At Level 12, we pay for the time spent taking our skills tests. About 16 hours worth if a candidate makes it through all phases. But I've not paid for the on-site interview, other than travel expenses for remote candidates.
He's saying that's in total/spread out, but still seems on the high side. Between a take-home coding challenge (2h?), online coding challenge (1h), talking to recruiter/HR/hiring manager (1h), multiple interviews (coding 1h, culture/fit 1h, system design/architecture 1h, whatever 1h), you're already at 8 hours for a lot of places.
I appreciate them even knowing how long a person would spend on their interview process though.
Since I am an external recruiter, I ask for payment on behalf of my candidates but I can imagine if you formulate it nicely that it might work out, too without having a recruiter representing you.
You can argue that you are interviewing with five companies and all have 4-8 hours coding task, you can't possibly do all of them and you will just do three maximum.
