> breakdown in internal communication where HR was under the impression we wanted to hire at any cost despite us giving the candidate a mediocre rating. One wa

> breakdown in internal communication where HR was under the impression we wanted to hire at any cost despite us giving the candidate a mediocre rating. One way that breakdowns can happen is if people are too subtle in their reviews. For example, damning with faint praise, or being overly constructive. Lots of people aren't good at reading comprehension, and even less good when wading through the piles of communication noise that many companies tend to generate. Combining free-form text with unambiguous "multiple-choice" options on the interview reports can help (e.g., interviewer writes constructive things about growth potential, but clicks the "lukewarm" or "not for this role" radio button). Another way is if different interviewers had very different impressions, and one interviewer's takes precedence. (This can also happen the other direction: false-negative. As a team lead, I gave a very strong recommendation to hire this one very determined designer-y frontend engineer. But another team lead, who would have temporary loan of the hire before my team's project spun up, proceeded to Leetcode-haze them. I wouldn't say the candidate bombed it, but rather that the company bombed it. The company really didn't want to hire someone who got a strong negative, so they said no. Rejected candidate instead went to a different super-cool engineering-driven company, and I soon saw them featured in a tech demo video of that company on LinkedIn, explaining to customers this neat new product thing they built.) Other ways?