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Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

• shortandsweet 7y ago
  I had an interview with Facebook and was eventually turned down. I asked for feedback at least twice, and even from a person on the inside that I know personally if they could get any from the recruiter. Nothing. Then a few days later they sent me an email asking for my feedback! I n/a'd everything and made sure to list all of my interviewers names.
  • dominotw 7y ago
    > I n/a'd everything and made sure to list all of my interviewers names. prbly inconsequential . fact is that you cannot do anything but move on after a rejection.
    • shortandsweet 7y ago
      Not entirely true. I can attempt to shape the world how I want and then give up after being satisfied with my efforts. I left it at what I already posted and moved on. I believe feedback is important but if people aren't listening then that's OK too.
  • HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Why would any candidate give feedback on the interview experience? If they want feedback they can pay and I'll consult for them. Else they can get stuffed and go where the sun never shines.
    • lazyant 7y ago
      They give you a $50 or so gift card for filling out a form, so at least there's that.
• muststopmyths 7y ago
  Years ago I interviewed at a startup in SF. It went well except for one ex-FAANG asshole who spent the entire whiteboard interview thumbing his phone while I went down the wrong rabbit hole on the problem he gave me. No attempt to guide me back, critique my approach or anything of the sort. I didn't get the job, as expected. But the memorable thing about the process was that the recruiter made a point of calling me to tell me I was getting rejected. The reasons given were fairly generic as far as I recall, but I appreciated him having the class to actually speak with me. If I ran a tech company, I'd make that guy head of recruiting.
  • davidw 7y ago
    I can understand not giving feedback, but being kind and polite and timely with a response is absolutely something everyone should do.
  • BurningFrog 7y ago
    The one time I got some feedback on why I was rejected it was also over the phone. I assumed the California ban on recording phone conversations without consent made the conversation legally non existent.
    • thaumasiotes 7y ago
      When I followed up an email rejection from Google asking if they had feedback, I got email back saying "yes", and setting up a phone appointment specifically to provide it. So... I'd say they have something like that in mind.
• b0rsuk 7y ago
  > Too Much Data > It becomes virtually impossible for the company to get back to everyone who submits their résumé. This one seems like "blaming it on the victim" to me. You get too many candidates, you're unable to give each of us an in-depth review, you may as well say a single sentence like "You resume was quickly filtered out based on this one requirement." It's like they're ashamed to admit they pre-filter people based on hasty criteria to deal with the deluge of candidates. > Stalling For Time > There is a belief by corporate executives that there is an abundance of qualified candidates. They erroneously believe that if the HR department waits longer, they will eventually find the perfect person suited for the role for a cheaper price. This explains why we don't initially get feedback, but not why we often don't get it at all.
  • thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > You get too many candidates, you're unable to give each of us an in-depth review, you may as well say a single sentence like "You resume was quickly filtered out based on this one requirement." So, the obvious application of feedback would be that you try to rectify the problem and then reapply. I suspect companies don't want you to reapply, regardless of whether you've improved. They already said no. But in that case, what's the feedback for? Your idea here hits a similar problem: if the company starts giving out the information "we threw away your resume because you have it in Times New Roman, and we prefer to hire Courier people", they just gave away their valuable resume-filtering trade secret. Once they've done that, all of the resumes they get will use Courier, and they'll have to come up with a new filtering system. So they just imposed a cost on themselves without benefiting anyone, themselves, you, or third parties.
    • boring_twenties 7y ago
      > I suspect companies don't want you to reapply, regardless of whether you've improved. They already said no. One small anecdotal counterpoint: I interviewed at Google many years back and didn't get an offer. They were nice enough to call and let me know, which I very much appreciated. Since then I've been getting hit up by their recruiters on a regular schedule, every 6-12 months. At some point I was short on patience and straight up said "you guys know I already interviewed with you back in 20XX, right?" Their response was "Well yeah, but so what? That was a while ago."
• ggambetta 7y ago
  They are especially scared to give negative feedback to candidates out of fear that it might be misinterpreted as discrimination. And this is why we can't have nice things.
  • freshbagels 7y ago
    That bit made no sense to me. I think the opposite is true; when given no concrete feedback, one begins to hypothesize why they were rejected, and their mind will often point them to discrimination as the reason. If one is given clear, concrete feedback ("We rejected you because you didn't come up with a simpler algorithm, and you lack experience with framework x"), there is little room for them to think they were discriminated against in any way but their skills/experience.
    • Proziam 7y ago
      The issue is documentation, and the legal risks it can carry. If you get ghosted and believe it's discrimination, that is a very different beast than if you can twist the words of the feedback you've received to imply it may have been discrimination.
    • watwut 7y ago
      From the point of view of a company that employ many people who do hiring, someone is guaranteed to write something stupid. When people write code, they do bugs. When they write feedback, they do stupid. Or even more likely, someone will inadvertly show his bias that could have stayed under cover. People are not that great in hiding their biases over many interactions.
      • learnstats2 7y ago
        We're dancing around a reason that the article misses: a lot of hiring decisions are discriminatory. If they were confident about having processes with no discrimination, it would likely be advantageous to the company to show their cards and give the feedback.
• shadow-banned 7y ago
  Experienced this at a local tech company that will remain nameless. They're in the logistics space. They enable fast shipping for merchants. Did 10+ hours of a challenge project - something I would have charged $5,000+ for, including a channel-specific attribution model (with defense of my choice), a complete onboarding campaign flow with timing, and sample email creative, lead scoring model, and a bunch of pedantic questions about my background and history. 15+ pages, presentations, etc. Did three virtual conference calls. Met the head of engineering and CEO. Went over; great, energetic conversations. Received a call from the recruiter, poor thing, and she could barely get the words out to me. Them: "I'm so sorry... uh, but... but it was a no." Me: "I completely understand! Not everything is a fit. Do you have any actionable feedback for me?" Them: "Uh, they... I mean, we... just... are looking for, more? I think." Me: "Um, okay. Thanks for the opportunity." They still have not filled their head of marketing role. Two months later. (I suspect their young founder didn't like me - not a problem, but not something you can tell a candidate.) This article resonates.
