I already can't get an interview, this would make it impossible.
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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i used to be an assistant in corporate hr in the mid 1990s.. we had locations in several dozen states plus mexico, but all of hr was in the main office. we'd fly candidates in, put 'em up in a hotel, provide transportation to and from airports and interviews, as well as a generous per diem for meals. they 'made' more in a day off that (even factoring-in a reasonable meal budget) than i made in a week.
Maybe as a compromise, the first interview (up to 1 hour) can be free, but if the interview goes for more than 1 hour or if there's more than one interview, it has to be paid.
working full-time for free
Like, working full-time for free to find a job?
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hear hear. it should include any assesments to.
I agree 100%
I think a way forward is to make the government handle the hiring process. The companies put a fee into escrow, which is paid to the government if no hires are completed or retained.
The government interviews potential hires, anonymizes and DEIs, retains resumes and information from job seekers, creates the infrastructure for reviews to be left by people for a company's work conditions, and so forth. If a pattern of false jobs emerges, the government can prevent the company from issuing further offers for 3 or 4 months, with a heightened penalty for the escrow thereafter. If people are consistently hired and retained, the escrow penalty is reduced.
Corporations shouldn't be responsible for hiring, because they are strongly incentivized to do bullshit.
IMHO funnelling anything through a central authority is destined to lead to bottlenecks and inflexibility. I could see something similar being achieved by heavily regulating the hiring process though. And possibly involving some sort of certified 3rd party* to guarantee impartiality, that isn't the government. (*A licensing model avoids the central authority bottleneck)
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That would disincentivize HR from shortlisting candidates though.
Terrible idea that makes no sense. You're not doing work for them in an interview, you're trying to prove you are a good fit for them - and them for you.
So start a company and pay for candidates. What's stopping you? If it's the best business model you'll make millions or billions
Collective action problem:
A collective action problem or social dilemma is a situation in which all individuals would be better off cooperating but fail to do so because of conflicting interests between individuals that discourage joint action. The collective action problem has been addressed in political philosophy for centuries, but was more famously interpreted in 1965 in Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action.
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I, too, hate job hunting, but I'm having a hard time seeing where unemployed people have to work full time for free, unless it's a working interview.
Generally, my out of town interviews include paid airfare, hotel and meals to do the interview, this has been the professional standard since the 1970s and before... Yeah, it's "unpaid time" but the expenses being borne by the company in the process are pretty obvious, and not insignificant.
Now, I can easily imagine today with AI HR screeners playing games of 20,000 questions before admitting you to a face-to-face round, yeah, that's gotta be annoying. One way to win those games is not to play, only deal with companies that respect your time - I understand all too well that sometimes there aren't any - but if they're wasting your time like that during the interview process, odds are high that they don't really have anything to offer anyway.
At more of a bottom-end job hunt, in high school I drove down the beach stopping in at every hotel filling out applications cold - low investment on my part. Four months later, I got a call back, apparently I was the only application on file.
Generally, my out of town interviews include paid airfare, hotel and meals to do the interview, this has been the professional standard since the 1970s and before... Yeah, it's "unpaid time" but the expenses being borne by the company in the process are pretty obvious, and not insignificant.
Oh, what industry were you in?
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