17 ms·

> You may have dodged the proverbial bullet. Wish I could upvote this twice! Every rejection I've ever received came with an information-rich sideband that tol

by maxaf 11y ago

> You may have dodged the proverbial bullet. Wish I could upvote this twice! Every rejection I've ever received came with an information-rich sideband that told me more about the prospective employer than an acceptance would have. In at least half of such cases I said to myself: "phew, that was a bullet I was lucky to dodge... imagine how it might feel to work with these people!"

smarks 11y ago
+1 for the phrase "information-rich sideband".
ryandrake 11y ago
Often the "information sideband" is the very fact that the company decided to cut off all communication as a way to convey rejection. If they treat random people that way, how do you think they treat people who are obligated to be on their worksite every day? Companies: DON'T DO THIS! I, for one, actively discourage smart friends from interviewing at places that treat candidates like shit.
- maxaf 11y ago
  This is especially hilarious^W demoralizing when the same company continues to actively recruit across all available channels. Successive waves of aggressive recruiter spam from some of my past "dead silence" rejections continue to cause hilarity^W^W rub salt on the wound to this day.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Respond with "I'd love to start a conversation about this great opportunity, but I'm still waiting to hear back from you about the interview we did 6 months ago!" :-)
- dominotw 11y ago
  I had nightmare of a interview experience with AirBnb in 2012. They asked me take 2 days off from work and fly all the way to SFO after I wasted couple of hours doing their coding homework. The first interviewer started with "your degree is not from a good school" like the very first sentence right to my face. He then asked me a string matching question, and insisted that I code up his brute force solution (with terrible insert complexity) and second interviewer asked me to code up a binary search tree and . After which the recruiter walked in asked me to leave the building saying the interview was not going well and walked me out of the office. I felt so humiliated, worthless and traumatized that I stopped interviewing for atleast 3 years after that. I now have (irrational) fear of interviews. This experience has dissuaded many of my friends from applying there.
  - doug1001 11y ago
    it's them that should feel humiliated. It's not like you showed up at their door right off the street; you successfully completed their take-home coding problem and i assume at least one prior telephone interview.
  - maxaf 11y ago
    That sounds horrible! I have no degree at all, which means that I got exactly where my interviewers are entirely for free. No crushing student loan debt, no heat waste of having to take college classes that have nothing whatsoever to do with my chosen profession. Those who have the audacity to judge a person by their degree deserve to have this advantage flown in their faces, if only implicitly.
  - kazinator 11y ago
    That's just incredibly rude. My degree's not from a good school? That's nothing; your shirt didn't exactly come off the best dressed mannequin in the Sears window.
    - blakeyrat 11y ago
      I think just asking for a degree (in a computer-related field) is kind of a dumb idea. I don't have a degree, and I'm very successful at my software development job. The best programmer I know has a degree in Psychology; another has a degree in Biology. From my own experience as an interviewer, "has a degree" was absolutely not even a factor when determining who was good and who wasn't.
  - spike021 11y ago
    Nowadays, at least for their engineering internships, they have a pre-filled list of top schools to choose from followed by an "other" option (at least when I tried applying a couple years ago). That told me exactly what I needed to know. I'd be instantly rejected because of not going to a "good school".
    - justinlardinois 11y ago
- justinlardinois 11y ago
  This so much. No response is only really acceptable when you sent a job application, and their only communication back to you was an automated email letting you know they received it. If you were actually in communication with someone at the company, they can at the very least give you a two-line "we've decided to move forward with other candidates" message. I've had rejection emails from huge companies and tiny startups personally written by the hiring manager. It's not that hard.
seanp2k2 11y ago
Yep. I had a company in the Bay Area fly me out for an interview explaining that they'd pay all expenses (as is common). They made me an offer and I went with a different company. They completely ignored my expense submission (they indicated how to submit this previously...basically just send them photos of the receipts and they'd send me a check) and ignored me after I let them know I was going with another offer, so I was stuck with ~$300 in taxi bills (SFO <-> South Bay gets pricey real fast in the days before Uber). Really really glad I didn't end up there.
- praneshp 11y ago
  Yelp tried this with me, when I was in grad school and $150 was a really big amount. A friend of mine kindly offered to carry the expense report and drop it off with the recruiter when he went in to interview a month later.
- autotune 11y ago
  At the opposite end, I had a company fly me out and pay for expenses, and didn't get the job. They followed up a month or two later and sent a check, although by that time my address changed, so I didn't receive it, and told them this after asking my why it wasn't cashed. They sent another one and after procrastinating on cashing it (it was something like $80 worth of Lyft rides), they followed up again at which point I cashed it. Some companies are pretty good at giving a decent interview experience even if they reject you.