  • shadow-banned 7y ago
    Aside: marketers, engineers, whomever. Don't do free projects for companies. It's never worth it. I monitor their site to make sure they never use the work I presented. Waiting to pull the trigger on a lawsuit!
    • timw4mail 7y ago
      I did a programming test for where I currently work. The biggest difference is that it would not have worked for many realistic use cases, and the code was fairly trivial. If you have to implement an entire application or system, that should be an automatic red flag.
      • shadow-banned 7y ago
        That's the differentiator; I have no problem with that.
    • SkyPuncher 7y ago
• jnwatson 7y ago
  I'm a software developer turned temporary recruiter for a startup (just hired last position yay!). The number one reason why I don't give feedback anymore is the candidate's response. It is almost universally negative. Candidates want to get into an argument about their skills or performance. Now, everyone gets a form letter, and I don't deviate from that.
  • djhalon 7y ago
    Thank you for sending out a form letter. A form letter, email, whatever would be better than what I experienced in my last job hunt. It was silence after silence. Was the rec closed/filled? Am I even in the running or was I rejected early on and now I am just waiting for no reason? A lot of the companies used automated submission systems, which confirmed they received the resume, but they never sent out a notification that the position was filled/closed/rejected. Just a one line email would have been better than nothing. I feel even that common (and super automatable) courtesy has been lost.
    • wgerard 7y ago
      Just explaining not defending: That's partially due to the volume seen with online applications. Even 2-5 person companies will sometimes receive ~20-30 resumes a day for an open job, and 90% of them will be obviously inappropriate for the job even just from glancing at their resume. It's a positive feedback loop: People have learned to "shotgun" their resume everywhere, and as a result even small companies have learned to process resumes as "efficiently" as possible (which often includes not sending responses to rejected candidates at that stage). This leads to more shotgunning, etc. etc.
      • BoiledCabbage 7y ago
        While a wonderful comment, it doesn't not address OPs concerns. If they are processing things as efficiently as possible by automating, when they decide a candidate isn't a fit and click a button to not consider them for the position, why not have it automatically send out a one line email so they are aware? Or at bare minimum, automatically mail them when the position is set to closed? None of that can be claimed due to efficiency.
• wgerard 7y ago
  We interviewed a lot of hiring managers/etc. while we were working on a previous business in the hiring space. As part of that, we asked them this very question. The fear of litigation was by far the biggest reason we heard, but there were some other popular reasons (mostly relating around conflict avoidance): * Notably, giving feedback feels like an opening for the candidate to submit a rebuttal instead of ending the conversation (e.g. "You didn't do well on X" "Well here's a list of reasons why I didn't do well, and here's me demonstrating I actually understand X"). * It was just a personality conflict that few people would admit to in writing (e.g. "You're kind of an asshole, I don't want to work with you" isn't something you tell a candidate). * There just isn't much actionable feedback to give. "Nobody felt excited to potentially work with you" isn't really actionable feedback, and sharing that just feels kinda mean for no reason. * Someone better came along to fill the role and nobody wants to tell a candidate "We found someone better than you".
  • kilroy123 7y ago
    While that's all very understandable, at the very least give some kind of generic rejection. This was many years ago, but one time I did an all-day onsite interview (~6 hours long) and I was ghosted and never heard from the company again. That infuriates me even to this day. At least give me some kind of news that it was a no.
    • wgerard 7y ago
      Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual. Sometimes they'll dangle candidates if they're waiting to hear whether their first choice accepts, but even then it's rare not to communicate at all once you've done an on-site.
      • kstenerud 7y ago
        It happens a lot. Even Google ghosted me after an all-day onsite interview in Mountain View in 2015.
• timw4mail 7y ago
  This really explains why the last time I did job hunting it was such a stab in the dark for 6 months. Job hunting in general is terrible.
  • thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I applied to HackerOne to do the exact same job I'd already been doing for a year. They rejected me with the feedback "we asked you why you wanted to work for us, and you didn't seem enthusiastic about the company". (My answer to "why did you apply?" was "it's a good match to the work I was already doing".)
    • perl4ever 7y ago
      If you look for people who are really enthusiastic about your company, it's double edged - you'll lose them when they become disillusioned. And faith in a for-profit company is so fragile - any scandal or perceived shortcoming can lead to everybody good abandoning ship.
    • gunshai 7y ago
      I spend a fare amount of time on this question and it does get annoying it's usually some version of the following. Hiring Manager : "Why this company." Me: "Carefully choreographed pile of horse shit that is rehearsed to sound genuine / personal, but doesn't over share or reveal accidental character flaws." My brain: I get it company you do "things" and along the way someone pays you money for them or it or w.e. Why should anyone be over the moon about this. I'm here because I think I can do what ever vague role description you posted. Stop asking this question, it doesn't reveal anything because we are all lying.
• deedubaya 7y ago
  I think most job seekers would simply appreciate a "no thank you" response and not get ghosted. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more common to just go silent on candidates. What a cowardly thing to do.
  • antisthenes 7y ago
    It's a good indicator. You really don't want to work for and with cowards. The communication at work will make you feel like you're pulling teeth every time you need to get access to a resource or to get feedback on your work. If they can't even do an interview right, imagine how toxic it must be working for them.
  • dimgl 7y ago
    Yeah I've had two companies just blatantly ghost me rather than reject me outright. I already had a bad feeling talking to them, I'm glad they proved me right and didn't waste my time.
