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Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

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Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#41

Post by Symbiote »

geebee wrote: post #8

I get it, lawsuits. There's very little upside for the employer, the benefit would go to the candidate, and the liability is on the employer. I suppose one benefit for the employer might be that the candidate could improve, should there be an opportunity to interview again later. It's a problem, though. I once did a 7 hour take home exam, didn't hear back for a month, and finally got the one line rejection listed in…

Maybe ask if it's worthwhile applying in the future?

Google recommended I did, then phoned me a little over a year after that rejection. Presumably I didn't do too badly on their tests up to that point.

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#44

Post by readams »

vonmoltke wrote: post #34
jzwinck wrote: post #4

Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. If you get rejected and don't know why, take heart: a year from now the company also won't know why. You can apply again as if it were Groundhog Day.

> Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. I don't get this mentality. A) I seem to be unaware of the rash of lawsuits befalling companies that provide feedback. I admit I just may be ignorant of them. B) It seems that not recording reasons actually makes the company more vulnerable. When you combine a "preponderan…

The lawsuits are discrimination lawsuits. Candidates will allege racial, gender, or age discrimination. If you given them any sort of justification, plaintiff's council will go searching through your organization for anyone who works there already and fails to pass whatever justification you provided.

Then, jurors are free to infer that the real reason why intentional bias and the justification was just a cover story.

This is not theoretical. This is the playbook.

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#45

Post by basseq »

nsedlet wrote: post #35

At HireArt (W12) we've been working on a feedback feature for awhile and are close to finally releasing it. We have a fairly rigorous screening process, and every candidate is assessed by a grader according to a rubric. Our thinking was that if we provide this assessment to employers, surely we could provide it to candidates, too. When we spoke to a labor attorney about this awhile back, their first reaction was basi…

You're dead right: hiring is hard. Hiring with quality training, repeatable processes, feedback loops, etc. is incredibly hard. For most companies, whether they like to admit it or not, a B-grade process is "good enough". And the ROI to take it to A+ is either non-existent or hard to prove.

Here's the thing, though: that doesn't mean your labor attorney is wrong. One employee says something to a rejected candidate that could be interpreted as labor discrimination, and it doesn't matter how rigorous your process is, you're still in for the cost and time of a lawsuit to prove it.

How do you build the 0.1% risk of a company-ending lawsuit into your business case?

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#46

Post by mhurron »

vonmoltke wrote: post #34
jzwinck wrote: post #4

Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. If you get rejected and don't know why, take heart: a year from now the company also won't know why. You can apply again as if it were Groundhog Day.

> Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. I don't get this mentality. A) I seem to be unaware of the rash of lawsuits befalling companies that provide feedback. I admit I just may be ignorant of them. B) It seems that not recording reasons actually makes the company more vulnerable. When you combine a "preponderan…

Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not having hiring records on anyone is not proof that a company is discriminating.

> that is the reason given in discussions about why it is so hard to fire people for going though the PIP process instead of just cutting them loose

That is a different case though. In the event of a firing, you have their work performance leading up to that event to take into account. If you have a black woman who has worked at a place for many years with favorable job reviews who is then suddenly let go after a new white manager is hired, they can present their work history at that company as an argument that they were let go for less than legitimate reasons.

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#47

Post by gomox »

vonmoltke wrote: post #34
jzwinck wrote: post #4

Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. If you get rejected and don't know why, take heart: a year from now the company also won't know why. You can apply again as if it were Groundhog Day.

> Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. I don't get this mentality. A) I seem to be unaware of the rash of lawsuits befalling companies that provide feedback. I admit I just may be ignorant of them. B) It seems that not recording reasons actually makes the company more vulnerable. When you combine a "preponderan…

Most large companies stay out of a 10-foot-pole range of anything that legal labels with the L word (liability). The fact that not giving reasons because of liability is commonly accepted wisdom in recruiting means that deviating from it takes a lot of work.

Specifically, a talent acquisition manager/executive would have to make a business case about how exposing the company to liability from outsiders would somehow pay for itself.

The only plausible argument that I can think of is that you could market your recruiting process as transparent and then get some additional candidates based on that. But.. can you really postulate that some candidate that is reading about your recruiting process in depth would be highly enticed by this to actually apply, as opposed to verbiage about other perks? Can you guarantee that having a free "recruiter feedback on your application" service available to anyone out there won't create a great incentive for random candidates to apply just for that? What if there is a data leak and all this prejudicial, personally identifiable information ends up on the web?

That's just what came to mind in 5 seconds. If the argument for creafting, storing and providing the rejection information sounds like a stretch, it's because it's a tough sell.

About the actual legal requirement, OFCCP compliant companies have to record disposition reasons for candidates that they don't hire when some conditions are met (candidates have expressed interest in a position and they were evaluated based on "substantial information"). In my experience, these disposition reasons try deliberately to be vague. Regular companies don't, and most likely won't because of the liability issues mentioned above. For reference, here's the go-to FAQ on OFCCP requirements: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/offaqs.htm

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#48

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

oriolid wrote: post #16
jzwinck wrote: post #4

Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally. If you get rejected and don't know why, take heart: a year from now the company also won't know why. You can apply again as if it were Groundhog Day.

It really, really depends on the company. A certain company has interviewed and rejected me three times, for the last two times the interviewers showed up with lists of questions from previous times.

Did you get the questions right the second and third times?

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#49

Post by thaumasiotes »

cortesoft wrote: post #23

The reason is almost always "There was a better candidate"

This doesn't really describe large companies, which often aren't hiring to fill specific roles. If that was the only thing stopping them from hiring you, they'd just hire the both of you.

Re: Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates?

#50

Post by whitegrape »

jeffwass wrote: post #24
joezydeco wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pray you don't get the same people interviewing you again...

Why? From the other side of the desk, wouldn't you be impressed if you had a candidate come in for another interview, and they explicitly tell you that you had interviewed them previously and they understood their weaknesses at that time. And they're looking forward to show you just how much their chops have improved in the meantime, and then proceed to do just that?

If I'm very proud of my company, I might be flattered that they too want to work at the same company so much. If my company's just a'ight, I'll think "why? and where have you been working in the meantime?" Additionally I might feel a little sorry for them, at first. If they actually do amaze me with how much they've improved, I would kick myself for failing to notice their potential the first time, and recommend them for immediate hire. I don't think I'd ever feel impressed with them. They'd deserve to feel impressed with themselves though, unless they totally blow it / show no improvement in which case I'm back to just feeling sad for them...
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