by maxaf 11y ago

smarks 11y ago

+1 for the phrase "information-rich sideband".

ryandrake 11y ago

Often the "information sideband" is the very fact that the company decided to cut off all communication as a way to convey rejection. If they treat random people that way, how do you think they treat people who are obligated to be on their worksite every day? Companies: DON'T DO THIS! I, for one, actively discourage smart friends from interviewing at places that treat candidates like shit.

maxaf 11y ago
This is especially hilarious^W demoralizing when the same company continues to actively recruit across all available channels. Successive waves of aggressive recruiter spam from some of my past "dead silence" rejections continue to cause hilarity^W^W rub salt on the wound to this day.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  Respond with "I'd love to start a conversation about this great opportunity, but I'm still waiting to hear back from you about the interview we did 6 months ago!" :-)
dominotw 11y ago
I had nightmare of a interview experience with AirBnb in 2012. They asked me take 2 days off from work and fly all the way to SFO after I wasted couple of hours doing their coding homework. The first interviewer started with "your degree is not from a good school" like the very first sentence right to my face. He then asked me a string matching question, and insisted that I code up his brute force solution (with terrible insert complexity) and second interviewer asked me to code up a binary search tree and . After which the recruiter walked in asked me to leave the building saying the interview was not going well and walked me out of the office. I felt so humiliated, worthless and traumatized that I stopped interviewing for atleast 3 years after that. I now have (irrational) fear of interviews. This experience has dissuaded many of my friends from applying there.
- doug1001 11y ago
  it's them that should feel humiliated. It's not like you showed up at their door right off the street; you successfully completed their take-home coding problem and i assume at least one prior telephone interview.
- maxaf 11y ago
  That sounds horrible! I have no degree at all, which means that I got exactly where my interviewers are entirely for free. No crushing student loan debt, no heat waste of having to take college classes that have nothing whatsoever to do with my chosen profession. Those who have the audacity to judge a person by their degree deserve to have this advantage flown in their faces, if only implicitly.
- kazinator 11y ago
  That's just incredibly rude. My degree's not from a good school? That's nothing; your shirt didn't exactly come off the best dressed mannequin in the Sears window.
  - blakeyrat 11y ago
    I think just asking for a degree (in a computer-related field) is kind of a dumb idea. I don't have a degree, and I'm very successful at my software development job. The best programmer I know has a degree in Psychology; another has a degree in Biology. From my own experience as an interviewer, "has a degree" was absolutely not even a factor when determining who was good and who wasn't.
- spike021 11y ago
  Nowadays, at least for their engineering internships, they have a pre-filled list of top schools to choose from followed by an "other" option (at least when I tried applying a couple years ago). That told me exactly what I needed to know. I'd be instantly rejected because of not going to a "good school".
  - justinlardinois 11y ago
justinlardinois 11y ago
This so much. No response is only really acceptable when you sent a job application, and their only communication back to you was an automated email letting you know they received it. If you were actually in communication with someone at the company, they can at the very least give you a two-line "we've decided to move forward with other candidates" message. I've had rejection emails from huge companies and tiny startups personally written by the hiring manager. It's not that hard.

seanp2k2 11y ago

Yep. I had a company in the Bay Area fly me out for an interview explaining that they'd pay all expenses (as is common). They made me an offer and I went with a different company. They completely ignored my expense submission (they indicated how to submit this previously...basically just send them photos of the receipts and they'd send me a check) and ignored me after I let them know I was going with another offer, so I was stuck with ~$300 in taxi bills (SFO <-> South Bay gets pricey real fast in the days before Uber). Really really glad I didn't end up there.

praneshp 11y ago
Yelp tried this with me, when I was in grad school and $150 was a really big amount. A friend of mine kindly offered to carry the expense report and drop it off with the recruiter when he went in to interview a month later.
autotune 11y ago
At the opposite end, I had a company fly me out and pay for expenses, and didn't get the job. They followed up a month or two later and sent a check, although by that time my address changed, so I didn't receive it, and told them this after asking my why it wasn't cashed. They sent another one and after procrastinating on cashing it (it was something like $80 worth of Lyft rides), they followed up again at which point I cashed it. Some companies are pretty good at giving a decent interview experience even if they reject you.