3 ms·

I've been on the receiving end of "thoughtful" rejection letters. Some have been helpful, but some really served to cement the subjectivity of the whole thing.

by rtpg 3y ago

I've been on the receiving end of "thoughtful" rejection letters. Some have been helpful, but some really served to cement the subjectivity of the whole thing. The "funniest" one is one where I in fact knew the person who got the job. I received a nice and long rejection letter explaining all the points they found off for me. I was too aloof during the interview process itself (thinking I was a good fit), and many of the points mentioned were not wrong. But I knew for a fact that I was better than the person who got the job on all the mentioned points[0]! There was one thing not mentioned, a pure "culture fit" component[1]. Pretty sure that was a decisive factor, but not mentioned. It just felt like something where, if I didn't have the full context, I would have really bogged myself down from "wrong" feedback. And when feedback can involve innate parts of one's personality, from people who have already decided to not work with you, it can be painful. [0]: I worked closely with this person for many years. I do not have ill will towards them, the skill gap I'm mentioning was purely a "years of experience" thing IMO [1]: for the curious: the place hired loads of people in a certain community, of which ~all of them were from the British Isles. I am not.

grepLeigh 3y ago
Sounds like you dodged a bullet. If you didn't like the vibe of the rejection feedback, can you imagine how miserable you might have felt hearing similar feedback at an annual perf/compensation review? I think we do ourselves a disservice with terms like "hard skills" (which I'm assuming you elided to just "skills" in your post; please forgive me if I'm mistaken). I've been at the receiving end of culture fit rejections too. It's so rough to hear what basically amounts to "seems like you might be capable of doing the job, but we're not convinced we want to work with you." I didn't crack that mindset until I started making hiring decisions. Teams are what deliver in the long run, so it's important to stack a balanced team that gels. Having the skills to do the job is certainly important, but equally important was knowing stuff like... Will this person feel challenged and happy here? Do they have room to grow? Are they coachable; how do they handle feedback (defensive or receptive)? It takes anywhere from 2-6 months to get a software engineer fully ramped and operational, depending on seniority. It also takes 6-12 months (on top of that) to ethically handle someone that's not working out due to a bad culture fit. Ideally, the company has an environment that will work for the person, but that's often not the case. Almost every time I've had to fire someone, it wasn't about skills (skills can be taught) - it was because I looked past a clear culture mismatch. After I personally had to fire someone I shouldn't have hired in the first place, I gained new perspective about all the times I was rejected for "culture fit." Anyway, I hope some of this helps take the sting away. There's a better job for you out there, and I'm rooting for you to find it.

by rtpg 3y ago

grepLeigh 3y ago

Sounds like you dodged a bullet. If you didn't like the vibe of the rejection feedback, can you imagine how miserable you might have felt hearing similar feedback at an annual perf/compensation review? I think we do ourselves a disservice with terms like "hard skills" (which I'm assuming you elided to just "skills" in your post; please forgive me if I'm mistaken). I've been at the receiving end of culture fit rejections too. It's so rough to hear what basically amounts to "seems like you might be capable of doing the job, but we're not convinced we want to work with you." I didn't crack that mindset until I started making hiring decisions. Teams are what deliver in the long run, so it's important to stack a balanced team that gels. Having the skills to do the job is certainly important, but equally important was knowing stuff like... Will this person feel challenged and happy here? Do they have room to grow? Are they coachable; how do they handle feedback (defensive or receptive)? It takes anywhere from 2-6 months to get a software engineer fully ramped and operational, depending on seniority. It also takes 6-12 months (on top of that) to ethically handle someone that's not working out due to a bad culture fit. Ideally, the company has an environment that will work for the person, but that's often not the case. Almost every time I've had to fire someone, it wasn't about skills (skills can be taught) - it was because I looked past a clear culture mismatch. After I personally had to fire someone I shouldn't have hired in the first place, I gained new perspective about all the times I was rejected for "culture fit." Anyway, I hope some of this helps take the sting away. There's a better job for you out there, and I'm rooting for you to find it.