5 ms·

"I really wish companies would be more transparent about their candidate rejection reasons." There is just too much legal risk from doing so. Too much risk of

"I really wish companies would be more transparent about their candidate rejection reasons." There is just too much legal risk from doing so. Too much risk of wording being misinterpreted and being turned around to be discrimination etc. To provide feedback you'd have to have so much oversight and absolutely ridiculous levels of paranoia about the potential interpretations of what you'd said that the risk is just not worth it. The value giving feedback to candidates provides to the company is next-to-nothing as well, especially for the larger companies.

brightball 8y ago
That's definitely true. I've only heard of a couple of cases where people pursued rejection feedback and got it. One of them was very important though. A friend of mine in college graduated from a degree program with a 100% employment rate but for 2+ years could not get a job. Anywhere. He was a really charming, funny and smart guy. Interviews always went really well...but nobody ever hired him. One time, a guy who interviewed him called to tell him that he was sorry but they'd gone in another direction. He basically broke down on the phone and begged the guy to help him understand WHY this kept happening to him after 2 full years. The culprit, it turns out my friend had a DUI on his record. He's never actually had a DUI but he was pulled one night after working at a bar and the officer arrested him for DUI anyway. There was nothing in his system but he had to stay overnight anyway for some reason. The arrest was never removed from his record and he had no idea it was showing up in background checks. Once he got it corrected, he got a job almost immediately and is doing really well now, 15 years later. I honestly wonder what would have happened if nobody ever told him about the problem.
mattkrause 8y ago
Everyone says this, but do you know of any actual situations where a company's feedback led to a lawsuit? Even an unsuccessful or settled one would be interesting. I'm also not totally sure about the minimal value of feedback. I interviewed at IBM several years ago, and actually did get useful feedback from the hiring manager. I was referred by someone way up the food chain and the feedback was fairly non-controversial (unlike my background, the job was much more business than technical), so maybe this was unusual. However, the fact that someone was willing to spend 5 minutes explaining why their decision–and outlining some steps I could take to make myself more competitive—gave me more positive impression of IBM than their 3,000 different Watson commercials put together.
- Traster 8y ago
  To give you a counter example though, I've worked at a big corporation in past, ended up in management hiring in engineers for my team. It was at that point I found out that the engineers that traditionally interview had never been trained on what an interview is for, how it should work, or specifically what not to say or do. I found that out because the interviewers would openly feedback things that were blatantly discriminatory and interviewees would feedback comments like "They sat me in a room for 3 hours, 3 hours of back to back technical interviews and no one so much as offered me a cup of tea". We never had any lawsuits, but from that perspective I totally understand how the company I worked for (employs over 100k employees) saw every employee as a walking liability.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"There is just too much legal risk from doing so" How about having them sign an agreement that the candidate would under no circumstances sue the company for the rejection? I would sign it in a heartbeat if I received some feedback.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tick_tock_tick 8y ago
  Most state explicitly do not allow a person to give up their right to sue based on discrimination. Such a contract would be unenforceable and perhaps even used as evidence in a discrimination case.

brightball 8y ago

That's definitely true. I've only heard of a couple of cases where people pursued rejection feedback and got it. One of them was very important though. A friend of mine in college graduated from a degree program with a 100% employment rate but for 2+ years could not get a job. Anywhere. He was a really charming, funny and smart guy. Interviews always went really well...but nobody ever hired him. One time, a guy who interviewed him called to tell him that he was sorry but they'd gone in another direction. He basically broke down on the phone and begged the guy to help him understand WHY this kept happening to him after 2 full years. The culprit, it turns out my friend had a DUI on his record. He's never actually had a DUI but he was pulled one night after working at a bar and the officer arrested him for DUI anyway. There was nothing in his system but he had to stay overnight anyway for some reason. The arrest was never removed from his record and he had no idea it was showing up in background checks. Once he got it corrected, he got a job almost immediately and is doing really well now, 15 years later. I honestly wonder what would have happened if nobody ever told him about the problem.

mattkrause 8y ago

Everyone says this, but do you know of any actual situations where a company's feedback led to a lawsuit? Even an unsuccessful or settled one would be interesting. I'm also not totally sure about the minimal value of feedback. I interviewed at IBM several years ago, and actually did get useful feedback from the hiring manager. I was referred by someone way up the food chain and the feedback was fairly non-controversial (unlike my background, the job was much more business than technical), so maybe this was unusual. However, the fact that someone was willing to spend 5 minutes explaining why their decision–and outlining some steps I could take to make myself more competitive—gave me more positive impression of IBM than their 3,000 different Watson commercials put together.

Traster 8y ago
To give you a counter example though, I've worked at a big corporation in past, ended up in management hiring in engineers for my team. It was at that point I found out that the engineers that traditionally interview had never been trained on what an interview is for, how it should work, or specifically what not to say or do. I found that out because the interviewers would openly feedback things that were blatantly discriminatory and interviewees would feedback comments like "They sat me in a room for 3 hours, 3 hours of back to back technical interviews and no one so much as offered me a cup of tea". We never had any lawsuits, but from that perspective I totally understand how the company I worked for (employs over 100k employees) saw every employee as a walking liability.

maxxxxx 8y ago

"There is just too much legal risk from doing so" How about having them sign an agreement that the candidate would under no circumstances sue the company for the rejection? I would sign it in a heartbeat if I received some feedback.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tick_tock_tick 8y ago
Most state explicitly do not allow a person to give up their right to sue based on discrimination. Such a contract would be unenforceable and perhaps even used as evidence in a discrimination case.