Why Does Hiring Still Take Six Interviews?

At this point, some companies are running people through a corporate obstacle course.

You’ll recognise the format:

Stage 1: Screening call

Stage 2: “Culture fit”

Stage 3: Hiring manager interview

Stage 4: Panel interview

Stage 5: Presentation / task

Stage 6: A “quick chat” that isn’t quick

By the end, the candidate has repeated the same answers six different ways, met more people than they would in their first month, and completed enough unpaid work to qualify for an internship… only to hear:

“We’re continuing to explore options.”

If you need six conversations to decide, you don’t have a hiring process. You’ve got an internal PR problem.

Because most businesses aren’t doing this because the role is impossibly complex. They’re doing it because the decision-making is. When expectations are fuzzy, every extra interview becomes a way to buy clarity and spread responsibility.

When the process grows… but confidence doesn’t

Six stages rarely starts as a deliberate design, it usually starts with good intentions and ends with diary Tetris.

Someone wants to “get a feel”, a stakeholder asks for a quick meeting “just to be sure”. A panel gets added because it feels safer than one person saying yes (or no). And before you know it, hiring becomes a group project where everyone contributes… and no one owns the decision.

The irony is that extra stages don’t always create better hires. They often create louder opinions. Candidates are asked the same questions in different packaging, and the only consistent thing is the time it takes.

Meanwhile, the candidate is sat there thinking: do they actually know what they want?

The cost of a slow yes

The obvious cost is losing great people, the best candidates have options and they don’t wait around for a company to “continue exploring”. If your process drags, your top choice accepts elsewhere and you’re left restarting the search.

This also chips away at your reputation. A long process signals hesitation, it makes your business feel harder to work with than it probably is. And candidates talk to peers, to old colleagues, in private communities, long before you ever see a review.

Then there’s the internal drain: constant scheduling, feedback chasing, debriefs, and “one more chat” requests that pull managers away from their actual jobs.

When extra steps are justified

There are hires where more diligence is sensible: senior leadership, regulated environments, highly technical work. If a stage doesn’t assess something new, it’s wasting everyone’s time.

What a sharp process looks like

The best hiring processes are straightforward: qualify, assess, validate, then decide.

Start with a short conversation to confirm fundamentals and align expectations. Move quickly into a focused hiring manager interview that centres on outcomes: what success looks like in the first 3–6 months, and evidence the candidate has done something similar before.

If you want a final check, keep it simple: do one last step. Either a short work sample that reflects the job, or one panel with the people the hire will work with day-to-day.

And “culture fit” doesn’t need its own stage. Build it into the interview with clear, values- based questions. Ask how they’ve shown ownership, pace, communication, and decision-making, then score the answers. “Fit” should be based on evidence rather than a gut feeling.

The bottom line

If it takes six interviews to decide, the issue usually isn’t the candidate. The companies that win talent don’t drag it out, they know what they want and they make a decision.

Want a second opinion on your interview process? Send us your current stages and we’ll tell you what to keep, what to cut, and how to get to a confident yes faster.

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