• sokoloff 7y ago
  Sometimes there isn't much in the way of actionable feedback. The most recent position I was on the interview loop for, after a long filtering process (pre-me), we interviewed 5 candidates and chose one. In the final debrief, there were 3 very much viable candidates and significant discussion to winnow down to the one we ultimately hired. A few butterfly wing flaps could have led to a different candidate being offered the role. What can we tell #2 and #3 that is helpful? ("You are a very strong candidate and the cosmic die roll came up a 1-2, where your number was 3-4 or 5-6.") What can we tell #4 and #5 that is helpful? ("Sorry, three other candidates seemed more intelligent, had a stronger demonstrated tech background, and though you made the cut to on-site, you were the one of the two weakest links.") I'm not sure what the candidates would do to "fix" anything about that; the high order bit (that they didn't get an offer) is the information that I'd need as a candidate. Sure, I want more, but there might not be anything more there. In other cases in the past, I have given feedback to candidates about why we didn't select them or what I saw as gaps that they could close, but if I don't think there's any reasonable action the candidate could do to change the outcome in a similar interview situation 2 years from now, I'm probably not going to give them any detailed feedback.
  • D-Coder 7y ago
    Almost any feedback is useful. "The other candidates were a better match" — okay, perhaps I'm applying to the wrong jobs. "You failed roll of the dice" — so I did everything right and should keep doing that.
    • codeisawesome 7y ago
      > "You failed roll of the dice" — so I did everything right and should keep doing that. I think a lot of job offer/no-offer situations come down to this, because most of us are well meaning, hard working people. The default response to rejection should basically be this (alongside some non-punitive self-reflection to micro-optimise some parameter or the other).
  • the_jeremy 7y ago
    Telling someone the lack of a specific detriment and that it was a close decision is useful information - they know to spend their efforts on applying to other places rather than filling some imagined gap in their knowledge, which they might otherwise fixate on.
• m3kw9 7y ago
  The need for a feed back is mostly psychological need. You go in, you think you did well, but you didn’t get the job. The company of course found someone better than you, some one did even better. Most likely the feed back won’t help you on your next interview, and second you just need to read most of the writing which is already on the wall. If you failed a white board, you’d know it. If you aced the white board someone can ace it better.
  • lnanek2 7y ago
    I've been in hiring loops where the candidate aced all the technical stuff, but wasn't hired because he wasn't enthusiastic about the new company, just sounded like he wanted to leave his old company. With a no feedback system, he may go study harder on the technicals for no reason. So I think feedback would have definitely helped his next interview.
    • clarry 7y ago
      "Learn to feign enthusiasm better next time." It sounds useful and depressing at the same time.
      • ohyeshedid 7y ago
        We just call that adulthood. :(
      • AllegedAlec 7y ago
        https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3454 https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3454
        • clarry 7y ago
          Yep. My (brief) time in the metal industry was quite different. Nobody talked about passion and enthusiasm. Companies look for somebody to perform a job, and people with the relevant skills offer their hand. A simple, professional exchange, no cults, no kool-aid. No "you need to be keen about learning new tech like a kid that just got out of high school, oh and you gotta be super competent with all this stuff we use because we don't have time for people to be learning things on the job, oh and you gotta be social and charming and customer focused, oh and you gotta be very enthusiastic about our company and product (actually we don't know which product or team we'll assign you to yet, but you still gotta be super enthusiastic about it), oh and you'll probably end up maintaining some terrible legacy stack that nobody else wants to touch. So, why are you applying to this job? Justify your presence! It's not like we posted about an open position, and it's not like we're constantly complaining about shortage of talent while turning people down left and right .. oh wait"
• SubuSS 7y ago
  FWIW I do try to tell folks what went wrong and what were the perceived gaps through the recruiters. I in fact ask my recruiters to give them known ways to prepare for our loop. You'd be surprised how many don't even after all this. I am assuming this is because many are just trying to see what's out there, don't have time to prepare etc. But the flip side is we do want candidates who are obviously good AND are excited about the opportunity. All the other concerns here around conflict avoidance / litigation risks are all valid too - That's why I put my feedback through the HR filter. Having said all that, The other angle that always nags me is the fact that our (in all the three companies I've been part of) interview process isn't a perfect measure. In theory, you may be able to crack it if you prepare for it and are well versed in full-stack engineering. In practice, this is just 5 hours of 5 different people trying to look for good signs and feelings and converge after. There just isn't enough information, so most of the time we work towards avoiding a false positive (which have been disastrous in the past). We have tried other mechanics around building a test project etc., but nothing stuck. Those just added a not more non-determinism compared to this model where we know what to expect. I've done more than a 1000 of these, so there are patterns I can fallback on. If I were to start a company, I know how I'd want to hire: It will be just like finding co-founders. But that doesn't scale and probably becomes illegal when it goes beyond the founding members. I do like the doctor group models where everyone joining graduates to a full partner eventually and take a share of yearly profits until they work there: But our current world of software development that's highly leveraged on future performance (stocks), doesn't seem amenable to the same :(. But yes - It would be awesome to see if somehow we can replicate that model.
  • invalidOrTaken 7y ago
    >If I were to start a company, I know how I'd want to hire: It will be just like finding co-founders. But that doesn't scale. This rings true to me (both parts), and it makes me wonder if it's a viable path to attack it from the other side, where you restrain yourself to markets/projects of a size that it doesn't have to scale.
• downerending 7y ago
  I understand the rationale, but it's not without cost. If I've taken the time to do an in-person (or even a lengthy set of calls), then there really has to be something in it for me after they decline, or I won't apply with them again. Also, if everything else seems like a match, my potential new mates and I hit it off, and they clearly need to fill the position, the vacuum left by a lack of explanation with the decline often leaves me wondering whether it didn't involve irrelevant (and often illegal) demographic bias. No way to really know, of course, but like everyone else, I play the probabilities.
• hailwren 7y ago
  > Many job seekers take the not-recommended approach of submitting their résumés for dozens of jobs I wish I only had to apply for dozens of jobs.
  • rconti 7y ago
    What's your field and geo area? I don't think I've ever applied for more than 6 jobs in a round of looking. And more often than not I haven't even had to look. ~20 years, bay area.
