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Here is my experience with RedHat (and I don't care if they never considered me again - after this I think RedHat is not a place I want to work for anymore). I

by yeukhon 13y ago

Here is my experience with RedHat (and I don't care if they never considered me again - after this I think RedHat is not a place I want to work for anymore). I submitted my application and the recruiter contacted me a few hours later over email. He said I am put into a candidate pool. I didn't get what that mean but I thought it was cool and it was fast. I was interestd in developing opens tack technology this year and thought it would be cool to work as an intern with RedHat developing openstack. The recruiter told me to follow him on twitter. I asked him questions on twitter but he didn't respond to my questions on twitter. I thought it was my privacy setting. Okay, let's move on. I finally got an email a few weeks later. It said something like this: "After an interview with you we think you lack of the requirements we are looking for..." (again that's just from my vague memory) But I clearly remember it said "I HAD AN INTERVIEW". What bullshit is that? I never had any interview with any redhat person. I was never contacted beyond just putitng me in a candidate pool. I sent an email back and asked what he meant by interview. He never responded. Well. Fuck you. That kind of generic response pisses me off and has crushed my dream working on openstack (and anything have to do with redhat in general). So even for well-established companies, please stop sending generic emails like that. If you have to, please select an appropriate one. In my case say "we have filled up the role. Sorry!" Find a human to be a recruiter. That recruiter is a damn machine acting like a real human. after that I was lucky to get an offer from another company. Well. I am so damn happy that I didn't get into RedHat. Totally worth it. It's like I will never work for LinkedIn anyway

coffeemug 13y ago
Large companies like RedHat have thousands of candidates, and managing a process like that well is really, really hard. Someone was probably going through a batch of resumes in their internal system and accidentally checked the wrong box. Your comment is actually a wonderful example why sending unsolicited feedback to candidates is a bad idea. If I take half an hour after a long hard day to write thoughtful feedback for you, I really don't want to deal with "what bullshit is that?/fuck you!/I'll tell everyone I know your company sucks" because I accidentally phrase things poorly or confuse an aspect of your interview with five other interviews I did that day.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Well, I do understand that part. Hence I didn't emailed him for the first few weeks. I normally wait a month (for my summer intern I waited two months to send an email on status). But it seems like I wasn't important. If it were a mistake, my email back to him should be visible. Let's blame email system (spam).
  - fecak 13y ago
    To be clear, you were applying for an internship (as you said in your post), and now you write "seems like I wasn't important". I'm not sure how we are defining important, but there are tons of people that apply for internships at places like Red Hat, and I'm not sure how many would classify themselves as "important" (or at least important to Red Hat). I don't mean this as any disrespect to you, and companies should make efforts to make applicants feel comfortable and valued, but you are probably making more of a point for not sending specific feedback by your reaction. The sour grapes stuff is probably the most common reaction to the problem, and detailed or generic rejections can have that same negative result.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      interns are just as important as full time. Any one interested in helping a company to grow is considered important. I did send n email back and asked to clarify the "you had an interview with us" part nicely.
      - fecak 13y ago
        "Interns are just as important as full time" in what sense exactly? Of course interns have a level of importance, but I think your overestimating some things here. If you were a senior level engineer, you may be more likely to get a personalized response. If you interview to be the CTO of Red Hat, I'm guessing you would not get an automated email response when you are not chosen. Let's not kid ourselves that there is not a hierarchy of importance. It's based on merit and contribution (or potential contribution in the case of an applicant), and it's a bit naive to think that applicants for internships will always be given the same level of respect as experienced professionals.

by yeukhon 13y ago

coffeemug 13y ago

Large companies like RedHat have thousands of candidates, and managing a process like that well is really, really hard. Someone was probably going through a batch of resumes in their internal system and accidentally checked the wrong box. Your comment is actually a wonderful example why sending unsolicited feedback to candidates is a bad idea. If I take half an hour after a long hard day to write thoughtful feedback for you, I really don't want to deal with "what bullshit is that?/fuck you!/I'll tell everyone I know your company sucks" because I accidentally phrase things poorly or confuse an aspect of your interview with five other interviews I did that day.

yeukhon 13y ago
Well, I do understand that part. Hence I didn't emailed him for the first few weeks. I normally wait a month (for my summer intern I waited two months to send an email on status). But it seems like I wasn't important. If it were a mistake, my email back to him should be visible. Let's blame email system (spam).
- fecak 13y ago
  To be clear, you were applying for an internship (as you said in your post), and now you write "seems like I wasn't important". I'm not sure how we are defining important, but there are tons of people that apply for internships at places like Red Hat, and I'm not sure how many would classify themselves as "important" (or at least important to Red Hat). I don't mean this as any disrespect to you, and companies should make efforts to make applicants feel comfortable and valued, but you are probably making more of a point for not sending specific feedback by your reaction. The sour grapes stuff is probably the most common reaction to the problem, and detailed or generic rejections can have that same negative result.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    interns are just as important as full time. Any one interested in helping a company to grow is considered important. I did send n email back and asked to clarify the "you had an interview with us" part nicely.
    - fecak 13y ago
      "Interns are just as important as full time" in what sense exactly? Of course interns have a level of importance, but I think your overestimating some things here. If you were a senior level engineer, you may be more likely to get a personalized response. If you interview to be the CTO of Red Hat, I'm guessing you would not get an automated email response when you are not chosen. Let's not kid ourselves that there is not a hierarchy of importance. It's based on merit and contribution (or potential contribution in the case of an applicant), and it's a bit naive to think that applicants for internships will always be given the same level of respect as experienced professionals.