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I think you're underestimating how explicit rejection triggers awful behavior to seemingly way too many people, so one can be wary of releasing it, plus the fac

I think you're underestimating how explicit rejection triggers awful behavior to seemingly way too many people, so one can be wary of releasing it, plus the fact that rejecting others is not easy for people, automating it seems dehumanizing, so the things stays as they are, so silence it is. I've been related several times about people that wanted explicit reasons of why they've been rejected, and ending up mad at the (perceived as dishonest) hard truths they've been told, and anything said delicately can be dismissed, seen as cryptic or even displayed as hypocrisy. Courtesy is hard, and all are not well equipped to see it when it's given.

arcbyte 2y ago
You're 100% right. Still, i think we should expect better of companies and candidates on both ends.
joshstrange 2y ago
This 100%. I managed a hiring process last year (my first) and from the outset I wanted to make sure I let every applicant that we talked to know if we had decided to pass. It was a lot easier said/thought than done. That email is horrible to send. My stomach dropped out every time I hit “send”, for exactly the reasons you stated. I dreaded the replies which often included some kind of “Why?” question. I completely understand where the candidates are coming from. They want to know what they did wrong and how they can improve. On the surface this seems like an easy thing to do, but in my experience, it’s more like opening a can of worms. How do you tell someone “I’m sorry, you’re too junior, try again in a few years” or “your entire personality was off-putting/rude” or “you spent an inordinate amount of time in the interview tying to convince me I was wrong about tabs vs spaces and even sent me a follow up email citing more reasons” or “You told me you worked with PHP 6 when I asked you what version you had used” [0], or “you couldn’t remember if you used Angular 1 or 2+” [1], or “you told me you had a great memory then proceeded to say ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t remember’ to 90% of my questions”…. The list goes on When sending a rejection letter the best case scenario is that they say “thank you” and move on (or don’t reply at all). Worst case scenario, they start asking follow-up questions which I feel obligated to respond to, they get irate, and/or they attempt some kind of bargaining/arguing. I’m not going to say I’d never do any of these things myself (however unproductive) but it shocks me that some people think they can change your mind by arguing about why you passed on them. It’s all very uncomfortable and feels like you are navigating a field of land mines. [0] PHP 6 never was released, it went from 5->7, though you can find books on “PHP 6” because they were printed before it was clear the version was going to be skipped. [1] Angular 1 vs 2+ is essentially a completely different framework. Anyone working in web tech should be aware of that fact.
- g-b-r 2y ago
  Just as in personal relations, sending a final message rather than ghosting can be uncomfortable, but that's not an excuse not to do it. If/when you don't want to interact further, just say it (hopefully stating the reasons, such as that the hiring process is imperfect, but the company can't devote infinite resources to it); after you did that it's completely fine to ignore further inquiries.
  - joshstrange 2y ago
    This is exactly what I did. Everyone got an email no matter how uncomfortable, I would engage 1-2 emails past that then make it clear that I wasn't going to reply again.
    - Shorn 2y ago
      How often would you say you got these negative interactions (anything other than a "thank you" or silence)?
- nickjj 2y ago
  I would much rather get an honest answer in any scenario, no matter what it is. There are people out there who would take that feedback and reflect on it in a positive way. How else can you improve or be mindful of things in the future if you don't even know what happened or what went wrong? I sort of feel like the people who don't give honest feedback or ghost aren't trying to protect anyone's feelings or are avoiding conflict. They themselves have something going on internally that bothers them when it comes to giving or receiving feedback. They are maybe letting unrelated previous experiences dictate their current life and decisions. So now you have 2 types of people. People who want honest feedback and people who never give it. You can't force either one to do the other thing so we're always left with 1 side feeling unhappy. It doesn't make sense to me that this is how most folks are ok with operating.
  - rmgk 2y ago
    Giving good individual feedback requires effort and is low priority. Those things tend to not happen without requiring complicated feelings to be involved.
pbronez 2y ago
Yes. People don't like being confronted with their shortcomings. Cultivate humility - you'll learn more.
twiceeaten 2y ago
I agree only in part. Specifically, I agree that rejection brings out the worst in people and sometimes it's better to not engage in follow-up conversations about rejection. I have interviewed my share of problematic applicants and we should not make excuses for employers to behave badly due to bad applicant behavior. Courtesy starts with the giver. If someone chooses to not be equipped, then you have done your job by attempting courtesy, nothing more is required. While there's a lot of awful behavior, I have found complete silence (no initial rejection) triggers worse behavior. For example, silence leads to people constantly reaching out, rightfully wanting to know status. Moreover, it greatly encourages the psychotic people to bombard you with craziness via any means of contact. For that reason, an initial response that a person is rejected is enough typically. Courtesy is not hard and saying so is concerning. While people may have different reactions, a simple sentence is a courtesy and a thank you, nothing beyond that is required. Still, I admit reading this site sometimes makes me think basic humanity is a challenge for many people. Unfortunately, those people seem to be in charge of hiring at many companies. All you have to do in a job context is respond at least once - thank you, but no. If the other person does not see a simple email as courtesy, that is their problem. A response is a universal courtesy, no response is a universal insult. I can understand not wanting to engage further, however. No response at all is also demeaning. It takes seconds to formulate an initial rejection response. If someone presses you, simply reply with that dreaded canned response + simply use their name. If you want to further personalize things in either case, you pick 1 detail you remember to sound more genuine, which for a functioning human should be quite easy. If you want something more dry in a follow-up, you can say that for legal reasons, you are not allowed or comfortable discussing further, but you wish the person luck. That covers all the normal people, and for crazies, you have no choice either way but at least this has a chance of getting them to go away. What you are saying is that people are not even worth seconds of your time, especially people who potentially invested hours, weeks, or even months in the process. I would hope any reasonable person is above this. Lastly, a response is important because it allows people to prioritize and further their job search. If you keep someone hanging, it can have huge implications that I should not have to explain. There are many other problems it can cause as well. As an example, I once applied for a job I thought I wanted because the company confused me with someone else and their SOP was silence. They stopped responding to my inquiries which insulted me so much, I rejected their subsequent offer when the mistake was caught. Another example - a company scheduled interviews for me and just didn't show up, making me have to leave my wife alone in the hospital at the time which I only did because my job search was that important at that time financially. Honestly, I'm so tired of the attitude of companies and people on here validating unprofessional and awful behavior. If it were legal and without issue, I'd make a list and publicly shame. The only redemption is that when someone can't even be human enough to respond to you, working at their company would be a miserable experience. Still, that does not help when you waste weeks, months, or even years going through this nonsense with ego tripping weirdos doing hiring these days, ghost jobs, and complete psychos. I've been interviewing candidates for over 20 years and I do not say this lightly that the current process is disgusting, awful, and unacceptable at a disturbingly large number of companies.