    • hailwren 7y ago
      It's sort of complicated. I did a boot camp, 100 applications 3 interviews 0 offers, went back to school (Harvard, the real one not the extension school) and am currently doing the summer internship grind (30 applications 3 interviews 0 offers). But I'm CS.
      • rconti 7y ago
        Ugh. I hear that first step can be rough. I took a non-traditional path so it wasn't an issue for me. I didn't realize internships were so hard to get, though.
        • gizmo385 7y ago
          Internships are tricky for a few reasons, I think. For one, a lot of college students tend to have very generic/entry level engineering skill sets (not really any fault of their own) so it becomes quite difficult to differentiate oneself from the hundreds or thousands of other people who are applying for that one internship slot. I think a lot of folks tend to only focus on the large, well known companies when applying to internships, which I think exacerbates the first problem. I've told some friends who are still in college to try and apply for places beyond the major Silicon Valley companies and that pretty much any company that they can think of 1) Leverages software engineering heavily 2) Has an internship program. I think it'd be interesting to see a "wage-distribution" style chart of who gets internships in Fortune 500 companies. When I say that, I don't mean actual wage, but moreso "what percentage of engineering students are getting what percentage of internships" and similar questions.
• mdturnerphys 7y ago
  A couple years ago I took a full day off work to interview with a midsized startup that had been after me for months. Halfway through the interviews it started to become clear that they'd expect me to work 60-hour weeks, with regular weekend travel, for less pay than I was making at my 9-5. In the final interview with one of the founders I told him I wasn't willing to do that, so I wasn't surprised when the head of HR emailed me a couple days later to say they wouldn't be making an offer. I responded that I understood this was likely due to my need for better work-life balance and asked if they could provide any feedback. She responded that they could not, as it was against the company's policy. This excuse would have made sense coming from a recruiter, but she was the head of HR--she set the policy. This and the work-life balance thing were enough for me to tell others to stay away from that place.
  • dominotw 7y ago
    > he was the head of HR--she set they policy. Head of HR don't set these policies unilaterally.
  • rconti 7y ago
    So you expect the person setting the policy to feel free to break it at will? That would be a terrible example, even if the head of HR set it unilaterally, which, as someone else mentioned, is unlikely. Furthermore, if it WAS unilateral, wouldn't that mean that the head of HR who set the policy was the biggest believer in said policy?
    • mdturnerphys 7y ago
      You're right, that does sound like unjustified whining on my part. I looked up the email to check why it might have rubbed me the wrong way. The reason actually given for not sharing feedback was privacy--mine and theirs. Protecting my privacy didn't make any sense--I'm the one asking for it. If privacy of the five interviewers was a concern they could have just anonymized a bullet or two. If they're worried about liability they should just say that.
    • ben509 7y ago
      When the question is asked "why are you doing this" and the answer is, "because it's our policy," what that means is, "we are doing this thing because it's the thing we do." I think people who give that answer honestly believe it's a valid answer possibly because they're thinking of the rationale behind the policy rather than the literal meaning of what they're saying. But when I've heard it, it's felt like an insult to my intelligence, like it's some stupid word game to dodge my question.
• tibiahurried 7y ago
  Candidates that get rejected after spending an entire day on-onsite going through several interview rounds should have the right to get some sort of feedback. I mean, it is ok to get rejected, it is not ok when companies, basically harassing you for wanting to interview you then all of a sudden just disappear.
• jcims 7y ago
  Working for a large company at this time. We actually rarely even get contact information for the people we are interviewing, probably intentionally because the feedback cycle for applicants that don't make it seems to be locked down (probably due to potential liabilities). I've asked the team to send follow-up on an occasion or two but it's not clear that it's actually happening. Knowing this, I'll frequently pivot to feedback mode during the interview itself if they clearly aren't going to make the cut. Not sure if that's allowed or exposing us to liabilities, but it does feel better (unless the person is an asshole or seems like they are very likely to use the feedback as leverage against the decision).
• BuddyKallipygos 7y ago
  I just went through this process looking for a job in a VP of Engineering role after spending the last 15 years running my own startups and doing my own hiring. And man it really made me rethink how I will do hiring going forward. Feedback as a candidate would be great, but based on my own experience hiring it’s difficult to have that conversation go well. Maybe 1 in 10 people would say “hey thanks, I appreciate the feedback” and the rest wanted to debate their worthiness. So there is no ROI for this effort. But having just been looking for a job I can confirm that almost all of the companies I talked to sucked at communication. They were just awful.
  • ben509 7y ago
    Here's a thought: maybe do most of the feedback during the interview process. Train interviewers to explain their reasoning for the questions they're asking and what they're trying to evaluate. And then, at the close, identify all the positive things the candidate demonstrated and what bullet points they're going to bring to the debrief. I've been doing the former quite routinely, and in the last interview I did, the candidate just asked me why I asked those questions so I went ahead and explained it. I think it helps make an interview less nerve wracking, and it helps me to think aloud about the case I'm going to present in the debrief. And, frankly, some interviewers are asking stupid questions and it may help if they have to explain themselves.
• zcw100 7y ago
  I always think of Akerloff's "Market for Lemons" when I hear about hiring in IT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons (Not that any particular company or person is a lemon but the market collapse from information asymmetries)
• gwbas1c 7y ago
  As a candidate, I've always preferred polite "thanks, but no thanks" responses in a timely manner. The other kind of feedback that I like is things like, "we need people with a different background / experience than you have." IMO, judgement feedback (you screwed up how you handle your yak shaving, or I don't think we'll get along with each other) is too subjective to be constructive. And, I get it. As someone who's interviewed a lot of candidates, my biggest fear is hiring someone who is either incompetent or difficult to get along with. Evaluating a candidate is so subjective that feedback beyond "your experience doesn't match our needs" is just flame bait, or worse. To paraphrase Joel Spolsky: It's safer to pass on a good candidate than hire a bad employee.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • CapmCrackaWaka 7y ago
    I feel that most of the time candidates just want to hear something that puts the situation out of their control, and therefore wasn't merit based. It's always easier to hear "I'm breaking up with you because I'm moving for a new job and want to concentrate on my career" than "I'm breaking up with you because you're awkward around my friends and aren't interesting".
