Site allowing you to ‘skip the interview’ launches, then promptly shuts down

A company proposing job-seekers ask past coworkers to pay money and "sponsor" them for a new job launched, and rather immediately shut down, its website on Wednesday.

The main idea behind the site, called "Skip the Interview," was to partner with companies who would set sponsorship amounts for job postings. The job-seeker would then ask current or former coworkers to contribute to this sponsorship fund, controlled by Skip The Interview. The first person to raise the funds gets the job.

It seems that Skip The Interview thinks people are willing to back up job references with money. Quite a few people on Twitter and Reddit disagree.

According to screenshots of the now-defunct website, the CEO and co-founder is named Chris Evans. The company's Frequently Asked Questions page provided answers to questions like "Isn't this discriminatory?" and "Is this secure? Are my funds guaranteed?" To the question, "Isn't this discriminatory?", they claimed it was "the opposite" because some people don't perform well during interviews and because the sponsorship amount is based on the desired salary. A letter from Evans claimed long interview processes don't consistently lead to good candidates, saying meaningful references are the way to go.

The company released a job application for their first employee, Lead Product Designer, a day ago on the website Grow Remotely. The posting asks the applicant to put Skip The Interview's idea into action. If the applicant lasts two months, the sponsors get back double their money, and if they don't, the sponsors lose it all.

After being roasted on Twitter, an account with the handle @skipinterview responded to some concerns on developer Angie Jones' thread. "We decided to take the site down, as we clearly didn't talk to enough people before launching, and are going to talk to a lot more people before moving forward," the account wrote.

The account later tweeted on the thread: "Hi everyone. This is Chris the founder. Our goal is definitely not to be discriminatory in any way. We actually won't do junior roles for that reason. We think anyone who has worked in a role for 3+ years before can raise funds from colleagues."

An account named "Chris_Evans_1112" also responded to a negative thread on Reddit, saying the company had launched solely to receive feedback.

According to their website, Skip The Interview is processing the negative feedback and refining their pitch. It appears they have more research to do.