3 ms·

Arguably there is no road to failure, just a road to success that you never get to the end of. The hard part is not that failure is some permanent state. The ha

Arguably there is no road to failure, just a road to success that you never get to the end of. The hard part is not that failure is some permanent state. The hard part is that without good feedback you don't know if you're actually on a trajectory to (eventual) success, or how long it will take, or what you need to change (or do more of) to get there. Good feedback is essential and makes the difference between wandering around blindly with no idea where you're going, and walking an (albeit difficult) path to something that might eventually look like success.

IshKebab 5y ago
There is an end to the road. You don't get to keep trying forever.
periheli0n 5y ago
I agree, but in my experience, recruiters and HR departments share total paranoia about giving feedback to applicants, most likely out of fear of being sued. Sometimes (rarely) it's possible to obtain feedback from people you know at the place where you applied, but even then feedback is likely to be distorted and not tell the full story. TL;DR There is no feedback when applying for jobs and most of us are flying blind.
- eslaught 5y ago
  You're absolutely right. I'm querying a novel to literary agents right now, and it's the same way. The official channels provide absolutely no feedback. That's exactly what's frustrating about it. You need to look for feedback elsewhere. There's a risk of getting bad feedback if the person isn't actually involved with making decisions, but it's better than just talking to friends (or not talking to anyone at all). And if you're willing to iterate and experiment, you can figure out (at least indirectly) how good the feedback is by the results you achieve when you put it into practice. I personally provide mentoring to junior members of my community (as a researcher in HPC) through conferences I attend. In my writing life, I look for feedback at writers conferences. I'm not sure what the equivalents would be in other parts of the job market, but something similar might help.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Feedback's tough. I sometimes sit on content committees for conferences. Sometimes for a given abstract my feedback would be along the lines of "Did you even try?" or "How many different events did you submit this generic abstract to?" But mostly it would be more along the lines of it's OK but there's a known person who is better plugged into this particular topic who also submitted and their abstract is sharper. Conferences do often try to get new and more diverse speakers but you're still competing with people who do this sort of thing for a living. The bottom line is that a lot of feedback would be along the lines of "You were fine but someone else really grabbed us in one or more ways."
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    Feedback like "Did you even try" is just as useless as "You were fine but someone else was better." Why not simply state what's wrong with the abstract, and how it could be improved?
giantg2 5y ago
I get zero usable feedback. My trajectory will not lead to success.

IshKebab 5y ago

There is an end to the road. You don't get to keep trying forever.

periheli0n 5y ago

I agree, but in my experience, recruiters and HR departments share total paranoia about giving feedback to applicants, most likely out of fear of being sued. Sometimes (rarely) it's possible to obtain feedback from people you know at the place where you applied, but even then feedback is likely to be distorted and not tell the full story. TL;DR There is no feedback when applying for jobs and most of us are flying blind.

eslaught 5y ago
You're absolutely right. I'm querying a novel to literary agents right now, and it's the same way. The official channels provide absolutely no feedback. That's exactly what's frustrating about it. You need to look for feedback elsewhere. There's a risk of getting bad feedback if the person isn't actually involved with making decisions, but it's better than just talking to friends (or not talking to anyone at all). And if you're willing to iterate and experiment, you can figure out (at least indirectly) how good the feedback is by the results you achieve when you put it into practice. I personally provide mentoring to junior members of my community (as a researcher in HPC) through conferences I attend. In my writing life, I look for feedback at writers conferences. I'm not sure what the equivalents would be in other parts of the job market, but something similar might help.
ghaff 5y ago
Feedback's tough. I sometimes sit on content committees for conferences. Sometimes for a given abstract my feedback would be along the lines of "Did you even try?" or "How many different events did you submit this generic abstract to?" But mostly it would be more along the lines of it's OK but there's a known person who is better plugged into this particular topic who also submitted and their abstract is sharper. Conferences do often try to get new and more diverse speakers but you're still competing with people who do this sort of thing for a living. The bottom line is that a lot of feedback would be along the lines of "You were fine but someone else really grabbed us in one or more ways."
- periheli0n 5y ago
  Feedback like "Did you even try" is just as useless as "You were fine but someone else was better." Why not simply state what's wrong with the abstract, and how it could be improved?

giantg2 5y ago

I get zero usable feedback. My trajectory will not lead to success.