    • michaelborromeo 7y ago
      You really want to go through life thinking you’re competent at something? Honest feedback hurts but it’s how you grow. And if people cared at all about interviewees they’d give some semblance of honest feedback rather than “no thanks.”
      • adamredwoods 7y ago
        I had to dig to get any type of feedback on my interviews, and even then it wasn't clear on what I needed to do to improve.
        • 7y ago
• m0zg 7y ago
  That's actually not universally true. SpaceX would happily share feedback with you (or at least it did in the past). FB will share it if you request it. This strikes me as a more "honest" and transparent position on the issue, and it also forces the company to stay well clear of race/gender/age/sexual orientation/ethnicity/etc as _latent_ disqualifiers (it's never overt, mind you), because factual justification is required in the feedback.
• inertiatic 7y ago
  I'm absolutely fine with getting no feedback now. I just want to know that I'm out of the running, through an email, and I'm entirely happy. I used to ask for feedback, but it turns out it's absolutely pointless to do so, since bad interviewers give bad feedback, which ends up only, even subconsciously, costing you. Absolutely 100% of the feedback I've got back has been of this kind. It's very hard to actually think of any actionable feedback someone who's not clueless about how hiring works could get anyway. Sure, if you were to tell me "study basic algorithms" or "take a bath" it would be helpful but provided I know I need to tick those boxes, then what?
• allthecybers 7y ago
  As a Support Engineer for a well known tech company, I took on the extracurricular role of sourcing, screening and interviewing candidates for our team. We often had better results identifying candidates as an engineer making a direct contact. You do walk a fine line and create a lot of overhead to give feedback to all candidates. Generic feedback like "you weren't the right candidate" or "we were looking for someone who is a better fit" isn't any more helpful than a simple "no". More detailed feedback can be tainted with personal bias and potentially skewed personal perspective based on how well you got along with an interviewer. If I was in charge of HR/recruiting/etc I would advocate for not giving feedback, but build more robust communication mechanisms that give candidates a notification or view into the process. For example: 1. I submitted my resume and can see that a recruiter has reviewed it and moved me on to phone screen or its pending recruiter review. > I wasn't selected, but I am a good candidate for other jobs so my resume has been recycled. Honestly, I don't want feedback from some of the places I've interviewed but I sure hate being ghosted and feeling like I sent me resume into the abyss for no reason.
  • HarryHirsch 7y ago
    More detailed feedback can be tainted with personal bias and potentially skewed personal perspective based on how well you got along with an interviewer Absolutely. Two weeks ago, interview at a certain top-10 liberal arts college. Meetings with 4 or 5 faculty members, the usual. Chitchat throughout, nothing substantial is being said, certainly nothing pertaining to the role. There is a tour of the facilities, the research labs are empty, even though the semester is still ongoing. You marvel at the unstructuredness of it all and ask: is this Potemkin's Village? The general impression is that the institution is living on past glories. The rejection arrives in less than a week, and just for grunts, you ask if there is any feedback to be had. There is feedback: the interviewers could not assess your competence. Guys, it was your job to convey expectations and bring the conversation back on track, if necessary. You just managed to turn a disappointed candidate into a completely enraged one. What a waste of time. People talk to each other, if anyone asks about the institution I would strongly recommend not to have anything to do with it, not as student, not as faculty, not as staff.
  • rootlocus 7y ago
• bryanmgreen 7y ago
  Applying for jobs is probably the WORST thing nearly everyone will do in their professional lives. With the exception of the resume 1%ers that have some incredible experience/knowledge/executive-connection, applying for jobs is the most soulsucking lottery that can make you feel completely worthless. I think, at the very least, anyone that gets past an initial screening deserves some feedback.
• deleted 7y ago
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• jariel 7y ago
  Feedback can be controversial + legal problems, I don't mind absence of it. But - for god's sake - give a 'yes or no' in reasonable terms. So many 'good companies' have ridiculous hiring processes without any information to the candidates.
• choppaface 7y ago
  For software engineering, the reason HR fears for arguments is because the whole process is so utterly lacking in rigor compared to the work that engineers do. Coding questions provide some amount of objectivity, but the selection of those questions is largely baseless. Moreover, engineers are accustomed to sharing key ideas and results, but in hiring even salary data is used in information arbitrage (especially before levels.fyi). Even worse, we have things like Rooftop Slushie where FAANG engineers will give candidates feedback but for a price. As if FAANG engineers weren’t paid enough. One gap that individuals can bridge is for IC interviewers to ask for feedback on their own interviewing. ICs typically don’t see how well hires do through year one, and almost never see where non-hires go. Hiring managers often stay on top of this data (or at least have access to it) in order to self-calibrate. If that data has any chance of helping inform candidates, it needs to trickle down to the IC interviewers first.
• ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Interesting, they missed a couple from my experience. The big one is starting a debate. Because I'm a helpful person when someone asked for feedback why they weren't getting the job I would offer them my thoughts. Way too often this turned into a discussion by them to me about how I was wrong about them and my thoughts didn't apply. Sometimes it might be due to a phenomenal lack of self awareness and sometimes it might be a negotiation tactic, but it always was awkward and uncomfortable. At Google, the 'sourcers' really didn't want to put 'not a fit' into the application tracking system (ATS) because if they did so they would not be able to call that person back if another position opened up. Inevitably applicants would say they had other people who were talking to them and would probably provide offers (I think some people think that is a useful tactic for pushing things along) and the sourcers would just cross their fingers and hoped they would take that other job, or another candidate that was a better fit would get accepted. Either way they preserve a 'possible' in their list of candidates for the future. In my discussion with Google's recruiting folks at the time I argued that the ATS system was hurting Google because while someone might be a poor fit in one role, there may be another role where they were a superstar. I've seen it in my career many times where a change of roles completely changed the evaluation of the person doing the job. I never got very far in that discussion but did learn of the 'trick' of just not talking to them as a way of leaving them in a viable 'possible candidate' state for the next role that might come up. One alternative is to be really clear in what you want out of someone in a role and if they don't meet the standard move them out. But that is very risky for "protected" people such as older engineers, or other races or religions. You can combat that risk by managing to a very diverse workforce but it feels to me that way too many people hire people like themselves. At the end of the day these can be opportunities for startups to get some great talent.
