I've been looking into changing jobs and yes: it is a huge time sink. Traveling to interviews, being available for phone calls, preparing and researching... Especially the smaller companies are struggling to set up a good hiring process. I tried to discuss salary ranges before going into interviews to filter out some companies, but it didn't help. One recruiter put me on a one hour train ride, turns out there was some miscommunication about the job description..

However I really liked the Thoughtworks challenges and couldn't resist coding for eight hours. It's better than spending one hour on-site for a badly designed 'challenge'.