arcbyte 2y ago

You're 100% right. Still, i think we should expect better of companies and candidates on both ends.

joshstrange 2y ago

This 100%. I managed a hiring process last year (my first) and from the outset I wanted to make sure I let every applicant that we talked to know if we had decided to pass. It was a lot easier said/thought than done. That email is horrible to send. My stomach dropped out every time I hit “send”, for exactly the reasons you stated. I dreaded the replies which often included some kind of “Why?” question. I completely understand where the candidates are coming from. They want to know what they did wrong and how they can improve. On the surface this seems like an easy thing to do, but in my experience, it’s more like opening a can of worms. How do you tell someone “I’m sorry, you’re too junior, try again in a few years” or “your entire personality was off-putting/rude” or “you spent an inordinate amount of time in the interview tying to convince me I was wrong about tabs vs spaces and even sent me a follow up email citing more reasons” or “You told me you worked with PHP 6 when I asked you what version you had used” [0], or “you couldn’t remember if you used Angular 1 or 2+” [1], or “you told me you had a great memory then proceeded to say ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t remember’ to 90% of my questions”…. The list goes on When sending a rejection letter the best case scenario is that they say “thank you” and move on (or don’t reply at all). Worst case scenario, they start asking follow-up questions which I feel obligated to respond to, they get irate, and/or they attempt some kind of bargaining/arguing. I’m not going to say I’d never do any of these things myself (however unproductive) but it shocks me that some people think they can change your mind by arguing about why you passed on them. It’s all very uncomfortable and feels like you are navigating a field of land mines. [0] PHP 6 never was released, it went from 5->7, though you can find books on “PHP 6” because they were printed before it was clear the version was going to be skipped. [1] Angular 1 vs 2+ is essentially a completely different framework. Anyone working in web tech should be aware of that fact.

