4 ms·

What's the problem just telling it straight - Hi Bob, It's Jim at CompanyX. I discussed the interview with the team. It's difficult for me to say this an

by meric 13y ago

What's the problem just telling it straight - Hi Bob, It's Jim at CompanyX. I discussed the interview with the team. It's difficult for me to say this and I don't know how to say it properly, but we think you're pretty good but doesn't quite clear the bar for us. We'd like someone who has more experience in X, Y, Z, but in our interview, we thought A, B, C. I know our interview probably is no where near perfect and may not have presented the entirety of your skills, but unfortunately this is our interview process and we will have to abide by it. You're certainly welcome to try apply for jobs at our company in the future.. XYZABC... Thanks for taking the time to interview with us, and good luck! 'Good fit' tells nothing to the candidate what they can improve, and deters them from applying at your company in the future when they further develop their skills and attitude.

coffeemug 13y ago
I used to do that. Some people took it really well and thanked me, others got really defensive, upset, even angry. I'm happy to put in the time if people ask, but I found it's just not worth dealing with the emotional fallout of some percentage of the rejected candidates. (Unfortunately these folks ruin things for everyone else)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
badclient 13y ago
Because my experience says that when you do the above, a good percentage of the candidates will disagree and debate with you about your assessment of them. Then when you just ignore them, you just look like a douche, not to mention there are candidates who will never give up and go to any lengths to express their disagreement with you. If you were only hiring one position for the year, you could may be do this. But when you are constantly hiring, this does not scale and can easily bog down down recruitment. I also feel that I am not in a position to give advice or feedback to someone I've barely known. Just because I didn't hire the guy does not mean that I was correct in not hiring him. At some level, we'll never know. So it's pretty hard to even have feedback that I can be 100% confident about.
- wwweston 13y ago
  So here's a question -- if you send out a standard rejection notice, and someone came back to you and said: "Thanks for letting me know; sorry to hear we won't be working together at this time. "If you have any suggestions to give for additions to my skills and portfolio that might make for a more competitive application at some point in the future, I'd love to hear them!" Would you take the time to give any hints then? I occasionally send a note to this effect when I miss out on a job that I wanted enough I'd love to be able to reapply later for a similar position. But I've received a reply precisely once.
  - coffeemug 13y ago
    I always send constructive feedback if someone sends me a followup email like that. We're a small company though, getting a useful reply out of a large organization can be much harder unless you manage to get an e-mail of one of your interviewers.
throwaway420 13y ago
It would be nice if it was that simple, but if you accidentally word something the wrong way you can open yourself up to a mess of problems. Employment lawsuits and accusations of discrimination can be very nasty and costly. If this wasn't a concern, I would gladly take the time out of my day to write a nice note like this. Even if they're not hired, many technical people will tell their friends about their good experience with you and help improve your reputation in the tech community.
- Snoptic 13y ago
  That FUD is oft repeated, but frivolous lawsuits can coke regardless of what you say.
mattygreenburg 13y ago
I think being specific is great and letting them know what they did well is good. Phrasing it more in line with we found someone with a bit more experience in XYZ can help and even making it seem like if they take some months to brush up on... lets say python... they could be a stronger fit down the road. Keep it honest, but avoid specifics.Too many people can nitpick rejection but if you imply there was someone just a better fit and give them some points on what makes someone (even if that someone isn't identified yet just an ideal profile) will help the candidate in the long run. Also, if you've gotten them deep in process like an on-site CALL THEM. 4 hour interviews and a technical challenge, you can spend some time giving them a ring. Especially Sr People don't make them feel like you wasted your time and sent a canned rejection.
dxhdr 13y ago
I'd much rather receive the shorter response without criticism. If I really want the job and am disappointed in the decision, I'd probably send a follow up e-mail and explicitly ask for feedback and what I could improve to work with the company. If I've got several opportunities and one of them doesn't think it'll be a fit, I don't need or want a paragraph explaining why I'm deficient. Having been on the other side of the hiring coin the majority of my career, when a fit is bad it's usually just that -- the candidate isn't incompetent or a bad person it's just not quite what our particular company is looking for. There's no useful or relevant "advice" to give to the candidate other than explaining in great deal the idiosyncrasies of our team culture and hiring process... this isn't useful. It's not like we have the secret recipe to what makes for awesome programmers and have license to dispense that upon all who fail our review.
pbreit 13y ago
My experience is that "fit" is almost always near the top of the list.
6d0debc071 13y ago
Criticising people's a pretty risky thing to do, and your letter's a decent example of why. People are gonna have a lot going on around how they perceive things that are so intensely personal. For example, my reactions to: 'Unfortunately this is our interview process and we have to abide by it'? That's not misfortune, that's you dodging what responsibility's rightfully yours. You're a startup, you could not abide by it if you wanted to. 'It's difficult for me to say this and I don't know how to say it properly, but we think you're pretty good but doesn't quite clear the bar for us.' Don't quite clear the bar? You're potentially making an absolute measure of someone's ability there as not good enough. They may very well have good skills in some areas not relevant to you, or just interview poorly - or you might be a cruddy interviewer. Stay away from making absolute statements about people as unified individuals. We can accept, sometimes, some unlovely facts about ourselves - it's difficult to accept that as an entire person we're not good enough. # I suppose I might write a similar letter as something like - ----------------------- Dear X Thank you for spending the time to interview with us on DAY. On this occasion there was a more qualified candidate. However, if you further developed X Y Z, your skills would be a better fit for the hiring profile. If you'd like to be kept aware of our vacancies in the future please sign up for our hiring list .... Yours sincerely, Ms First-name Second-name ----------------------- Again though, you probably feel differently about a lot of that than I would. Telling someone their faults can be either a nice thing to do or a nasty thing to do, but it's difficult to do it either way without the risk of hurting someone. Some of that's in how you phrase it - 'you fail here' is generally worse than 'you could do better here.' Cloaking it in apologies, even when they're true, rarely goes well though IME. Someone who's just been hurt is rarely going to care that much that you're sorry unless they care a lot about you. (Might give them a target though if you're admitting fault.) They're gonna be caring about themselves, that's where their attention's just been directed after all. So, talk about that if you want to be nice. What's in it for them? How can you make them feel better about the whole thing? Tricky to know how to do that without knowing the person fairly well. Generally, I wouldn't give feedback unless asked for it. It feels too presumptuous on such a fragile relationship.
prostoalex 13y ago
Sometimes a person not good enough to be an employee #10 is good enough to be an employee #100, when you can pair him up with a mentor that can guide them on personal growth. With a letter like that you've just burned that bridge.
logn 13y ago
To really tell it straight would be: Hi Bob, It's Jim at CompanyX. Hiring is complicated and needs many people to agree on a particular candidate. Often, we don't. Unfortunately, we couldn't all come to agree on hiring you. It's no reflection on you as a candidate and maybe only a reflection on our skills as interviewers and recruiters. We thank you for your time and wish you all the best. Certainly feel free to apply again, and many of us here, including me, may have been bad hires who will be fired soon. Cheers, Jim
- nairteashop 13y ago
  This is very good but just a different way of saying what coffeemug suggested, i.e. no details except that "we don't want to hire you" (as opposed to meric's idea of giving specifics.) I also think the generic approach is best; in my experience also, giving specifics can open up a can of worms.

