9 ms·

In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response. This has to do with how law is structur

In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response. This has to do with how law is structured here: giving feedback gives an attack surface to candidates that could sue you for the feedback you gave (because they do not agree with it). So this is it, companies do not do this because they're evil, they do this because nobody wants legal consequences.

hvidgaard 7y ago
I don't understand this. If I select a candidate of three to offer a job, then as long as I'm not discriminating the others for things such as sexuality, gender, age, ect. then the person we feel is the best fit is just that. What we believe is the best candidate - no amount of arguing in a court is going to change that.
- azernik 7y ago
  Germany is not the US. Labor laws impose restrictions aside from banning discrimination against protected categories. As one example: it is illegal to say anything negative in a letter of reference. See https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommendation-letter-in-germany-arbeitszeugnis/74495#74495 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommen...
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Germany is not as egalitarian as the US when it comes to preventing discrimination for job applicants. Normally, in Germany, in your resume you should have a photo and specify your birthday/age and nationality, especially important when applying at traditional engineering companies. This opens you up for a lot of silent discrimination. So, if they reject you for being the wrong age, nationality or skin color (yes that happens, a former German manager explicitly told HR he doesn't want Indian candidates on his team) or for speaking German with a strange accent, they definitely don't want this information getting back to you as you can sue them for that so the only feedback you're gonna get is the legally safe copy-paste "unfortunately, we're looking for a candidate that better suits our needs".
  - hvidgaard 7y ago
    I'm not from the US, but Denmark and we basically have the same laws. You don't tell them you don't want them because they're Indian, that shouldn't be a factor anyway, but because they're not the best fit due to skill/social/experience/whatever legally matters.
- piokoch 7y ago
  I think the problem is your "ect.", in recent years number of various minority groups that might feel discriminated has grown and keep growing. You never know what will be next discriminated minority that you might offend and that will might sue you next year for some seemingly innocent explanation. Why anyone would anyone take a risk? To make someone feel better?
  - travisporter 7y ago
    Yeah. It’s human decency. Got cut from football tryouts in high school. Got excellent feedback to improve my stamina. Ended up running cross country cuz I loved it :) Straight out of college I got rejected by failing miserably at a technical interview almost to the point of tears when I realized how little I knew. Maybe my interviewer saw this but I got very practical feedback, and knew exactly what to do with myself that summer to get hired.
jakobegger 7y ago
> In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all I can't imagine that this makes any sense. Let's say you give every interviewee feedback: - 90% of candidates will be grateful - 10% of candidates will not like the feedback and start to argue (at this point ignoring emails might make sense to avoid wasting time) - 0.01% of candidates will actually sue you over it The lawsuit will probably go nowhere, and in the worst case cost €10.000 in legal fees. But all the good will from the other people must be worth something! Maybe one of all those people who you gave good feedback refers a friend, and they apply to your company. If you hire that person, you just saved 10.000€ that you don't have to pay a recruiter! So either all these lawyers are giving bad advise, or maybe my numbers are wrong? I've never heard of a lawsuit where a candidate sued a company as a consequence of interview feedback that they got, so I assume that must be a very rare occurrence.
- crististm 7y ago
  where did you get those figures?
  - jakobegger 7y ago
    I made them up.
    - crististm 7y ago
      Of course they're made up. That's why I asked. If you make a conclusion on made up data you get bogus conclusion. It may be a good conclusion, but not for real life where facts don't match made up data.
      - jakobegger 7y ago
        > If you make a conclusion on made up data you get bogus conclusion No. You work with made up numbers to understand the problem. Then you can make conclusions even without knowing the precise numbers. For example, my analysis doesn't change much wheter the rate of lawsuits is 0.1% or 0.01% or 0.001%. It would change if the rate of lawsuits is 1%. But I am pretty sure that the rate of lawsuits after interview rejection is much less than 1%. So I can make a conclusion without knowing precise numbers. Calculations based on estimates come up all the time, and they are very valuable. They make it clear what assumptions your decisions are based on. What's the alternative? You have to make a decision. If you don't want to use estimates, what are you going to base your decision on? Whatever feels right?
virgilp 7y ago
While working at Adobe, an executive launched the "Red Box" innovation program (that eventually became https://kickbox.org/ https://kickbox.org/). The program itself is interesting, but what was MORE interesting is that he was able to pull it off - the whole thing is a legal minefield of epic proportions (1). Normally, if you go to the legal department and ask "can I do this", nobody in their right mind will answer "yes, but"... you'll get an immediate "no way, get out of here, you're crazy". The trick is to ask legal "I'm doing this, how can I minimize our legal exposure". Not to ask "can we do this". The second question will invariably get you a "no" (if you thought to ask, there must be _some_ risk). The first question will get a lot of grumbling, but if you're in a high-enough position, will eventually lead to useful advice. (1) The basic idea is that in the early stages, you need to prove traction/market interest for your idea. As such, it needs to show no signs that it's backed by Adobe - it's trivially easy to get a BizzFeudNews article about "Adobe launches ShitDraw Pro" or whatnot; it's very easy to get thousands of people curious & signing up. All this is much harder when you're a John Doe, and don't lean on the brand recognition, but on the intrinsic value of your idea/product. However, this all means is that by design in the early stages you will have company employees, paying with company money, to "launch" services & get people to subscribe while hiding the true entity behind those services. No nefarious motivation behind it, but surely you can see the potential legal challenges.
retromario 7y ago
The way a friend of mine in Germany does it is to send a polite rejection by mail with an offer to discuss details over the phone. Leaves less actionable attack surface while still trying to give constructive feedback.
henningb 7y ago
I work at a German company, we give very specific verbal feedback after every interview (I did it many times). Just because lawyers recommend against it does not mean you cannot do it.
ThePhysicist 7y ago
I have never heard of something like this, and we're hiring people in Germany. Which leverage would a candidate have if you give him/her specific feedback regarding lack of knowledge in required areas? Can you name one case where this actually happened? The only practical way someone could sue you is through "Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG)" if they can prove that you discriminated them based on their age, gender or ethnicity.

