6 ms·

Having gone through this process recently, there's a lot of truth in this post. I experienced more companies "ghosting" during the process than slow turnaround

by dhd415 10y ago

Having gone through this process recently, there's a lot of truth in this post. I experienced more companies "ghosting" during the process than slow turnaround times, but it is remarkable how short-sighted companies are during the recruiting phase. It's as if common courtesy has gone completely out the window in tech recruiting. Basic things like not missing phone interviews at times that have been previously scheduled or informing candidates politely that you've decided to move forward with other candidates can't even be taken for granted anymore. Candidates' initial experience with a company is typically through the recruiting organization and negative impressions during the recruiting phase are often applied to the company as a whole. I could see it being a competitive advantage to be known for having a good recruiting process even if it is very selective. For example, I have a very positive impression of DigitalOcean despite not receiving an offer because of the professional and courteous way they handled their interview process.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ryandrake 10y ago
The "ghosting" is just something you have to get used to as a candidate. Most companies do it. It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs, and companies simply can't get back to each and every person. Also, a lot of times, the company can't make a clear yes/no decision and will stall and delay on a borderline candidate in order to try to luck into a better one.
- busterarm 10y ago
  Something that I'm seeing more and more these days are companies that are actually not trying to fill the positions they are posting. I've seen companies fully-contained within 4-person WeWork spaces showing pictures of their non-existant 20+ person team and listing as many or more open positions that don't exist. I've seen companies that list positions that aren't actively looking to hire but want to keep the funnel open in case that 'special snowflake' comes along. I don't know if it's 'wishful thinking' or something else, but it's fairly poisonous.
  - wayn3 10y ago
    If you aren't "actively looking" but would bite if "that special snowflake" came in, aren't you actively hiring? Maybe you're more like passively hiring, but I'd still consider them hiring.
    - busterarm 10y ago
      I didn't want to be obviously derisive in my post. The two companies in question were obviously stroking their own egos. They didn't have an actual need for someone and it was all about how many/what type of degrees someone had and from where before they'd even consider looking at a candidate. In one of the cases, when the company did actually hire a person, that person had no work to do -- it was purely a means to justify their ask to investors for more money. We hire the best people!
      - wayn3 10y ago
        Does that make you angry? They'll soon fail anyway. Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. You shouldn't concern yourself with a bunch of toxic idiots trying to milk VC for a while.
        busterarm 10y ago
        Not really, actually. I get it. It's the waste/needless entropy and it makes me more sad than mad anyway. I have to consider that some of the effort I spend chasing what looks like a great job might actually be a complete waste of time with no chance whatsoever. I've been pretty vocal about my experiences, good and bad, job searching. I usually even like to name and shame and strangely enough it has paid off for me in connecting with the kinds of people I want to work with. I've been happily employed for a year now and have a good network of opportunities available to me.
        ryandrake 10y ago
        > Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. The "shortage of engineers" meme that just won't die. If this were actually true, one or more of the following would be happening: 1. Qualified people would not be having difficulty finding work 2. Salaries would be increasing and low-paying open jobs would decrease in response to short supply until the market went into equilibrium
- mattkrause 10y ago
