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Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

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Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#31

Post by BoiledCabbage »

wgerard wrote: post #23
djhalon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sending out a form letter. A form letter, email, whatever would be better than what I experienced in my last job hunt. It was silence after silence. Was the rec closed/filled? Am I even in the running or was I rejected early on and now I am just waiting for no reason? A lot of the companies used automated submission systems, which confirmed they received the resume, but they never sent out a notificatio…

Just explaining not defending: That's partially due to the volume seen with online applications. Even 2-5 person companies will sometimes receive ~20-30 resumes a day for an open job, and 90% of them will be obviously inappropriate for the job even just from glancing at their resume. It's a positive feedback loop: People have learned to "shotgun" their resume everywhere, and as a result even small companies have lear…

While a wonderful comment, it doesn't not address OPs concerns. If they are processing things as efficiently as possible by automating, when they decide a candidate isn't a fit and click a button to not consider them for the position, why not have it automatically send out a one line email so they are aware?

Or at bare minimum, automatically mail them when the position is set to closed?

None of that can be claimed due to efficiency.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#32

Post by HarryHirsch »

shortandsweet wrote: post #2

I had an interview with Facebook and was eventually turned down. I asked for feedback at least twice, and even from a person on the inside that I know personally if they could get any from the recruiter. Nothing. Then a few days later they sent me an email asking for my feedback! I n/a'd everything and made sure to list all of my interviewers names.

Why would any candidate give feedback on the interview experience? If they want feedback they can pay and I'll consult for them. Else they can get stuffed and go where the sun never shines.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#33

Post by lnanek2 »

m3kw9 wrote: post #21

The need for a feed back is mostly psychological need. You go in, you think you did well, but you didn’t get the job. The company of course found someone better than you, some one did even better. Most likely the feed back won’t help you on your next interview, and second you just need to read most of the writing which is already on the wall. If you failed a white board, you’d know it. If you aced the white board som…

I've been in hiring loops where the candidate aced all the technical stuff, but wasn't hired because he wasn't enthusiastic about the new company, just sounded like he wanted to leave his old company. With a no feedback system, he may go study harder on the technicals for no reason. So I think feedback would have definitely helped his next interview.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#34

Post by SkyPuncher »

shadow-banned wrote: post #7
shadow-banned wrote: post #6

Experienced this at a local tech company that will remain nameless. They're in the logistics space. They enable fast shipping for merchants. Did 10+ hours of a challenge project - something I would have charged $5,000+ for, including a channel-specific attribution model (with defense of my choice), a complete onboarding campaign flow with timing, and sample email creative, lead scoring model, and a bunch of pedantic…

Aside: marketers, engineers, whomever. Don't do free projects for companies. It's never worth it. I monitor their site to make sure they never use the work I presented. Waiting to pull the trigger on a lawsuit!

> Don't do free projects for companies. It's never worth it.

In my experience, I'd never get hired if I took this approach.

Work samples are quickly becoming the interview standard for engineering. In fact, I find they're often completely replacing all day onsite interviews.

I'd much rather do 8 hours of self-directed, self-paced work than get grilled on a whiteboard during an on-site.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#35

Post by thaumasiotes »

m3kw9 wrote: post #21

The need for a feed back is mostly psychological need. You go in, you think you did well, but you didn’t get the job. The company of course found someone better than you, some one did even better. Most likely the feed back won’t help you on your next interview, and second you just need to read most of the writing which is already on the wall. If you failed a white board, you’d know it. If you aced the white board som…

> The company of course found someone better than you, some one did even better.

This assumes the hiring process is good at identifying the best candidate.

A requirement for feedback could, theoretically, push companies to use methods that more accurately identified the candidates, though in practice you'd expect them to want to do that anyway so it isn't clear why needing to provide feedback would shift things.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#36

Post by dominotw »

jnwatson wrote: post #8

I'm a software developer turned temporary recruiter for a startup (just hired last position yay!). The number one reason why I don't give feedback anymore is the candidate's response. It is almost universally negative. Candidates want to get into an argument about their skills or performance. Now, everyone gets a form letter, and I don't deviate from that.

