4 ms·

So many comments in the vein of "who has time to waste on candidates we aren't going to make an offer to?" - You are damaging your companies brand thinking this

by _cairn 7y ago

So many comments in the vein of "who has time to waste on candidates we aren't going to make an offer to?" - You are damaging your companies brand thinking this way. You want people who you reject to say to themselves "I can't wait to study up and interview here again, they said no, but I still want to work here!"

ggggtez 7y ago
If you don't why you didn't get an offer, then you aren't worth the time to explain it. 95% of the time, you didn't give as strong answers as other candidates. The other 5% of the time, you came across as a jerk.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  You can find plenty of competent people to fill a position that you have no room to hire. Its also possible to give an accidentally weak interview. Treating people like disposable garbage because they didn't check the checkboxes the best is a great way to be a shitty manager and a shitty human being.
- majormajor 7y ago
  Strongly disagree. Do you only ask candidates 1 question/only look for 1 attribute? And only hire for one level? Cause otherwise, they could've done great on 8 things but missed on another. Or they did well but not quite well enough for the seniority that was desired. I've gotten feedback like this in the past - "your technical answers were great, but we thought you were a bit too green collaboration- and project-ownership-wise" and it was super useful because in my head before that, it was the places where my technical question answers could've been even better that I'd been beating myself up over.
- noitsnot 7y ago
  This is egregious and unempathetic.
LordFast 7y ago
Ahh, refreshing to see that someone still remembers how to do company-building.
- tmpz22 7y ago
  Most companies lack the resources/willpower to train/code-review/mentor their own employees, expecting them to do it for candidates is kind of naive. So do it at your company and have a competitive advantage.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - LordFast 7y ago
    Done it. Worked really well (got great people, which got more great people, virtuous cycle etc). Struggled to convince a couple of other companies to adopt the mindset. Hoping to do it again some day. Yeah, life's hard. But isn't that why it's worth it to fight for a better life? I get it though, "better" is relative.
EthanHeilman 7y ago
I agree that being helpful and giving feedback to candidates you don't hire can be beneficial to the company and to the interviewer. However, I would argue an even stronger reason is that it is good to help other people grow, even if it doesn't directly benefit you. If on the way to work you see someone trip and they can't get up, you should offer them help even if doing so will make you late for an important meeting.
- yahyaheee 7y ago
  There you go, surprised this is the first time I’ve seen this answer.
komali2 7y ago
> I can't wait to study up Surely if a rejection was for a reason that a couple weeks of study could "fix," it wasn't worth a rejection, right? Are hirers out there really being THAT picky? I'm going through resumes right now and rejecting people if I think they need a year or more experience under their belt than what they're presenting. If it's because they know react and not vue, that's not reject worthy at all...
- dickjocke 7y ago
  Why can't this be on the scale of 3 or 5 years? I'm reminded of the Maya Angelou quote: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." I don't remember 99.9% of what recruiters have said to me, but I do remember the two companies (Hulu and LinkedIn) that made me feel like crap and jerked me around. It was 2 years ago and I'm sure most of the people who were a part of that are gone, but I still kind of have that grudge.
  - komali2 7y ago
    > Why can't it be on the scale of 3 to 5 years Where I work is an agency, so essentially a collection of already experienced designers, engineers, etc that need to be building quality products pretty much day 1. Any of our time we aren't billing to clients is just coming out of our cut. It's a somewhat ruthless calculation, but we already skim billed time to do things like give ourselves 20% freetime to work on libre projects, train ourselves on new tech, etc. Some of us use that 20% to mentor bootcamp grads (me) which is the kind of help I want to give to green engineers - I'm a selfish boi and don't wanna lump a billable hour cut on top of that. We absolutely don't have time to be pulling someone in that needs 3 more years before they're engineering at the level we need.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Sounds like your firm is in a specific niche of consultancy that is atypical compared to the majority of non-hourly billed companies.
elliotec 7y ago
I mostly disagree. I really can't think of a case where I would want to interview the same person twice. That said, I'm happy to provide feedback if they ask, and when it comes to interviewing, I personally appreciate feedback ONLY when I ask.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Lol, yeah, like when I applied again at the same company after 3 years and they rejected me out of hand before even giving me a chance at an interview because they rejected me before. Obviously my skills and experience are still exactly the same, so this makes perfect sense. I don’t know, but I personally think this is a terrible signal.
  - noitsnot 7y ago
    Minds are made up. I interviewed with the same company in the beginning of my career then again 3-4 years later. I realized they probably didn't know how to interview a dev and were more interested in someone amazing with clients and charming. I would have been prepared to bullshit my five year plan better on the second go-around.
- usaar333 7y ago
  I've definitely interviewed green candidates and would be very happy to interview them again in a few years. (This is going to be more true in companies with more selective hiring bars) Regardless, brand matters as well. You want candidates to have good experiences even if they are rejected as they will talk to peers about company x
jolmg 7y ago
> I can't wait to study up and interview here again If the decision to reject was purely objective then sure, but isn't a big part of it if not most of it subjective? And even when the reasons could be objective, I imagine people are deciding in part through gut-feeling and might not be able to articulate the reasons for rejection in an objective enough manner. That's why I imagine people are inclined to fight when given the reasons for rejection.
cultofmetatron 7y ago
This is so true! The best interview I ever had was at Netflix. They sent a takehome and we actually discussed it in the interview. I got a ton of useful feedback on my code which made me feel I was getting something worthwhile for my time. In the end, I didn't get the offer but was told why (not enough experience building UI's which were a large part of the position) but I was stoked as it was advice I could choose to work on or not.

