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It would be nice if the process were a little more transparent. If people just knew that a company rejected them for reason X, that would make a huge differenc

It would be nice if the process were a little more transparent. If people just knew that a company rejected them for reason X, that would make a huge difference. If X were stupid, they'd know they missed a bullet. If X were rooted in a misunderstanding, they'd have a chance to clear it up. There is so much side-channel information used in the corporate hiring process, and it gets mixed-up in HR far more often than any company is willing to admit.

wolfgke 9y ago
> If people just knew that a company rejected them for reason X, that would make a huge difference. Give a thanks to the discrimination laws. Companies don't want to give any leads for getting sued.
- freddie_mercury 9y ago
  The practice is exactly the same in countries that aren't the U.S. And countries that don't even have discrimination laws. The fact that companies behave the same in the presence of dramatically varying legal norms suggests that your belief that discrimination laws are the problem is baseless.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    At least I know that in Germany before the "Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG)" (general equality law) was passed, companies were more open about reasons. Since this law was passed, any openness can easily lead to a lawsuite against the company where the company has to prove that they did not discriminate against the candidate. Indeed when the law was passed there were lots of lawsuits of really untuitable candidates, where the company could nevertheless not prove up to "valid in court" that it did not discriminate against the candidate for reasons specified in this law and thus had to pay the unsuitable candidate some months of salary as compensation.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      US discrimination laws are not that strong. Unless you're doing something idiotic like telling people "sorry, we didn't hire you because of your religion" it's hard to win. Of course anybody can sue for any reason of they want, though.
- jstewartmobile 9y ago
  Discrimination laws are probably just a drop in the bucket. Once you start getting into drug tests, references, background checks, credit reports, reservists, social media, etc., it's suicidal to share any more than the bare minimum. In the US, we have a so-called right to privacy, but that's not really true with employers today. The information asymmetry is both astounding and obscene.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > reservists Meaning discrimination against reservists in the armed forces because of their service requirements? Or discrimination because the employer doesn't like the armed forces?
    - jstewartmobile 9y ago
      Service requirements. Even employers who are vets are terrified of this one. Hire a guy, he gets deployed just a week after he starts, you have to keep his seat warm, then when he's back several months later he's taken a job somewhere else...
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        Is there insurance for this sort of thing? Seems like an external risk that needs to be mitigated somehow.
        jstewartmobile 9y ago
        There are alternative risk markets where you can get insured for just about anything, but it's still a cost that gets disproportionately shouldered by employers of young men.
        wolfgke 9y ago
        Just reduce the salary for reservists by the amount that "his/her" insurance costs.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  It has little to do with that. There's really very little risk in giving feedback like "we didn't like your code" or "you had the wrong kind of experience for us." The bigger problem is that a lot of candidates take this as an opportunity to dispute the reasons, which is not generally desired.
  - GVIrish 9y ago
    I don't think it's even that. It's just that companies don't feel like they have much to gain from taking the time to explain rejections to candidates. Same reason that often times you don't even hear back that a company is not interested. It saves them time.
jcadam 9y ago
Meh, being told over and over again that I'm a good developer but not a cultural fit isn't particularly helpful. It sounds like a polite way to say: "You have the skills but, uh, we hated you." I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  > I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent. That is actually valuable information. Find a mentor or career coach to help you out with mock interviews. You could be signaling something that you're not aware of during interviews.
- JimboOmega 9y ago
  Being told I'm a good culture fit but don't have enough experience is equally frustrating. Especially when it's a rails dev position and I've been working on rails for 9 of the 12 years it has existed. I eventually figured out that they meant something else - like I hadn't lead a team (bigger than 2) directly before and was interviewing for a lead dev job, or I didn't have much operational experience since the previous startup I worked at was very simple and built on Heroku. In some cases it might be that I didn't have experience with the specific JS frameworks that they were using (e.g. Angular, React, whatever). But the impact is I come and interview, it goes well, smiles all around, and then they say no, we were looking for someone with more experience and I'm thinking... what? What experience? I have to kinda guess. Anyway, yeah, saying no culture fit sucks because you don't know what to do with it; maybe you could do practice interviews with friends and see if they see any glaring annoying tendencies?
alien_at_work 9y ago
I think the issue is the massive, massive power imbalance. Sure, as a worker you would like those things, but an employer has no reason to care. Even if they make a mix-up there are plenty of other candidates for the same position. Maybe they get someone actually worse but they have no way to know that and no reason to care. For the employee it's a rejection from 1 out of 1-10 companies they are talking to, so it's a big and personal deal. For the company it's just 1 out of probably hundreds of candidates for 1 out of possibly hundreds of jobs.
- symlinkk 9y ago
  sounds like the dating market
  - JimboOmega 9y ago
    Thing is that the dating market goes both ways in all cases. There was a term for this that I lost somewhere, but basically it allows all parties to be very picky when there is a feeling of infinite candidates. It's true that there might be more e.g. straight men than straight women in the bay area, but it's not like the number of straight single women is so small that candidates are rare.
hinkley 9y ago
I have had a couple of conversations like that and trying to clear up a misunderstanding hasn’t gotten me the job. And to be honest it felt quite a bit like begging. So it was more energy thrown at a dissapointment instead of concentrating on my next best option.
- jstewartmobile 9y ago
  Think outside of tech--like getting a bad reference because last manager's phone rings over to one of your old coworkers that didn't like you, or failing a credit check because the rating company sent a report for a guy with the same first, last, and middle, but totally different SSN. Shit happens.