> Candidates want to get into an argument about their skills or performance.

curious why you were giving feedback in person if you expect candidates to not say anything back. what were your expectations during this process?

did you set expectations with the candidates before the call that they are not supposed to question your analysis?

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#37

Post by thaumasiotes »

timw4mail wrote: post #11

This really explains why the last time I did job hunting it was such a stab in the dark for 6 months. Job hunting in general is terrible.

I applied to HackerOne to do the exact same job I'd already been doing for a year.

They rejected me with the feedback "we asked you why you wanted to work for us, and you didn't seem enthusiastic about the company". (My answer to "why did you apply?" was "it's a good match to the work I was already doing".)

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#38

Post by georgeecollins »

djhalon wrote: post #20
jnwatson wrote: post #8

I'm a software developer turned temporary recruiter for a startup (just hired last position yay!). The number one reason why I don't give feedback anymore is the candidate's response. It is almost universally negative. Candidates want to get into an argument about their skills or performance. Now, everyone gets a form letter, and I don't deviate from that.

Thank you for sending out a form letter. A form letter, email, whatever would be better than what I experienced in my last job hunt. It was silence after silence. Was the rec closed/filled? Am I even in the running or was I rejected early on and now I am just waiting for no reason? A lot of the companies used automated submission systems, which confirmed they received the resume, but they never sent out a notificatio…

I don't bother with automated submission systems anymore. A few years ago I saw a post about a position that might have been interesting-- maybe-- so I went to the site. They started having me do an automated test along the lines of can you read English, can you solve a puzzle. The position was not junior. An applicant would be expected to have more than five years experience, maybe more than ten years, a graduate degree, etc. And they wanted to see if I could solve a puzzle? I was curious but not curious enough to spend a half hour taking a test.

The irony of the automated hiring process for me is that it is more unlikely than ever that I would ever get a job any other way than through personal contacts.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#39

Post by avip »

wgerard wrote: post #15
kilroy123 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's all very understandable, at the very least give some kind of generic rejection. This was many years ago, but one time I did an all-day onsite interview (~6 hours long) and I was ghosted and never heard from the company again. That infuriates me even to this day. At least give me some kind of news that it was a no.

Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual. Sometimes they'll dangle candidates if they're waiting to hear whether their first choice accepts, but even then it's rare not to communicate at all once you've done an on-site.

I did 2 remote coding interviews for aws, years apart, and was ghosted twice.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#40

Post by wgerard »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #31
wgerard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just explaining not defending: That's partially due to the volume seen with online applications. Even 2-5 person companies will sometimes receive ~20-30 resumes a day for an open job, and 90% of them will be obviously inappropriate for the job even just from glancing at their resume. It's a positive feedback loop: People have learned to "shotgun" their resume everywhere, and as a result even small companies have lear…

While a wonderful comment, it doesn't not address OPs concerns. If they are processing things as efficiently as possible by automating, when they decide a candidate isn't a fit and click a button to not consider them for the position, why not have it automatically send out a one line email so they are aware? Or at bare minimum, automatically mail them when the position is set to closed? None of that can be claimed du…

Two main reasons:

1. You're assuming they're using an ATS with that feature, which isn't as common as you'd think. You'd be surprised how many companies track incoming candidates using spreadsheets and email.

2. Part of that "efficiency" is not actually taking the 5 extra seconds to reject candidates, but instead just ignoring rejected candidates.

Think of it as leaving something read in your email inbox vs. choosing to archive it. Imagine you're getting 100 emails a day. Now imagine how many people you know (not necessarily you) who would leave those emails as unread in their inbox and quickly scan for important ones vs. choosing to go through each one and archive them as necessary.

> Or at bare minimum, automatically mail them when the position is set to closed?

Many places will leave positions open for opportunistic hires, e.g. see how many places are constantly hiring for "software engineer". Many job positions never actually close.

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