by _cairn 7y ago

ggggtez 7y ago

If you don't why you didn't get an offer, then you aren't worth the time to explain it. 95% of the time, you didn't give as strong answers as other candidates. The other 5% of the time, you came across as a jerk.

throwaway2048 7y ago
You can find plenty of competent people to fill a position that you have no room to hire. Its also possible to give an accidentally weak interview. Treating people like disposable garbage because they didn't check the checkboxes the best is a great way to be a shitty manager and a shitty human being.
majormajor 7y ago
Strongly disagree. Do you only ask candidates 1 question/only look for 1 attribute? And only hire for one level? Cause otherwise, they could've done great on 8 things but missed on another. Or they did well but not quite well enough for the seniority that was desired. I've gotten feedback like this in the past - "your technical answers were great, but we thought you were a bit too green collaboration- and project-ownership-wise" and it was super useful because in my head before that, it was the places where my technical question answers could've been even better that I'd been beating myself up over.
noitsnot 7y ago
This is egregious and unempathetic.

LordFast 7y ago

Ahh, refreshing to see that someone still remembers how to do company-building.

tmpz22 7y ago
Most companies lack the resources/willpower to train/code-review/mentor their own employees, expecting them to do it for candidates is kind of naive. So do it at your company and have a competitive advantage.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- LordFast 7y ago
  Done it. Worked really well (got great people, which got more great people, virtuous cycle etc). Struggled to convince a couple of other companies to adopt the mindset. Hoping to do it again some day. Yeah, life's hard. But isn't that why it's worth it to fight for a better life? I get it though, "better" is relative.

EthanHeilman 7y ago

I agree that being helpful and giving feedback to candidates you don't hire can be beneficial to the company and to the interviewer. However, I would argue an even stronger reason is that it is good to help other people grow, even if it doesn't directly benefit you. If on the way to work you see someone trip and they can't get up, you should offer them help even if doing so will make you late for an important meeting.

yahyaheee 7y ago
There you go, surprised this is the first time I’ve seen this answer.

komali2 7y ago

> I can't wait to study up Surely if a rejection was for a reason that a couple weeks of study could "fix," it wasn't worth a rejection, right? Are hirers out there really being THAT picky? I'm going through resumes right now and rejecting people if I think they need a year or more experience under their belt than what they're presenting. If it's because they know react and not vue, that's not reject worthy at all...

dickjocke 7y ago
Why can't this be on the scale of 3 or 5 years? I'm reminded of the Maya Angelou quote: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." I don't remember 99.9% of what recruiters have said to me, but I do remember the two companies (Hulu and LinkedIn) that made me feel like crap and jerked me around. It was 2 years ago and I'm sure most of the people who were a part of that are gone, but I still kind of have that grudge.
- komali2 7y ago
  > Why can't it be on the scale of 3 to 5 years Where I work is an agency, so essentially a collection of already experienced designers, engineers, etc that need to be building quality products pretty much day 1. Any of our time we aren't billing to clients is just coming out of our cut. It's a somewhat ruthless calculation, but we already skim billed time to do things like give ourselves 20% freetime to work on libre projects, train ourselves on new tech, etc. Some of us use that 20% to mentor bootcamp grads (me) which is the kind of help I want to give to green engineers - I'm a selfish boi and don't wanna lump a billable hour cut on top of that. We absolutely don't have time to be pulling someone in that needs 3 more years before they're engineering at the level we need.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Sounds like your firm is in a specific niche of consultancy that is atypical compared to the majority of non-hourly billed companies.

elliotec 7y ago

I mostly disagree. I really can't think of a case where I would want to interview the same person twice. That said, I'm happy to provide feedback if they ask, and when it comes to interviewing, I personally appreciate feedback ONLY when I ask.

Aeolun 7y ago
Lol, yeah, like when I applied again at the same company after 3 years and they rejected me out of hand before even giving me a chance at an interview because they rejected me before. Obviously my skills and experience are still exactly the same, so this makes perfect sense. I don’t know, but I personally think this is a terrible signal.
- noitsnot 7y ago
  Minds are made up. I interviewed with the same company in the beginning of my career then again 3-4 years later. I realized they probably didn't know how to interview a dev and were more interested in someone amazing with clients and charming. I would have been prepared to bullshit my five year plan better on the second go-around.
usaar333 7y ago
I've definitely interviewed green candidates and would be very happy to interview them again in a few years. (This is going to be more true in companies with more selective hiring bars) Regardless, brand matters as well. You want candidates to have good experiences even if they are rejected as they will talk to peers about company x

jolmg 7y ago

> I can't wait to study up and interview here again If the decision to reject was purely objective then sure, but isn't a big part of it if not most of it subjective? And even when the reasons could be objective, I imagine people are deciding in part through gut-feeling and might not be able to articulate the reasons for rejection in an objective enough manner. That's why I imagine people are inclined to fight when given the reasons for rejection.

cultofmetatron 7y ago

This is so true! The best interview I ever had was at Netflix. They sent a takehome and we actually discussed it in the interview. I got a ton of useful feedback on my code which made me feel I was getting something worthwhile for my time. In the end, I didn't get the offer but was told why (not enough experience building UI's which were a large part of the position) but I was stoked as it was advice I could choose to work on or not.