wolfgke 9y ago

> If people just knew that a company rejected them for reason X, that would make a huge difference. Give a thanks to the discrimination laws. Companies don't want to give any leads for getting sued.

freddie_mercury 9y ago
The practice is exactly the same in countries that aren't the U.S. And countries that don't even have discrimination laws. The fact that companies behave the same in the presence of dramatically varying legal norms suggests that your belief that discrimination laws are the problem is baseless.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  At least I know that in Germany before the "Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG)" (general equality law) was passed, companies were more open about reasons. Since this law was passed, any openness can easily lead to a lawsuite against the company where the company has to prove that they did not discriminate against the candidate. Indeed when the law was passed there were lots of lawsuits of really untuitable candidates, where the company could nevertheless not prove up to "valid in court" that it did not discriminate against the candidate for reasons specified in this law and thus had to pay the unsuitable candidate some months of salary as compensation.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    US discrimination laws are not that strong. Unless you're doing something idiotic like telling people "sorry, we didn't hire you because of your religion" it's hard to win. Of course anybody can sue for any reason of they want, though.
jstewartmobile 9y ago
Discrimination laws are probably just a drop in the bucket. Once you start getting into drug tests, references, background checks, credit reports, reservists, social media, etc., it's suicidal to share any more than the bare minimum. In the US, we have a so-called right to privacy, but that's not really true with employers today. The information asymmetry is both astounding and obscene.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > reservists Meaning discrimination against reservists in the armed forces because of their service requirements? Or discrimination because the employer doesn't like the armed forces?
  - jstewartmobile 9y ago
    Service requirements. Even employers who are vets are terrified of this one. Hire a guy, he gets deployed just a week after he starts, you have to keep his seat warm, then when he's back several months later he's taken a job somewhere else...
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Is there insurance for this sort of thing? Seems like an external risk that needs to be mitigated somehow.
      - jstewartmobile 9y ago
        There are alternative risk markets where you can get insured for just about anything, but it's still a cost that gets disproportionately shouldered by employers of young men.
        wolfgke 9y ago
        Just reduce the salary for reservists by the amount that "his/her" insurance costs.
emodendroket 9y ago
It has little to do with that. There's really very little risk in giving feedback like "we didn't like your code" or "you had the wrong kind of experience for us." The bigger problem is that a lot of candidates take this as an opportunity to dispute the reasons, which is not generally desired.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  I don't think it's even that. It's just that companies don't feel like they have much to gain from taking the time to explain rejections to candidates. Same reason that often times you don't even hear back that a company is not interested. It saves them time.

jcadam 9y ago

Meh, being told over and over again that I'm a good developer but not a cultural fit isn't particularly helpful. It sounds like a polite way to say: "You have the skills but, uh, we hated you." I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
crispyambulance 9y ago
> I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent. That is actually valuable information. Find a mentor or career coach to help you out with mock interviews. You could be signaling something that you're not aware of during interviews.
JimboOmega 9y ago
Being told I'm a good culture fit but don't have enough experience is equally frustrating. Especially when it's a rails dev position and I've been working on rails for 9 of the 12 years it has existed. I eventually figured out that they meant something else - like I hadn't lead a team (bigger than 2) directly before and was interviewing for a lead dev job, or I didn't have much operational experience since the previous startup I worked at was very simple and built on Heroku. In some cases it might be that I didn't have experience with the specific JS frameworks that they were using (e.g. Angular, React, whatever). But the impact is I come and interview, it goes well, smiles all around, and then they say no, we were looking for someone with more experience and I'm thinking... what? What experience? I have to kinda guess. Anyway, yeah, saying no culture fit sucks because you don't know what to do with it; maybe you could do practice interviews with friends and see if they see any glaring annoying tendencies?

alien_at_work 9y ago

I think the issue is the massive, massive power imbalance. Sure, as a worker you would like those things, but an employer has no reason to care. Even if they make a mix-up there are plenty of other candidates for the same position. Maybe they get someone actually worse but they have no way to know that and no reason to care. For the employee it's a rejection from 1 out of 1-10 companies they are talking to, so it's a big and personal deal. For the company it's just 1 out of probably hundreds of candidates for 1 out of possibly hundreds of jobs.

symlinkk 9y ago
sounds like the dating market
- JimboOmega 9y ago
  Thing is that the dating market goes both ways in all cases. There was a term for this that I lost somewhere, but basically it allows all parties to be very picky when there is a feeling of infinite candidates. It's true that there might be more e.g. straight men than straight women in the bay area, but it's not like the number of straight single women is so small that candidates are rare.

hinkley 9y ago

I have had a couple of conversations like that and trying to clear up a misunderstanding hasn’t gotten me the job. And to be honest it felt quite a bit like begging. So it was more energy thrown at a dissapointment instead of concentrating on my next best option.

jstewartmobile 9y ago
Think outside of tech--like getting a bad reference because last manager's phone rings over to one of your old coworkers that didn't like you, or failing a credit check because the rating company sent a report for a guy with the same first, last, and middle, but totally different SSN. Shit happens.