  > companies simply can't get back to each and every person Honestly, that's nonsense. Send out a terse, automated email to everyone who applied and was not selected. It could just be something like: "This job posting has been closed and , unfortunately, you were not selected as a finalist. Thank you for applying. We will keep your application on file for 60 days if there is a similar opening." I would love to get useful feedback from an actual human, but I know that interviewer time is expensive and companies are worried about liability[1]. However, an automated email pulled from an applicant-tracking database is literally the least a company could do and is essentially free. If they make it to an on-campus interview, having a real live person copy and paste an email also adds maybe ~$2 to a day that's already costing the company thousands. [1] Everyone says this, but I've never actually seen a court case where a) the company provided reasonable feedback and b) was sued nevertheless.
- ammon 10y ago
  I don't think that we should excuse this behavior just because it's common. We push back against this pretty hard at Triplebyte. I can also say (having run a huge number of interviews over that last year) that getting a personal, honest email to every candidate is just a matter of making it part of the process. Writing an email takes a small fraction of the time of doing an interview.
- dunkelheit 10y ago
  It is not rocket science. Just set up the applicant tracker in such a way that tickets that have not been resolved within a week bubble up to the top of the queue. I've seen this implemented at my workplace and the frequency of ghosting went waaay down. But it is true that a company must make a small but conscious effort to reduce it. Some companies apparently just don't see enough upside in it for them.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs, and companies simply can't get back to each and every person. There's a huge difference between not responding to every resume -- and silently dropping (or prolongedly stalling) the candidate after initial contact has made (sometimes even after an on-site visit). The latter is what is usually meant by "ghosting" -- and really, there's no resource-based excuse for it (given that both parties have already made a very significant time and energy investment by that point). That's what's so exasperating (and to some, nearly infuriating) about it. Most companies do it. Actually, the widespread observation is that until recently, "most companies" definitely did not ghost candidates after the initial contact stage -- and after an on-site interview, it was basically unheard of. It's hard to get data, but it definitely seems to be a very new thing. The "ghosting" is just something you have to get used to as a candidate. One can get used to anything, I suppose. But by the same token: turnabout is definitely fair play; and as long as companies insist on doing this to people -- they're going to have to get "used to" this shitty behavior being talked about on places like Glassdoor and HN. And of course, being duly and justly called out by name for it.
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  well sure, if we're talking not responding to the initial application then yea I don't think the expectation is to get a response from every single company. but if I as much as have a screening call with a recruiter, unless they flat out tell me "no" I would expect some sort of communication at that point.
- user5994461 10y ago
  > It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs Nope. There are many companies and positions who just hire everyone who pass the bar. More jobs than successful candidates. Yet the companies still suck at interviewing.
jghn 10y ago
I interviewed with Twitter a while back and it was astounding how little concern they had for my time. I had a few phone screens and two of them had to be rescheduled as the person never called me. Then they gave me a take home coding assignment that required coordinating with one of their engineers who then missed not one but two appointments.
- cyorir 10y ago
  I also had a bad experience interviewing with Twitter. No less than 5 minutes into the interview (online), a second candidate comes into the chat. Apparently that interviewee shared my first and last names, and the Twitter recruiter had mistakenly signed us both up for the same interview time. Everything went downhill from there.
pjmorris 10y ago
I learned in my first two jobs (in restaurants) that the way the company treats its prospective hires is strongly correlated with how well the company is organized. I kept that in mind as I went out into the corporate world, and the rule has held (in my experience) for the last ~30 years. Good starts imply good companies and good experiences. Bad starts... can be safely dropped.
IndianAstronaut 10y ago
Facebook was the worst. Won't tell you how you did, will call at random times, etc.

