In this field, unless you're hiring a junior engineer, you can have a reasonable expectation that a potential candidate will fly out for an interview even if it's a 100% remote job.
If they refuse, well, there's a chance it's just because they can't afford to. The chance is far greater, though, that you dodged a bullet.
Because you can't possibly mean you think candidates are going to fly out for an interview at their own expense.
Traditionally (i.e. pre-Covid) flying out a senior candidate was the standard signal that both sides were taking the process seriously. And for competitive hires, the quality of the hotel and the restaurants they were taken to and the seniority of the people who joined for dinner were all very important indicators.
I've been working remote since 2009 but I kinda miss the old ways.
I maybe once misinterpreted this. I was flattered to be having dinner with the well-regarded co-founder and two other highly-ranked people, but I thought the nice hotel and the fancy restaurant was just their everyday extravagant lifestyle.
Despite being obviously unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the affluent lifestyle conventions, I did get the offer. Had I known that the nice restaurant and VIPs might be specifically to say that they valued me, I would've been more likely to accept the offer.
If the interviewer _expected_ that I would pay for a cross-country (or cross-border) flight myself, that would cast a shadow on the opportunity for me.
I probably wouldn’t have had this job if the job listing had said that in-person interviews might be required, because if I read that back then I probably would have thought:
1. Flying all the way to the USA is expensive.
2. It takes a lot of time.
3. I’ll be exhausted from the flight when I arrive.
4. There’s probably a bunch of other people applying for this job. What’s the point in flying all that way for a job I don’t even know if I’ll get hired for.
In reality of course, there are other people working for that same company that live in Europe, including people in managerial roles, so if they had been the type of company to ask for an in-person interview they probably would have asked that I meet in a neighboring country. Not that I fly all the way to the USA for an interview.
Luckily for me, the job listing never said anything about any in-person interviews so I never started thinking about what it would mean to maybe have to fly to the USA and therefore I happily proceeded to apply for the job and after a take-home assignment and a few remote interviews I got hired :)
And now in present day, if I were to apply to a job in the current market I would probably apply even if the company was far away and mentioned that in-person interviews might be required. After all, it might not necessarily mean that long of a flight even. They could also have people working in countries near to you. And if the in-person interview does turn out to be too far away well you can always say no at that point. And in order to not waste too much of your own time you can keep applying and interviewing for other jobs in the meantime also, all the way up to when you finally get hired and have a contract for work signed.
You're saying that if an employer expected you to pay for the flight for an interview, that would be a red flag.
But then you say that as an interviewer, you would be willing to pay for the flight for an interview (if you thought it would be reasonable ROI).
The situation where you would be willing to pay for the flight implies that the employer would not pay for the flight (or else why would you pay for the flight?). So according to your own logic, that would raise a red flag (because the employer won't pay for the flight and expects you to). Then why would you be willing to pay for the flight to interview at an employer that is raising a red flag for you? Makes no sense at all.
Cat boarding is pricey. I couldn't afford it right now, even for a very short trip. I doubt any job would offer to pick up the tab.
Get an automated food/water dispenser, save yourself some money.
For finding my first job I had to pay for a few trips myself (flights and hotel).
There is no world where I would take an interview that I had to fly out and stay at a hotel on my own dime. That would 100% sound like some sort of scam job to me.
Fly out and hotel yes, on own dime, no.
Obviously that’s a financial burden to the company, but minimal compared to the long term costs to the company of an employee.
But positions that I'm applying to? I'm senior enough now that if I can't negotiate a paid-travel interview, clearly I either don't care enough and should cross that opportunity off my list, or it's tempting enough that I don't care.
The scam is hold on to the job for at least 1 paycheck. It’s a expensive for companies to (legally) fire people, so if you get hired you typically can get at least a few grand even if you do zero work.
So just produce LLM-level code, make excuses, say you’re learning the code base, get lots of help from colleagues, turn in mediocre work, and if you can hang on for three months before they fire you - that’s decent money!
I would withdraw from the process immediately if I encountered a company so cheap
Yes, I wanted to work for them so badly it was well worth the risk. Sometimes you see opportunities and want to pay for them.
This makes no sense. If they can't afford a one-off line item like travel arrangements, how can they possibly make payroll reliably? You're describing either a company with no financial buffer, or one that's asking prospective applicants to subsidize them.
Wait, is this another norm that corporate America broke in the last couple of decades? Do people now expect to pay to fly to interviews? When did this happen?
But it’s implied that the company would pay for all travel.
The “gotcha” is that the company would also see the departing airport, which exposes foreign candidates posing as US citizens.
