an attempt to stretch the processes of giants on an inappropriate scale. It's like using an industrial excavator in a garden.

Technical tasks, too, often turn into getting free work under the guise of tests. Averaging tasks doesn't reveal the uniqueness of an expert - it's like hammering a screw with a hammer: the tool is not fit for purpose.

Time is everything

Silence after resumes. Rescheduling interviews an hour before the meeting. Lack of feedback. Unpaid test projects. Multi-step processes months in advance.

Companies act as if a candidate's time is an infinite resource.

But a specialist's time is learning, developing, and working on personal projects. It's not an abstraction. And every hour given to meaningless hiring is a loss.

The industry is creating its own talent shortages while pushing talent out with toxic processes.

Ethical failures

Violation of privacy, gray areas of resume transfer, use of social media for evaluations, unofficial blacklists, sharing data without consent.

These undermine trust, cause professionals to avoid open interaction with the marketplace, and create a culture of suspicion.

In an industry that is building the future, archaic and unethical practices of the past persist - this seems particularly paradoxical.

Market imbalance and psychology

The IT faux pas market is complex and heterogeneous. Somewhere there is a shortage, somewhere an oversaturation after a wave of online courses. Companies want perfect candidates, but they themselves create expectations that no one can fulfill.

And the prolonged uncertainty and stress of the job search hits people hard, with families, commitments, and lives behind them.

This is no longer an economic problem - it's the next stage in the evolution of labor relations. The market requires modernization.

Toward a new labor market paradigm

The current market suffers from a lack of transparency. LinkedIn and other platforms are built on closed algorithms that skew the distribution of talent.

In general, it is obvious that we need a decentralized model:

  • Candidates store profiles wherever they want;
  • companies publish job openings in an open standard;
  • on top of everything, a transparent search engine - an index, not a "social network" - works.

This is in keeping with the original spirit of the Internet: decentralization and control of data at the user's fingertips.

This approach will give:

  • transparency,
  • relevance,
  • fairness,
  • flexibility.

IT hiring problems aren't solved in a day. But the first step is to recognize them and start the conversation.

We are on the cusp of a new paradigm: transparent, human-centered, modernized.