• optimiz3 7y ago
  Another reason not covered - some people don't act like adults and cannot handle critical feedback. No matter what they are always the victim. These types of people take rejection as an affront to all they hold dear and make it their mission to slam your company on any platform that will give them a voice. You don't know who these people are ahead of time. Due to the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_... you will spend way more time defending claims from people like this.
• paul7986 7y ago
  In October I had one of my best phone interviews. I never heard back yet other recruiters keep contacting me about the job. Today a recruiter got back to me saying oh yes they interviewed you and they said you have too much graphic design experience and not enough UX. Huh I've been a UX Designer and UI Developer for ten years. Not helpful and their reason has to be personal, so they just say nothing or as today were forced to make stuff up.
  • tmm84 7y ago
    Sometimes companies just don't understand a role that well. Maybe the last UI/UX person they had was initially a UX person that turned UI and so they think you need more of one than the other. I can't count the number of times I seen job descriptions that look like a copy and pasted resume of the previous employee they had.
    • paul7986 7y ago
      Well it was weird cause it came directly to the recruiter via the UX Manager. But oh well I fortunately have a job and sometimes just go and see what's out there.
  • woutr_be 7y ago
    I've been rejected from engineering roles for those reasons as well. From my experience, it's just people looking at your resume, rather than actually trying to understand the candidate. In my case it was because I studied design in college (it was actually design + development), and my first roles were mostly front-end. Even though I passed their backend test, they still just treated me based on my resume, and assume I could only do front-end engineering.
• jeffdavis 7y ago
  Another concern is that there might be several weaknesses in a candidate, where one weakness masks another. If you say something like "You have weakness X", and they go take a class and work on X, then they might expect that they are now hirable. You can imagine the friction that might happen when a candidate keeps going back only to hear about yet a new reason to be rejected. Or, on the other side of the coin, you can imagine people who are good at checking boxes and working a system, but not a good fit for the position. They will knock down the reasons for rejection one after the next and eventually get hired, but they may still be a bad fit for the role. You can't test for everything perfectly during your interview process.
• Thorentis 7y ago
  > They are especially scared to give negative feedback to candidates out of fear that it might be misinterpreted as discrimination. >There is also the concern over a social media backlash because of something an employee said to a candidate. This right here, is 90% of it. Sure, the other stuff like too few resources, or too many applicants is partly true, but the crux of it is that people are far too sensitive right now. And if you say "we didn't think you were a good fit for our company culture" to somebody that is even the slightest bit insecure about some part of themselves, you can guarantee you'll be hearing about it.
  • eropple 7y ago
    It's that people are too sensitive, is it? Or is it that "culture fit" excuses...uh...suck? The hand-wringing sorts who are simultaneously so protective of a company's "culture" but are so unable to substantiate how someone might not fit in in a way that isn't telling on themselves should be worried, but not because somebody might get mad at them on Twitter. It's because they're at best losing out on good candidates and at worst perpetuating dark and shitty behaviors onto people who don't deserve it.
    • Thorentis 7y ago
      Yes, that feedback isn't very useful. It was just an example. But people would be offended at almost anything these days. Not educated enough. Not skilled enough. Not personable enough. Whatever. People can't look at themselves honestly and take on board criticism, and it is making us worse people.
      • eropple 7y ago
        This is, to put it--well, honestly--is nonsense. It is the okeydoke of a regressive casting of a history that never existed in comparison to a present that differs only in the breadth of unwilling to take quite as much shit as prior generations because they know that maybe they don't, on all axes, have to do so. (Just on so many others.) The galaxy-brained fear that makes people act as you are acting right now is a worse thing for all of us than some mythical inability to take criticism.
• deleted 7y ago
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• exabrial 7y ago
  I would love to be able tell applicants why we didn't choose them to help them along in their job search or clear up any misconceptions. There problem is it is a risk to a business with 0 chance of making it more profitable. Chalk this up as overregulation at it's finest having predictable secondary affects.
  • Iv 7y ago
    But you are not your business. There are more things to life than making profits, like helping fellow humans. If the risk is very low and the cost basically null, doing nice things is a positive externality.
    • icelancer 7y ago
      But the risk is not very low when you adjust for magnitude of secondary effects.
      • Iv 7y ago
        What risks are we talking about? Frivolous lawsuits by random loons? I am not certain that this risk goes down by being unfriendly to interviewees.
• lallysingh 7y ago
  In the past, I've gotten good feedback when working with 3rd party recruiters. They have long term relationships with the companies, and an interest in getting your hired somewhere. So they get feedback that's useful for the next company the recruiter has for you. As they middlemen, they provide some insulation between the two parties.
• stretchwithme 7y ago
  Giving people feedback is not always a good idea. Sometimes the information just helps them to hide something from the next person they encounter. This is true in many domains, I think. You should not explain to the conman how you saw through his lies. That will help him fix that and con more people. You shouldn't tell people in your dating profile what turns you off. They'll just avoid revealing they have a third arm if that's one of your turn offs. I think interviewers have incentive to help people they like but no incentive to help someone they don't think they want to see in the candidate pool down the road. Maybe they will point you to things you can learn if it will make you a better candidate but not if will just help you tune your pitch.