hvidgaard 7y ago

I don't understand this. If I select a candidate of three to offer a job, then as long as I'm not discriminating the others for things such as sexuality, gender, age, ect. then the person we feel is the best fit is just that. What we believe is the best candidate - no amount of arguing in a court is going to change that.

azernik 7y ago
Germany is not the US. Labor laws impose restrictions aside from banning discrimination against protected categories. As one example: it is illegal to say anything negative in a letter of reference. See https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommendation-letter-in-germany-arbeitszeugnis/74495#74495 https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74438/recommen...
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
Germany is not as egalitarian as the US when it comes to preventing discrimination for job applicants. Normally, in Germany, in your resume you should have a photo and specify your birthday/age and nationality, especially important when applying at traditional engineering companies. This opens you up for a lot of silent discrimination. So, if they reject you for being the wrong age, nationality or skin color (yes that happens, a former German manager explicitly told HR he doesn't want Indian candidates on his team) or for speaking German with a strange accent, they definitely don't want this information getting back to you as you can sue them for that so the only feedback you're gonna get is the legally safe copy-paste "unfortunately, we're looking for a candidate that better suits our needs".
- hvidgaard 7y ago
  I'm not from the US, but Denmark and we basically have the same laws. You don't tell them you don't want them because they're Indian, that shouldn't be a factor anyway, but because they're not the best fit due to skill/social/experience/whatever legally matters.
piokoch 7y ago
I think the problem is your "ect.", in recent years number of various minority groups that might feel discriminated has grown and keep growing. You never know what will be next discriminated minority that you might offend and that will might sue you next year for some seemingly innocent explanation. Why anyone would anyone take a risk? To make someone feel better?
- travisporter 7y ago
  Yeah. It’s human decency. Got cut from football tryouts in high school. Got excellent feedback to improve my stamina. Ended up running cross country cuz I loved it :) Straight out of college I got rejected by failing miserably at a technical interview almost to the point of tears when I realized how little I knew. Maybe my interviewer saw this but I got very practical feedback, and knew exactly what to do with myself that summer to get hired.