g-b-r 2y ago
Just as in personal relations, sending a final message rather than ghosting can be uncomfortable, but that's not an excuse not to do it. If/when you don't want to interact further, just say it (hopefully stating the reasons, such as that the hiring process is imperfect, but the company can't devote infinite resources to it); after you did that it's completely fine to ignore further inquiries.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  This is exactly what I did. Everyone got an email no matter how uncomfortable, I would engage 1-2 emails past that then make it clear that I wasn't going to reply again.
  - Shorn 2y ago
    How often would you say you got these negative interactions (anything other than a "thank you" or silence)?
nickjj 2y ago
I would much rather get an honest answer in any scenario, no matter what it is. There are people out there who would take that feedback and reflect on it in a positive way. How else can you improve or be mindful of things in the future if you don't even know what happened or what went wrong? I sort of feel like the people who don't give honest feedback or ghost aren't trying to protect anyone's feelings or are avoiding conflict. They themselves have something going on internally that bothers them when it comes to giving or receiving feedback. They are maybe letting unrelated previous experiences dictate their current life and decisions. So now you have 2 types of people. People who want honest feedback and people who never give it. You can't force either one to do the other thing so we're always left with 1 side feeling unhappy. It doesn't make sense to me that this is how most folks are ok with operating.
- rmgk 2y ago
  Giving good individual feedback requires effort and is low priority. Those things tend to not happen without requiring complicated feelings to be involved.

pbronez 2y ago

Yes. People don't like being confronted with their shortcomings. Cultivate humility - you'll learn more.

twiceeaten 2y ago

I agree only in part. Specifically, I agree that rejection brings out the worst in people and sometimes it's better to not engage in follow-up conversations about rejection. I have interviewed my share of problematic applicants and we should not make excuses for employers to behave badly due to bad applicant behavior. Courtesy starts with the giver. If someone chooses to not be equipped, then you have done your job by attempting courtesy, nothing more is required. While there's a lot of awful behavior, I have found complete silence (no initial rejection) triggers worse behavior. For example, silence leads to people constantly reaching out, rightfully wanting to know status. Moreover, it greatly encourages the psychotic people to bombard you with craziness via any means of contact. For that reason, an initial response that a person is rejected is enough typically. Courtesy is not hard and saying so is concerning. While people may have different reactions, a simple sentence is a courtesy and a thank you, nothing beyond that is required. Still, I admit reading this site sometimes makes me think basic humanity is a challenge for many people. Unfortunately, those people seem to be in charge of hiring at many companies. All you have to do in a job context is respond at least once - thank you, but no. If the other person does not see a simple email as courtesy, that is their problem. A response is a universal courtesy, no response is a universal insult. I can understand not wanting to engage further, however. No response at all is also demeaning. It takes seconds to formulate an initial rejection response. If someone presses you, simply reply with that dreaded canned response + simply use their name. If you want to further personalize things in either case, you pick 1 detail you remember to sound more genuine, which for a functioning human should be quite easy. If you want something more dry in a follow-up, you can say that for legal reasons, you are not allowed or comfortable discussing further, but you wish the person luck. That covers all the normal people, and for crazies, you have no choice either way but at least this has a chance of getting them to go away. What you are saying is that people are not even worth seconds of your time, especially people who potentially invested hours, weeks, or even months in the process. I would hope any reasonable person is above this. Lastly, a response is important because it allows people to prioritize and further their job search. If you keep someone hanging, it can have huge implications that I should not have to explain. There are many other problems it can cause as well. As an example, I once applied for a job I thought I wanted because the company confused me with someone else and their SOP was silence. They stopped responding to my inquiries which insulted me so much, I rejected their subsequent offer when the mistake was caught. Another example - a company scheduled interviews for me and just didn't show up, making me have to leave my wife alone in the hospital at the time which I only did because my job search was that important at that time financially. Honestly, I'm so tired of the attitude of companies and people on here validating unprofessional and awful behavior. If it were legal and without issue, I'd make a list and publicly shame. The only redemption is that when someone can't even be human enough to respond to you, working at their company would be a miserable experience. Still, that does not help when you waste weeks, months, or even years going through this nonsense with ego tripping weirdos doing hiring these days, ghost jobs, and complete psychos. I've been interviewing candidates for over 20 years and I do not say this lightly that the current process is disgusting, awful, and unacceptable at a disturbingly large number of companies.