by meric 13y ago

coffeemug 13y ago

I used to do that. Some people took it really well and thanked me, others got really defensive, upset, even angry. I'm happy to put in the time if people ask, but I found it's just not worth dealing with the emotional fallout of some percentage of the rejected candidates. (Unfortunately these folks ruin things for everyone else)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

badclient 13y ago

Because my experience says that when you do the above, a good percentage of the candidates will disagree and debate with you about your assessment of them. Then when you just ignore them, you just look like a douche, not to mention there are candidates who will never give up and go to any lengths to express their disagreement with you. If you were only hiring one position for the year, you could may be do this. But when you are constantly hiring, this does not scale and can easily bog down down recruitment. I also feel that I am not in a position to give advice or feedback to someone I've barely known. Just because I didn't hire the guy does not mean that I was correct in not hiring him. At some level, we'll never know. So it's pretty hard to even have feedback that I can be 100% confident about.

wwweston 13y ago
So here's a question -- if you send out a standard rejection notice, and someone came back to you and said: "Thanks for letting me know; sorry to hear we won't be working together at this time. "If you have any suggestions to give for additions to my skills and portfolio that might make for a more competitive application at some point in the future, I'd love to hear them!" Would you take the time to give any hints then? I occasionally send a note to this effect when I miss out on a job that I wanted enough I'd love to be able to reapply later for a similar position. But I've received a reply precisely once.
- coffeemug 13y ago
  I always send constructive feedback if someone sends me a followup email like that. We're a small company though, getting a useful reply out of a large organization can be much harder unless you manage to get an e-mail of one of your interviewers.

throwaway420 13y ago

It would be nice if it was that simple, but if you accidentally word something the wrong way you can open yourself up to a mess of problems. Employment lawsuits and accusations of discrimination can be very nasty and costly. If this wasn't a concern, I would gladly take the time out of my day to write a nice note like this. Even if they're not hired, many technical people will tell their friends about their good experience with you and help improve your reputation in the tech community.