• zwetan 7y ago
  it is a two way street I can imagine some candidates reusing half of those arguments ("Too Much Data", "Stalling For Time", etc.) to ghost recruiters and not answering to offers someone should definitively write a counterpart "The Real Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Giving You Feedback"
• draw_down 7y ago
  I don’t think the feedback is necessarily worth all that much. Think about how many discussions we have here about interviewing methods that aren’t designed to measure what matters, employers that focus way too much on the wrong things, etc.
• zebnyc 7y ago
  As an interviewee, I would love companies to provide some transparency and feedback. The feedback doesn't have to be super detailed, just areas for improvement. This was something which I really appreciated about Facebook. I interviewed onsite a year back and later the recruiter told me "You did well in all the coding interviews but we felt that you did not display the level of competency required in System design for a senior role". That was actionable feedback IMHO and I would not hesitate to interview again. The flip side is I hate interviewing for companies which ghost / refuse to provide feedback, especially when they give you a take home test / assignment where you don't even know a) Whether a human / engineer saw your submission b) What is the criteria being used for evaulation (especially for working solutions). The worst offender has to be Slack (though Twilio/Amazon is right up there) where they make you create a slack bot which does something trivial (play tic-tac-toe). Wasted a bunch of time to read the documentation and get a basic bot working before I got to actually work on the problem (tic tac toe). My submission was rejected and I was given no feedback / reason why
  • thinnerlizzy 7y ago
    I had a rejection from Facebook a few months ago and I got no feedback like that. The feedback I got was that I did extremely well throughout the interview process and demonstrated that I was qualified for that type of position. It was just a no for some reason. Unfortunately it’s a rare position and they haven’t called me back with other opportunities.
• woutr_be 7y ago
  How do people here feel about feedback for technical tests that take at least a couple of hours? Personally I don't care if I'm not given feedback after a phone interview, or even an on-site interview. But when it comes to technical tests, I would really appreciate feedback, since it could actually help me improve my coding skills, or at least know where I need to improve. If I'm not given feedback on these, it's just another red flag to me, the company doesn't value my time, and seems to treat the interview process as a one way street. I recently was asked to do a coding test, the HR person told me to do it over the weekend, as most candidates needed all the time they can get. I told HR I was only willing to spend around 4 hours on it, they could judge me on whatever I could do in that time. And even working for free for 4 hours was as stretch, after all, I'm not getting paid, there are other things I could've been doing. And to this day they haven't even acknowledged my test, I did get through to the next round, but no mention of my test whatsoever.
• bitwize 7y ago
  What'd I keep telling you, Hackernews? This is the new norm, get used to it.
• jimbob45 7y ago
  Five hours for a tech test and interview at EA. I know I crushed the tech test. Interview, not as much. Got a generic rejection letter. Don't be surprised when we stop jumping through hoops if you're not going to give any feedback. If you think you can run your company solely off hoop-jumpers, more power to you.
• gunshai 7y ago
  Does anyone here record their phone sessions? Some states this is completely legal to not inform the other party they are being recorded.
• strathmeyer 7y ago
  I assume companies don't explain why they aren't hiring you because it would cause too much self-realization at the organizational level.
• throwaway1928 7y ago
  I was rejected by a pretty well-known DB startup over a fizzbuzz-level coding assignment. I didn't blow it off because of its triviality--quite the opposite, I gold-plated it with spec comments, code comments, computational complexity comments, unit tests, type annotations, etc. I showed it to some friends at FAANG companies and they couldn't understand why it was rejected either. It was just really weird and unsettling to be rejected over a trivial test when I know I'm capable of so much more (I've eg implemented major features in a production MPP database engine). It might be partly due to their resume-blind process, which I support in principle, but it seems weird to disregard 20 years of mostly non-trivial software development when evaluating someone on a trivial test.
  • watwut 7y ago
    Possibly they did not considered you fit. If they want to hack around (which plenty of teams want), someone who polishes things looks like odd one and is just annoyance to them. Startups are unpredictable in their expectations. What you consider good code they consider bad code. I have seen startup where long variable names were wrong. So "nameFilter" would be wrong and "flt" would be correct. Seeing one as stupid overengineering and the other as smart.
• schrijver 7y ago
  > It wasn’t always like this. In the past, it was standard protocol to provide feedback and constructive criticism to candidates. The hiring manager or human resources professional would diplomatically let the applicants know what they did well and the areas in which they need to improve upon. As far as I can tell, this is still the case in Belgium and the Netherlands for everyone who makes it to the interview stage. It would be considered very rude to have someone go through the associated stress and logistical hassle otherwise. Is this a U.S. trend for now?
  • mtnGoat 7y ago
    yes its very much the normal. Some companies will even ask you to write an entire app, send it in and never reply whatsoever, even when prompted(Uber did this to me). I have heard some other pretty disheartening stories... hiring in tech is kinda wack.
• xwowsersx 7y ago
  I've helped a lot of people land good jobs over the last 8 years or so. I'm no pro, but I think I'm usually helpful. Happy to provide feedback/advice if anyone is interested. Contact details in my profile.
• lkramer 7y ago
  My favourites are going to an interview, not hearing anything for 3 weeks and then being told "congratulations, we would like to invite you to the next stage". At that point I have likely mentally moved on, and probably moved on in very real terms.
• ManlyBread 7y ago
  I received feedback a few times and it was quite motivational. I failed an interview and the feedback stated that I need to work on more advanced object-oriented topics like SOLID and design patterns. I studied these up and it helped me land the next job. I also became a better programmer as a result. Recently I went through something similar - I was rejected due to the lack of of experience regarding modern front-end frameworks so I'm now going through a book about Angular. I now feel more confident when applying for fullstack jobs.
• beaker52 7y ago
  I always push for feedback. I can be pretty feisty when it comes to asking. I think it's only fair that if I bother to talk them either on the phone or in person that I get some sort of feedback. I've even taken to asking the interviewer in the interview itself. I love establishing an easy going, open and honest rapport. Worst I had was after completing an unpaid "test" project that took me almost a day of my time, I was rejected without feedback. I pushed for feedback, it was a trial but I finally got it. The feedback? "No comments in the code". Thank you. I'd dodged a bullet, I told the recruiter.
