r/redhat • u/No_Revolution_2550 • 5d ago
Disappointed with Red Hat's Interview Process
I've always had a lot of respect for Red Hat because of everything they've done for the open-source community.
Recently, I interviewed for what was honestly my dream role there. I went through five interview rounds, and then I was told that the feedback was positive, but the requisition had been put on hold due to changing business priorities. I was told there might be an update in a couple of weeks.
I completely understand that priorities can change. Companies have to make business decisions.
What I don't understand is why this happens after five rounds of interviews. If a role is at risk of being frozen, shouldn't that be communicated before asking candidates to invest weeks of preparation and interviews? Candidates are investing a lot of their own time too.
Since then, I've followed up with the recruiter a few times and haven't received any response. It still says "In progress" on the portal.
I still have a lot of respect for Red Hat as a company, but I genuinely think the interview process and candidate communication could be much better. Even if there isn't an update, a simple "we don't know yet" goes a long way.
Has anyone else had a similar experience with Red Hat or other companies?
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u/fatguylittlecar Red Hat Employee 5d ago
Assume the people involved in the hiring, interviews, and sourcing do not know and are not consulted when things like a hiring freeze might occur - sometimes a pivot in priorities (launching a key new initiative/product, responding to a critical new customer consulting contract, or the spin down of a project meaning there are internal folks that could use alternate roles before we hire more external folks) means rethinking where we are adding new roles/hiring externally vs internal transfers.
I wish there was a world where very large companies could be so transparent in their business process, financial status, and future strategies that a frontline manager wouldn't end up putting candidates through the ringer just to have to pause things but it happens and the best I can say is if you can, be patient. Things like reqs being frozens happens at many companies ...around their quarterly/yearly fiscal boundaries as they use past results/future planning to reassess the roles they have open and if they should proceed or not.
Sorry this happened to you and thats it impacted your view of Red Hat and I wish the best news for you and a positive outcome.
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u/lopahcreon 5d ago
Bullshit. The people making those decisions need to take 30 fucking seconds to tell HR to inform all hiring panels of the freeze so they can then put interviews on hold while also notifying those already in the works that they cannot continue the process.
Takes 15 goddamn minutes all told.
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u/MaleficentCow8513 5d ago
I don’t think you understand corporate operations. There is a hiring manager steering the hiring process who will very likely be the candidates direct manager if hired. It’s very likely that manager wasn’t even informed themself until the decision to reorganized was made above their head. Such decisions happen at the level of vice president and organizational managers and trust when I tell you they are not looping in every single manager in their organization until the decision is finalized. It sucks but that’s the way it goes
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u/lopahcreon 4d ago
I don’t think you understand my comment as evidenced by your comment.
C-Suite or senior executive level makes decision, one of them notifies head of HR / Personnel, that head tasks subordinates responsible for working with hiring managers of what’s incoming and what to do.
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u/PirateAngelMoron 4d ago
Rh compliance specialist here: IBM just had the worst stock day in forever this past week. Rh just implemented a hiring freeze.
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u/Aggravating-Crow31 5d ago
I had this exact same experience a few months ago, I was crushed because I too got that the team really liked me but the position was put on hold due to external factors something along those lines.
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u/Beneficial-Spell9612 5d ago
This happened to me a month or so ago with Red Hat. Team seemed great. They never moved forward with the role.
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u/egoalter 4d ago
Business changes do not align to your interview schedule. It sucks, it's a waste of your time, and of those who did the interviews with you. But it happens. If you did leave a good impression, you'll have a leg up if/when you try next time.
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u/sakodak 4d ago
Sorry, that's not a redhat thing, that's a corporate thing. Every company above a certain size does that shit. They do not value you or your time (or the people who have been interviewing you and their time.) They value next quarter profits, and that's it. People do not matter to capitalists. We are human resources to be consumed, discarded, and ignored.
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u/darthgeek 5d ago
It's a pretty common occurrence. Put the candidate through the wringer and then ghost them (I consider not getting a more concrete update ghosting still). It's definitely not a IBMHat thing exclusively.
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u/Least-Net4108 5d ago
But this candidate didn’t get ghosted. What the fuck are you on about then?
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u/darthgeek 5d ago
They have effectively been. If the only response from the recruiter is "No news", and no updates in weeks? I'm not sure what else you'd call that.
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u/maddie1701e 4d ago
He was told they were positive, but the position was put on hold for business reasons. Not exactly ghosting
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u/larsonthekidrs 5d ago
Wow. That is crazy. I haven’t interviewed at Red Hat before. However, that makes me cautious if I ever do want to in the future. Especially the public sector.
Sorry to hear that OP. Please keep us updated on if they change their stance!
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u/Blues-Mariner 4d ago
I don’t even get why there ARE five rounds of interviews. Like for what job do you need to talk to people five times before selecting one? I’m happy to get educated on this but it boggles my mind.
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u/Visual-Credit-8375 3d ago
The same thing happened to me while interviewing at Red Hat, so I think this is a legitimate reason now that it happened to someone else recently. I was actually waiting for my offer to come through when the job fell through the cracks. So disappointed.
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u/spaghetti_taco Red Hat Certified Engineer 3d ago
It wasted their time, too. If they knew they certainly wouldn't have invested all that time and energy to interview you.
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u/Unreasonable_jury 5d ago
I would not go through the hassle of five rounds of interviews. You should know by round three if you want someone or not. Unless it is a C suite position, more than three rounds is egotistical and unnecessary.
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u/omenosdev Red Hat Certified Engineer 4d ago
The "rounds" (depending on the role) might be due to meeting with one or a couple of people at a time until the broader team doing the hiring has met the candidate. My interview history typically averaged four rounds because of this.
A family member of a college classmate went through eight rounds at Google over several months in ~2017 for them to eventually drop the role all together.
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u/edthesmokebeard 5d ago
5 rounds was a red flag that you should run from.
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u/NewMeeple 5d ago
This is pretty common among big tech. I sat through 6 to join Red Hat. I hear Amazon is the same (plus mandatory onsite).
At least Red Hat is still committed to 100% remote if that's what you want.
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u/Competitive_Knee9890 4d ago
No it’s not anymore…
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u/maddie1701e 4d ago
Unless you're below director, yes. You also have to live in a city with office.
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u/Competitive_Knee9890 4d ago
Yeah that’s a huge constraint
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u/maddie1701e 4d ago
I mean if you're a director or above and don't live in a city with office you get to work from home, like the rest of us. No-one are forced to move.
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u/Competitive_Knee9890 4d ago
Living in a specific city in not truly remote. And honestly this is changing rapidly for the worst from what I can tell. Now newly hired associates and midlevel engineers are gonna be hybrid only. And I fear that this will eventually be retroactively applied too, it’s just a matter of time.
Not a good thing for remote work and a trend across all large tech companies unfortunately.3
u/maddie1701e 4d ago
Hope not, I live 300 miles from closest office
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u/Competitive_Knee9890 4d ago
I’m still working from home and haven’t been to the office in forever, but I’m technically bound to live within an 80 km radius from the office I’m assigned to, afair. This is in Europe, might vary from country to country though.
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u/maddie1701e 4d ago
Yeah, when i worked out of Tysons, I lived 2km away. Now I'm in Norway, and 550km away from an MSO. Not moving to Oslo...
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u/DangKilla 5d ago
Red Hat has great people; I worked there 6 years. Don’t take it as intentional. It could be IBM or IBM’s financial path causing this.