jakobegger 7y ago

> In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all I can't imagine that this makes any sense. Let's say you give every interviewee feedback: - 90% of candidates will be grateful - 10% of candidates will not like the feedback and start to argue (at this point ignoring emails might make sense to avoid wasting time) - 0.01% of candidates will actually sue you over it The lawsuit will probably go nowhere, and in the worst case cost €10.000 in legal fees. But all the good will from the other people must be worth something! Maybe one of all those people who you gave good feedback refers a friend, and they apply to your company. If you hire that person, you just saved 10.000€ that you don't have to pay a recruiter! So either all these lawyers are giving bad advise, or maybe my numbers are wrong? I've never heard of a lawsuit where a candidate sued a company as a consequence of interview feedback that they got, so I assume that must be a very rare occurrence.

crististm 7y ago
where did you get those figures?
- jakobegger 7y ago
  I made them up.
  - crististm 7y ago
    Of course they're made up. That's why I asked. If you make a conclusion on made up data you get bogus conclusion. It may be a good conclusion, but not for real life where facts don't match made up data.
    - jakobegger 7y ago
      > If you make a conclusion on made up data you get bogus conclusion No. You work with made up numbers to understand the problem. Then you can make conclusions even without knowing the precise numbers. For example, my analysis doesn't change much wheter the rate of lawsuits is 0.1% or 0.01% or 0.001%. It would change if the rate of lawsuits is 1%. But I am pretty sure that the rate of lawsuits after interview rejection is much less than 1%. So I can make a conclusion without knowing precise numbers. Calculations based on estimates come up all the time, and they are very valuable. They make it clear what assumptions your decisions are based on. What's the alternative? You have to make a decision. If you don't want to use estimates, what are you going to base your decision on? Whatever feels right?

virgilp 7y ago

While working at Adobe, an executive launched the "Red Box" innovation program (that eventually became https://kickbox.org/ https://kickbox.org/). The program itself is interesting, but what was MORE interesting is that he was able to pull it off - the whole thing is a legal minefield of epic proportions (1). Normally, if you go to the legal department and ask "can I do this", nobody in their right mind will answer "yes, but"... you'll get an immediate "no way, get out of here, you're crazy". The trick is to ask legal "I'm doing this, how can I minimize our legal exposure". Not to ask "can we do this". The second question will invariably get you a "no" (if you thought to ask, there must be _some_ risk). The first question will get a lot of grumbling, but if you're in a high-enough position, will eventually lead to useful advice. (1) The basic idea is that in the early stages, you need to prove traction/market interest for your idea. As such, it needs to show no signs that it's backed by Adobe - it's trivially easy to get a BizzFeudNews article about "Adobe launches ShitDraw Pro" or whatnot; it's very easy to get thousands of people curious & signing up. All this is much harder when you're a John Doe, and don't lean on the brand recognition, but on the intrinsic value of your idea/product. However, this all means is that by design in the early stages you will have company employees, paying with company money, to "launch" services & get people to subscribe while hiding the true entity behind those services. No nefarious motivation behind it, but surely you can see the potential legal challenges.

retromario 7y ago

The way a friend of mine in Germany does it is to send a polite rejection by mail with an offer to discuss details over the phone. Leaves less actionable attack surface while still trying to give constructive feedback.

henningb 7y ago

I work at a German company, we give very specific verbal feedback after every interview (I did it many times). Just because lawyers recommend against it does not mean you cannot do it.

ThePhysicist 7y ago

I have never heard of something like this, and we're hiring people in Germany. Which leverage would a candidate have if you give him/her specific feedback regarding lack of knowledge in required areas? Can you name one case where this actually happened? The only practical way someone could sue you is through "Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG)" if they can prove that you discriminated them based on their age, gender or ethnicity.