by dhd415 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ryandrake 10y ago

The "ghosting" is just something you have to get used to as a candidate. Most companies do it. It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs, and companies simply can't get back to each and every person. Also, a lot of times, the company can't make a clear yes/no decision and will stall and delay on a borderline candidate in order to try to luck into a better one.

busterarm 10y ago
Something that I'm seeing more and more these days are companies that are actually not trying to fill the positions they are posting. I've seen companies fully-contained within 4-person WeWork spaces showing pictures of their non-existant 20+ person team and listing as many or more open positions that don't exist. I've seen companies that list positions that aren't actively looking to hire but want to keep the funnel open in case that 'special snowflake' comes along. I don't know if it's 'wishful thinking' or something else, but it's fairly poisonous.
- wayn3 10y ago
  If you aren't "actively looking" but would bite if "that special snowflake" came in, aren't you actively hiring? Maybe you're more like passively hiring, but I'd still consider them hiring.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    I didn't want to be obviously derisive in my post. The two companies in question were obviously stroking their own egos. They didn't have an actual need for someone and it was all about how many/what type of degrees someone had and from where before they'd even consider looking at a candidate. In one of the cases, when the company did actually hire a person, that person had no work to do -- it was purely a means to justify their ask to investors for more money. We hire the best people!
    - wayn3 10y ago
      Does that make you angry? They'll soon fail anyway. Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. You shouldn't concern yourself with a bunch of toxic idiots trying to milk VC for a while.
      - busterarm 10y ago
        Not really, actually. I get it. It's the waste/needless entropy and it makes me more sad than mad anyway. I have to consider that some of the effort I spend chasing what looks like a great job might actually be a complete waste of time with no chance whatsoever. I've been pretty vocal about my experiences, good and bad, job searching. I usually even like to name and shame and strangely enough it has paid off for me in connecting with the kinds of people I want to work with. I've been happily employed for a year now and have a good network of opportunities available to me.
      - ryandrake 10y ago
        > Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. The "shortage of engineers" meme that just won't die. If this were actually true, one or more of the following would be happening: 1. Qualified people would not be having difficulty finding work 2. Salaries would be increasing and low-paying open jobs would decrease in response to short supply until the market went into equilibrium
mattkrause 10y ago
> companies simply can't get back to each and every person Honestly, that's nonsense. Send out a terse, automated email to everyone who applied and was not selected. It could just be something like: "This job posting has been closed and , unfortunately, you were not selected as a finalist. Thank you for applying. We will keep your application on file for 60 days if there is a similar opening." I would love to get useful feedback from an actual human, but I know that interviewer time is expensive and companies are worried about liability[1]. However, an automated email pulled from an applicant-tracking database is literally the least a company could do and is essentially free. If they make it to an on-campus interview, having a real live person copy and paste an email also adds maybe ~$2 to a day that's already costing the company thousands. [1] Everyone says this, but I've never actually seen a court case where a) the company provided reasonable feedback and b) was sued nevertheless.
ammon 10y ago
I don't think that we should excuse this behavior just because it's common. We push back against this pretty hard at Triplebyte. I can also say (having run a huge number of interviews over that last year) that getting a personal, honest email to every candidate is just a matter of making it part of the process. Writing an email takes a small fraction of the time of doing an interview.
dunkelheit 10y ago
It is not rocket science. Just set up the applicant tracker in such a way that tickets that have not been resolved within a week bubble up to the top of the queue. I've seen this implemented at my workplace and the frequency of ghosting went waaay down. But it is true that a company must make a small but conscious effort to reduce it. Some companies apparently just don't see enough upside in it for them.
kafkaesq 10y ago
It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs, and companies simply can't get back to each and every person. There's a huge difference between not responding to every resume -- and silently dropping (or prolongedly stalling) the candidate after initial contact has made (sometimes even after an on-site visit). The latter is what is usually meant by "ghosting" -- and really, there's no resource-based excuse for it (given that both parties have already made a very significant time and energy investment by that point). That's what's so exasperating (and to some, nearly infuriating) about it. Most companies do it. Actually, the widespread observation is that until recently, "most companies" definitely did not ghost candidates after the initial contact stage -- and after an on-site interview, it was basically unheard of. It's hard to get data, but it definitely seems to be a very new thing. The "ghosting" is just something you have to get used to as a candidate. One can get used to anything, I suppose. But by the same token: turnabout is definitely fair play; and as long as companies insist on doing this to people -- they're going to have to get "used to" this shitty behavior being talked about on places like Glassdoor and HN. And of course, being duly and justly called out by name for it.
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
well sure, if we're talking not responding to the initial application then yea I don't think the expectation is to get a response from every single company. but if I as much as have a screening call with a recruiter, unless they flat out tell me "no" I would expect some sort of communication at that point.
user5994461 10y ago
> It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs Nope. There are many companies and positions who just hire everyone who pass the bar. More jobs than successful candidates. Yet the companies still suck at interviewing.

jghn 10y ago

I interviewed with Twitter a while back and it was astounding how little concern they had for my time. I had a few phone screens and two of them had to be rescheduled as the person never called me. Then they gave me a take home coding assignment that required coordinating with one of their engineers who then missed not one but two appointments.

cyorir 10y ago
I also had a bad experience interviewing with Twitter. No less than 5 minutes into the interview (online), a second candidate comes into the chat. Apparently that interviewee shared my first and last names, and the Twitter recruiter had mistakenly signed us both up for the same interview time. Everything went downhill from there.

pjmorris 10y ago

I learned in my first two jobs (in restaurants) that the way the company treats its prospective hires is strongly correlated with how well the company is organized. I kept that in mind as I went out into the corporate world, and the rule has held (in my experience) for the last ~30 years. Good starts imply good companies and good experiences. Bad starts... can be safely dropped.

IndianAstronaut 10y ago

Facebook was the worst. Won't tell you how you did, will call at random times, etc.