• deleted 7y ago
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• peter_d_sherman 7y ago
  And people wonder why Catbert is such a popular character...
• boyband6666 7y ago
  Every job ad I've put up since starting my company has had over 100 candidates. 80 of whom are wholly unsuitable and do not send any cover letter. Another 10 don't bother with the cover letter but may have been suitable. All these are instant rejects with no feedback. The 10 I phone interview I will at least give feedback to, likewise the 3 who we eventually interview. Given so many no hopers though just clicking apply or sending a generic CV, I'm not surprised the vast majority get no feedback.
  • drharby 7y ago
    I've never given a cover letter in my 10 year career thus far.
• timhickle 7y ago
  The feedback mantra I follow as a manager is simple: "Feedback isn't about the past, it's about the future." A lot of managers I know conflate feedback with critiques or praise, which are very different tools used for very different purposes. Feedback in the interview process is invaluable, whereas critiques are unvaluable. For example, here might be a piece of feedback that would help someone perform better in a future interview: "During the debugging brainstorming work scenario, we liked that you brought ideas in many different parts of the architecture, but some of the best solutions we saw for this scenario indicated which options were most likely and grouped them by system or issue type." That feedback is about performance and provides suggestions for improvement. In my experience, that's the type of feedback that's really well received and rarely debated.
• kosherbeefcake 7y ago
  This is probably me just screaming into the void, but I'll provide my experience anyway. I've found the entire "finding a new job" / interviewing process to be an incredibly alienating process. It truly brings me despair. I've been working in IT for my entire professional career. I've worked as an analyst, project manager, and I'm currently a developer. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a phenomenal developer, but I think my "Jack of all Trades" experience provides me with interesting insight. I'm more than the sum of my parts, I have a college degree in something completely unrelated to computers, I've started my own business, I love electronics and 3D printing. I'm attempting to leave my current company of 5+ years, and whether it's the "We only hire the best and brightest" mantra or something else, this experience has been miserable. I've been asked to do push-ups in an interview, I've been ghosted multiple times, in a variety of places in the interview process. I've gotten berated on the phone by interviewers. After the last volley of rejections, I've been looking inward whether IT is even really for me. Apparently the economy is doing great, and hiring is up, but that has simply not been my experience.
  • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    Have you considered trying to get up to speed on Leetcode to accept what hiring's become today? The whole process is admittedly a dog and pony show, but just a few weeks of committing yourself to this type of problem solving could get you out of your situation.
  • noxToken 7y ago
    I'm interested about your entire interview experience, but I really would like more info about this bit: >I've been asked to do push-ups in an interview What?
    • kosherbeefcake 7y ago
      It was what it sounds like; I was interviewing for a project manager role at a IT security company. The lead PM in the middle of her interview questions said "Drop down and give me five push-ups." I didn't think it was that strange, so I did it, but everyone I told about that experience thought it was incredibly strange. Her reasoning was that it showed that I was willing to follow orders, or something.
• Elof 7y ago
  This just happened to me and I was kind of shocked. I haven’t taken a formal interview in a long time, but 0 feedback, not even a thanks for your time, seems potentially damaging as well. Especially in the long run. Word of mouth is a powerful thing and I’m definitely not going to say kind things behind closed doors after this.
• TurkishPoptart 7y ago
  Last year I was really stoked for an interview with this risk analysis company and pretty sure I had a good chance (I have a master's in international studies, which isn't much, but it's something). After they reviewed my resume and gave me an initial phone screening, which went okay, I was given an assignment to perform. I had 24 hours to write a risk analysis on this Crimean wine company and use my Russian language skills to research the company's ownership, history, and risks. I thought I did an amazing job, having written about 5 pages on them, citing numerous sources from the Russian financial times and other sites. Then, for the second interview, I talked to a member of their senior leadership (former US Treasury guy), and man, this guy was very much a jerk to me. He asked me, "What is the legislation that makes sanctions work?" I didn't know exactly, so I mentioned a recent UN Security Council resolution that added North Korean officials to US and UN sanctions lists. He interrupted me, saying that if I didn't know, I should just say so. I said I'm trying to tell you what I know. He said "Why didn't you prepare for this interview?" I said I read everything I could find on the company and did my best on the assignment, and did he see the assignment? He paused for a second, lowered his voice, and said "thanks, we'll be in touch" and that was the end of it. I'm still reeling from this, and this was over a year ago. I have every reason to believe that they used and profited from my research, because this company was recently in the news. I suppose this is a sort of crime that is nearly impossible to legislate against. Anyway, I am trying to improve my interview skills (and they did not reply to my request for feedback). Do you think I should have just said "I don't know"? I was always told _never_ to say this, but just to stick to your guns. But I got shot down by a snotty executive here, and it still hurts.
  • Terretta 7y ago
    It sounds vaguely as though your definition of risk analysis and their definition might not have matched. In other words, you may have done homework for or interviewing for a different nature of job than they expected.
    • TurkishPoptart 7y ago
      That idea makes me so annoyed I don't even know what to do. I took a graduate-level class on the damn concept, but it doesn't translate to the private sector? I don't get it. I'm such a putz....
• wiseleo 7y ago
  Part of the problem is inaccurate job descriptions. They should be structured with transparent weights attached to specific requirements. They are currently written by lawyers and for lawyers. If a job description requires automated parsing, it contains too much irrelevant to jobseeker content. So far, they only do that for travel time estimates. An interview is like passing an acceptance test. It would be nice to know the actual acceptance criteria and other metrics.
• fiatjaf 7y ago
  Lawsuits, for sure. I never give negative feedback to anyone. I never say the truth to strangers because I fear lawsuits.
• deleted 7y ago
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