Gonna talk about this a little more from a team management perspective.

As a manager, it's important to maintain (and when needed, enforce) good work-life boundaries. A report who never stops working will erode those boundaries on your team. https://twitter.com/LeeFlower/status/1248023263919341574

This isn't to say one should never hire someone who has a history of putting in too many hours. A lot of folks do this because previous employers pressured them into it and they think it's good/expected!

But if you'r bringing someone like that onto your team, it should be something you expect to coach them out of--with clear up-front conversations and follow-up to make sure they're adjusting.

And if you've already got a problem with bad work/life boundaries on your team, well--that's something that needs to be addressed systemically. But someone with particularly GOOD boundaries around this is going to be a culture add (hiring towards the culture you want).

It's leadership's job to set expectations around work/life balance--we can't just pin it on reports who "want to work that much." But if one person is putting in ridiculous hours and their coworkers see you treating that as normal, they're going to feel pressured to do the same.

And when it comes to hiring towards the culture you want, the interview process is exactly the place to be doing that. If you're asking people to show you that they spend all their waking hours being "productive," you're going to turn off strong candidates with good boundaries.

(Also a tip for both hiring managers and job seekers: when discussing work-life balance, use numbers. Everyone will say they think work-life balance is important. How many hrs/wk does this role typically require? How many weeks a month go over that? What does 'crunch' look like?)

(Being honest about this is a really good idea, because if the role DOES require weird hours, crunch periods, etc (really requires, not just the role is structured badly), you want candidates who can't manage that to select out before you invest in training them).

I was going to try to do a part of this thread on why work/life balance is important and why you shouldn't want to encourage bad boundaries around it but honestly? Because your employees are people and people deserve time away from work; end of.