You Have to Feel It

This is why recruitment as it exists now is a farce. If everything is ultimately vibes-based, there's no point in portraying the process as objective. I'd say that it's even a sort of fraud to do so.

Set base credentials, lottery of everyone who passes the post, full hire or fire after a short (1 month, at most) probationary period where vibes are considered. There's no reason to go through rounds and rounds of interviews over months. It's a waste of everyone's time. Unless your criteria are completely compromised, you'll find someone within a few tries.

The problem with probationary periods is that, especially if relocation is involved, it's really expensive/disruptive to the employee. I'm reasonably confident that I'd have cleared the bar but I probably wouldn't have taken a job when there was a clear short-term probationary period that required me moving across the country. Just too much risk unless it's an incredible opportunity.

I'm of two minds on this.

1) If such a short probationary period is involved, there's no reason to permanently move during it. A short-term rental will do. If the position works out, then move. (I have done this, it is doable.)

2) Then maybe the job isn't right for you.

The point is to strip the desperation to find The One True Candidate/Job On The First Try, from both sides. Companies are already hiring based on vibes, so this just formalizes it. Employees are already subject to swift termination, based on their employers' whims; this just makes that expectation transparent. From both sides: if it isn't going to work out, we get there quickly and move on. Little is worse than being on a job for half a year, only to get sacked because it took that long for the company to decide that it doesn't like you.

>Employees are already subject to swift termination, based on their employers' whims

Except in practice, they mostly aren't because onboarding takes time and cost and relocating employees (if applicable) has costs.

Of course, if you're a pro football player, here today/gone tomorrow is the norm. But I'm not sure that is or should be the expectation for an engineer. In part, because I doubt there is a "One True Candidate" for the the most part.

Yes, roles shift/requirements shift and both companies and employees move on but there's generally some value to stability on both sides. Even if an employee can get an employer-paid rental for a month, thy've still presumably left their prior job and will have to scramble in various ways.

How desperate would a person have to be to accept a one-month probationary job?

Are those people the ones you really want to hire?

Maybe your bar is low and your confidence is high, but I'd certainly never come work for you under those terms.

You're talking about a social contract. That's something that barely exists, these days. The problem here is as much timing as expectations. It is difficult to tell if you're signing on with a chop shop until you're suddenly on the block. I would rather we dispense with the games and people be upfront. Companies don't want that, because they can market it as stability while reserving an edge over both their employees and competitors (the same with many benefits). If what I described becomes the norm, employees lose that sense of stability, but they gain an edge in that businesses can no longer hold it over their heads.

Let's be clear, though, that it's not actual stability: it's a sense of stability, and it's often false.