The companies with the longest and shortest interview process

Just a few months ago, employers could not afford to wait around before hiring a promising candidate. BLS statistics show that America’s labor crisis peaked in early 2022. However, it is only since the start of 2023 that the shortage has continued to fall more or less continuously, reaching pre-pandemic levels in 2024. All the while, companies have needed to act swiftly to snap up talent before their competitors.

“Hiring in 2021 was almost reactive: it was a gold rush, the most fierce battle for talent I've seen in my career,” says Astad Dhunjisha, vice president of global talent acquisition at AT&T.

However, more candidates are emerging per opportunity, and more care is required in uncertain times, so businesses now reserve the right to draw out the recruitment process. “The process is long and rigorous because the impact of the decision is so huge,” Dhunjisha told the BBC. “You need as much information as possible, meaning multiple rounds of interviews, potentially going through separate personality and capability assessments so you're able to build the most holistic picture of the candidate as possible.”

This is not great for applicants. A lengthy interview process is expensive and discouraging, and it is also a potential red flag. A company that prolongs the process may have communication and HR issues or may not even be sure what it’s hiring for — or whether the job is really needed at all.

To assess the state of hiring in 2024 and guide jobseekers to companies with shorter turnarounds, Career.io has identified the major U.S. employers — including tech firms and restaurants — that have the longest and shortest interview processes.

What we did

We analyzed the Indeed company profiles of 100 major employers, the 50 biggest restaurant chains and 14 tech giants in the U.S. to calculate the average interview process length. We based this on the percentage of employees who received a job offer within each duration bracket.

Key findings

• The FBI has the longest interview process, taking 39.27 days from first interview to first day.

• McDonald’s has the shortest interview process, with the average hire starting 5.32 days after being seen.

• Uber is the quickest tech giant to convert interviewees to employees (9.34 days).

The major American companies with the longest and shortest interview process

Of the 100 big U.S. companies we analyzed, McDonald’s has the quickest turnaround. The average interview process at McDonald’s takes just 5.32 days. McDonald’s even makes sample interview questions available to help applicants prepare.

 Security, military and government organizations have America’s longest interview processes. The top ten includes two states, two cities and one county administration, in addition to the IRS, Air Force and USPS. Amtrak — a publicly funded, for-profit company — also features in tenth place.

 However, the longest interview process of all is for the FBI. The average interview process for the FBI lasts around 39.27 days. The FBI claims to employ “35,000 people, including special agents and support professionals such as intelligence analysts, language specialists, scientists, and information technology specialists.” Applicants to become special agents only meet somebody for an introduction at the third stage of recruitment, following ‘Application & Screening’ and a computerized test. But you must still pass a further physical fitness test before undergoing a full structured interview.

For special agents, the interview process is just the tip of the iceberg. Following a job offer, successful applicants undergo a background investigation (average six months) and further health and fitness tests followed by an 18-week Basic Field Training Course.

The U.S. tech giants with the longest and shortest interview process

A trio of service providers comprises the tech giants with the shortest interview processes: Netflix (14.23 days), Amazon (10.11) and Uber (9.34). At Amazon and Uber, in particular, a large part of the workforce consists of high-turnover frontline or warehouse workers for whom a streamlined hiring process makes more sense.

 The Netflix process begins with an initial screening call, followed by a longer ‘technical’ interview or assignment, which is then followed by two rounds of multiple face-to-face interviews. The company emphasizes company culture and team fit; one employee called the Netflix interview process a “vibe check.”

We found six tech companies where the interview process lasts around three weeks or more. Oracle, the world’s third-largest software company, has the lengthiest process, at 25.56 days. “The balance of power has shifted back to employers, which has resulted in hiring getting tougher,” says Laszlo Bock, former SVP of people operations at Google — where the average interview process now lasts 20.74 days. “After years of tech workers being pampered, of ‘bring your whole selves to work’ and ‘work from anywhere,’ executives are now overcompensating in the other direction.”

Apple is in second place (22.05 days), a far cry from the days when Steve Jobs would reportedly ask himself one key question — “Would I enjoy going out for a beer with this person?” Jobs was a keen participant in the hiring process but did things his own way: “You can't know enough in a one-hour interview,” he told CNN. “So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they're challenged? Why are they here?”

The U.S. restaurant chains with the longest and shortest interview process

Compared to tech and other industries, restaurant chains have relatively short interview processes. Turnover is high, and being short of staff immediately and dramatically impacts customer experience. The work often involves on-the-job training, reducing the need for proven experience and skills.

Marco's Pizza (3.86 days) leads the top ten restaurants for the shortest average turnaround times, all of which convert applicants to employees within five days — in other words, a working week. Papa John’s (4.16 days) and Subway (4.43) may be the highest-profile restaurants in the top ten. According to Glassdoor reviewers, a Papa John’s interview rates just 1.5 out of five in terms of difficulty. Papa John’s hurriedly employed 20,000 new staff at the start of the pandemic, bucking the trend for lay-offs along with other delivery services.

The interview process at Dutch Bros Coffee averages 10.17 days, which is the most for any restaurant. The drive-thru coffee shop maintains 876 locations across 17 states, several of which hold “hiring parties” that applicants can attend to “play music, mingle and play games” while they wait to be interviewed. The interview itself lasts around 15 minutes, but while many applicants say they got an answer within a couple of days, a significant number report that it took one to two weeks or longer to find the outcome.

The waiting game

“Whatever may be happening in the world economy currently, it is clear that supply and demand are not in sync in terms of the type of skills available and the gaps that need to be filled,” says Josh Bersin, a global HR research analyst. “The real trailblazers in HR and talent acquisition have recognized this, and are thinking outside the box when it comes to developing people, cross-pollinating roles from elsewhere, and actively keeping succession and new-role pipelines full.”

Unfortunately, this thinking outside the box involves some ‘experimental’ recruitment processes, such as delegating interviewing through the company or even advertising ‘ghost jobs’ to gather applicant data with no intention of using it in the short term. Naturally, these processes — along with growing competition levels and corporate misdirection — can lead to long response times for applicants. This is just one more reason to research a company before you apply and to treat the interview as a two-way deal in which the applicant also assesses their potential employer.

Methodology

To identify the companies with the longest and shortest interview processes, we looked at Indeed's company profiles and calculated an average process length based on the percentage of employees who received a job offer within each time frame (a couple of days, a week, a month, etc.).

We started by curating a seed list of 100 major employers in the USA, which was determined by isolating the most Google-searched-for companies using the "jobs" search term on Semrush's Keyword Research tool. We also compiled a seed list of the 50 biggest restaurant chains and America's most commonly accepted tech giants.

With the full seed list in hand, we consulted each company's Interview page on Indeed and calculated a weighted average of "days to job offer" based on the percentage of employees within each duration bracket.

We completed this data analysis in July 2024.