A Call to Reform the North American Interview Process Petition for Respect, Transparency, and Fairness in Hiring | May 2026

 
A Personal Statement

I have spent 18 years building a career defined by leadership, strategy, and results. I have led teams, launched products, grown revenue, and driven transformation across industries. And yet, since November 2025, I have been navigating a job market that has repeatedly made me feel invisible.

Six months of searching. Dozens of applications. Multiple interview processes that stretched across weeks, sometimes months, only to end in silence or a form rejection. No feedback. No explanation. No respect for the time and effort I invested.

I am not alone. Across North America, millions of experienced professionals are caught in the same system: a hiring process that is exhausting by design, opaque by default, and indifferent to the human cost of its inefficiency.

This petition is my response. It is also an invitation to every hiring manager, HR professional, executive, and job seeker who believes we can do better.

 
The Problem

The current interview process in North America is broken. What was designed to identify the best candidate has become a gauntlet that filters out good people through attrition, not assessment.

The data is clear:

According to Lever, a leading talent acquisition platform, companies conduct an average of 4 interviews before extending an offer, a process that routinely spans more than five weeks.
A LinkedIn survey found that 60% of candidates have abandoned an application mid-process due to its length or complexity.
Research by SHRM shows that the average time-to-hire in North America has increased to over 36 days, with some sectors exceeding 60 days.
Glassdoor data indicates that longer interview processes correlate with higher candidate drop-off, meaning companies with the most drawn-out processes are losing the best candidates to faster-moving competitors.
Beyond the statistics, there is a human reality that data cannot fully capture. Job searching while unemployed, or while managing a demanding current role, is one of the most stressful experiences a professional can face. Every week of silence, every unexplained delay, every round that appears without warning chips away at a candidate's confidence, finances, and mental well-being.

"The interview process should be a mutual evaluation, not an endurance test. When companies treat candidates as infinitely available and endlessly patient, they reveal something important about how they will treat employees."

 
What We Are Calling For

We are calling on companies, HR departments, and hiring managers across North America to commit to the following reforms:

1. A Maximum of Three Interview Rounds No candidate should be required to complete more than three interview rounds to be considered for a position. A first-round screening, a second-round skills or panel assessment, and a final decision-making conversation are sufficient to evaluate any candidate at any level. Additional rounds beyond three signal process inefficiency, not thoroughness.

2. A Maximum of One Week Between Each Round Once a candidate has completed an interview round, the next step should occur within seven calendar days. Gaps of two, three, or four weeks between rounds serve no legitimate purpose. They create anxiety, force candidates to hold competing offers in limbo, and communicate that the company does not value their time. Speed in hiring is a competitive advantage. Slowness is a signal.

3. Mandatory Progress Updates at Every Stage Candidates must receive a written communication within 48 hours of completing each interview round. This communication should confirm receipt of the interview, provide an expected timeline for the next step, and identify a named point of contact. Silence is not a neutral act. It is disrespectful.

4. Mandatory Feedback for Every Candidate Who Reaches Round Two Any candidate who advances past the initial screening and participates in a substantive interview round deserves to know why they were not selected. Feedback does not need to be lengthy. A brief, honest, specific explanation of the decision serves three purposes: it helps candidates grow professionally, it demonstrates that the company respects the time candidates invested, and it builds the employer brand that companies claim to care about.

Generic rejection emails are not feedback. "We have decided to move forward with other candidates" is not a professional courtesy. It is a courtesy void.

5. Full Transparency on Process and Timeline at the Outset Before a candidate completes a single interview, they should receive a written overview of the full hiring process: how many rounds, what format each round will take, who they will meet with, what the expected timeline is from first round to offer, and who to contact if they have questions.

Candidates make significant decisions based on where they are in a hiring process. They deserve the information they need to make those decisions with clarity.

6. A Commitment to Communicate Rejections Promptly If a candidate is no longer being considered, they must be informed within five business days of that decision being made. Ghosting candidates is not a neutral outcome of a busy schedule. It is a choice, and it is one that harms real people.

 
The Cost of Inaction

Companies that dismiss these reforms as impractical or burdensome should consider what the current system is already costing them:

Lost talent: Top candidates receive multiple offers. The companies that move slowly lose them to companies that move quickly.
Damaged employer brand: Candidates who have poor interview experiences talk. Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and word-of-mouth travel fast. A reputation for disrespectful hiring is expensive to repair.
Reduced diversity: Extended, opaque processes disproportionately disadvantage candidates who cannot afford to wait weeks between rounds, including those managing financial pressure, caregiving responsibilities, or employment gaps.
Wasted internal resources: Every week a role remains unfilled has a measurable cost in lost productivity. Slow hiring is not cautious hiring. It is costly hiring.
 
The Mental Health Dimension

This is not only a business efficiency issue. It is a mental health issue.

Job searching is consistently ranked among the most stressful life experiences, comparable to divorce, bereavement, and serious illness. For experienced professionals who have built identities around their careers, an extended search compounds this stress with feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, and isolation.

When companies add unnecessary delays, withhold feedback, and go silent after interviews, they are not simply being inefficient. They are actively contributing to the psychological harm of the people who trusted them enough to apply.

Reform here is not just good business practice. It is a basic human obligation.

 
Our Call to Action

We are asking individuals and organizations across North America to sign this petition and commit to the following principles:

No more than three rounds of interviews for any position.
No more than one week between each interview round.
Written progress updates within 48 hours of every interview round.
Specific, constructive feedback provided to every candidate who reaches round two or beyond.
Full transparency on hiring process and timeline provided in writing before the first interview.
Prompt rejection notifications within five business days of a decision being made.
We are asking hiring managers to champion these standards within their organizations. We are asking HR professionals to build these commitments into their processes. We are asking executives to hold their companies accountable. And we are asking every job seeker who has felt the weight of this broken system to add their voice.

 
A Final Word

I wrote this petition because I believe the hiring process can be better, and because I have lived the cost of a system that is not.

Eighteen years of experience. Leadership across industries. A track record that speaks for itself. And still, months of silence, vague timelines, and closed doors.

If this is my experience, it is the experience of thousands of professionals across this country who are qualified, motivated, and ready to contribute, and who are being worn down by a process that treats them as applicants rather than people.

That needs to change. This petition is one step toward changing it.

Sign this petition. Share it with your network. Demand better.