Snoptic 13y ago
That FUD is oft repeated, but frivolous lawsuits can coke regardless of what you say.

mattygreenburg 13y ago

I think being specific is great and letting them know what they did well is good. Phrasing it more in line with we found someone with a bit more experience in XYZ can help and even making it seem like if they take some months to brush up on... lets say python... they could be a stronger fit down the road. Keep it honest, but avoid specifics.Too many people can nitpick rejection but if you imply there was someone just a better fit and give them some points on what makes someone (even if that someone isn't identified yet just an ideal profile) will help the candidate in the long run. Also, if you've gotten them deep in process like an on-site CALL THEM. 4 hour interviews and a technical challenge, you can spend some time giving them a ring. Especially Sr People don't make them feel like you wasted your time and sent a canned rejection.

dxhdr 13y ago

I'd much rather receive the shorter response without criticism. If I really want the job and am disappointed in the decision, I'd probably send a follow up e-mail and explicitly ask for feedback and what I could improve to work with the company. If I've got several opportunities and one of them doesn't think it'll be a fit, I don't need or want a paragraph explaining why I'm deficient. Having been on the other side of the hiring coin the majority of my career, when a fit is bad it's usually just that -- the candidate isn't incompetent or a bad person it's just not quite what our particular company is looking for. There's no useful or relevant "advice" to give to the candidate other than explaining in great deal the idiosyncrasies of our team culture and hiring process... this isn't useful. It's not like we have the secret recipe to what makes for awesome programmers and have license to dispense that upon all who fail our review.

pbreit 13y ago

My experience is that "fit" is almost always near the top of the list.

6d0debc071 13y ago

Criticising people's a pretty risky thing to do, and your letter's a decent example of why. People are gonna have a lot going on around how they perceive things that are so intensely personal. For example, my reactions to: 'Unfortunately this is our interview process and we have to abide by it'? That's not misfortune, that's you dodging what responsibility's rightfully yours. You're a startup, you could not abide by it if you wanted to. 'It's difficult for me to say this and I don't know how to say it properly, but we think you're pretty good but doesn't quite clear the bar for us.' Don't quite clear the bar? You're potentially making an absolute measure of someone's ability there as not good enough. They may very well have good skills in some areas not relevant to you, or just interview poorly - or you might be a cruddy interviewer. Stay away from making absolute statements about people as unified individuals. We can accept, sometimes, some unlovely facts about ourselves - it's difficult to accept that as an entire person we're not good enough. # I suppose I might write a similar letter as something like - ----------------------- Dear X Thank you for spending the time to interview with us on DAY. On this occasion there was a more qualified candidate. However, if you further developed X Y Z, your skills would be a better fit for the hiring profile. If you'd like to be kept aware of our vacancies in the future please sign up for our hiring list .... Yours sincerely, Ms First-name Second-name ----------------------- Again though, you probably feel differently about a lot of that than I would. Telling someone their faults can be either a nice thing to do or a nasty thing to do, but it's difficult to do it either way without the risk of hurting someone. Some of that's in how you phrase it - 'you fail here' is generally worse than 'you could do better here.' Cloaking it in apologies, even when they're true, rarely goes well though IME. Someone who's just been hurt is rarely going to care that much that you're sorry unless they care a lot about you. (Might give them a target though if you're admitting fault.) They're gonna be caring about themselves, that's where their attention's just been directed after all. So, talk about that if you want to be nice. What's in it for them? How can you make them feel better about the whole thing? Tricky to know how to do that without knowing the person fairly well. Generally, I wouldn't give feedback unless asked for it. It feels too presumptuous on such a fragile relationship.

prostoalex 13y ago

Sometimes a person not good enough to be an employee #10 is good enough to be an employee #100, when you can pair him up with a mentor that can guide them on personal growth. With a letter like that you've just burned that bridge.

logn 13y ago

To really tell it straight would be: Hi Bob, It's Jim at CompanyX. Hiring is complicated and needs many people to agree on a particular candidate. Often, we don't. Unfortunately, we couldn't all come to agree on hiring you. It's no reflection on you as a candidate and maybe only a reflection on our skills as interviewers and recruiters. We thank you for your time and wish you all the best. Certainly feel free to apply again, and many of us here, including me, may have been bad hires who will be fired soon. Cheers, Jim

nairteashop 13y ago
This is very good but just a different way of saying what coffeemug suggested, i.e. no details except that "we don't want to hire you" (as opposed to meric's idea of giving specifics.) I also think the generic approach is best; in my experience also, giving specifics can open up a can of worms.