Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback • Hacker News Board

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#71

Post by pandaman » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #53

wgerard wrote: post #10

We interviewed a lot of hiring managers/etc. while we were working on a previous business in the hiring space. As part of that, we asked them this very question. The fear of litigation was by far the biggest reason we heard, but there were some other popular reasons (mostly relating around conflict avoidance): * Notably, giving feedback feels like an opening for the candidate to submit a rebuttal instead of ending th…

We give people actionable feedback at work because we expect the team to benefit from the feedback. What's the benefit of feedback to someone you already decided won't be on the team?

If you decided that the person won't be on any team in the entire company ever then, go ahead and ghost. Otherwise, you might want to consider that both the company and the candidate will change over time but having been rudely ghosted in the past will always be an issue between them.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#72

Post by hinkley » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

wgerard wrote: post #56

hinkley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We give people actionable feedback at work because we expect the team to benefit from the feedback. What's the benefit of feedback to someone you already decided won't be on the team?

It's not meant to be a benefit for the company, other than good PR I suppose. It's meant to be a gesture of good faith towards the candidate that invested their time and energy to interviewing with you, i.e. at least the candidate didn't walk away with nothing from the process.

Many many years ago I applied at IOActive as a security hobbyist on the off-chance they were willing to take a chance on someone trying to switch specialties.

They were not, but they were super, super nice about it. I was on all their email lists and they would reach out from time to time. In fact the founder took me out to lunch at least three years later just to catch up and see where I was.

He didn't have to do any of this. I've never had anyone but consultancy recruiters keep in touch for that long, and they often feel fake and exploitative.

There was an old saying in Seattle that 'Seattle is a small town'. From a software perspective, there are a ton of people in the city, but up until pretty recently you were virtually guaranteed to bump into old coworkers again, or at least work with people who also worked with them. It's no good pissing off people who aren't a fit for this job now but might be a great fit in three years. They may remember how you treated them... Google.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#73

Post by tpmx » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #65

tpmx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been interviewing job applicants for a very long time (15 years or so). I've never given any detailed feedback, but I have made sure that they at least get a "sorry, we can't offer you a job" form letter quickly. Noone has ever complained, except: At one job, we did run into a pretty annoying situation. We were recruiting mostly from a particular pool of uni grads, and everyone was communicating via the same par…

I don't see what's hard about the typical "unfortunately, we cannot hire everyone who expresses interest in this position..." boilerplate?

In this case, the failed candidate started detailing things we had done "wrong" in a very detailed and also entirely incorrect way.

(Again: our problem was that we were mostly recruiting from a small, geographically localized online forum.)

People in general are naturally curious about details of what's supposed to be a block box procedure. So they'll be drawn like a moth to flame like to something like this, even if the moth is a crazy person.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#74

Post by RichardCA » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

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.

Back when I was a junior developer / PC support guy, I was put in the position of helping interview replacements when my manager left the company (traditional IT manager role).

We interviewed three people and then it was decided to let the manager role go unfilled. So I ended up being the one to call them.

Two of them handled it with grace and professionalism. The third decided to go over my head and call the VP who was in charge of IT at the time and have a surly conversation.

So the moral is - transparency might make you feel like a good person but from a business perspective there are valid reasons not to choose that path.

Also - part of working in HR is that you must deal with the general public - which means people will be unpredictable and you have to take worst-case scenarios into consideration.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#75

Post by mdturnerphys » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #67

mdturnerphys wrote: post #43

A couple years ago I took a full day off work to interview with a midsized startup that had been after me for months. Halfway through the interviews it started to become clear that they'd expect me to work 60-hour weeks, with regular weekend travel, for less pay than I was making at my 9-5. In the final interview with one of the founders I told him I wasn't willing to do that, so I wasn't surprised when the head of H…

So you expect the person setting the policy to feel free to break it at will? That would be a terrible example, even if the head of HR set it unilaterally, which, as someone else mentioned, is unlikely. Furthermore, if it WAS unilateral, wouldn't that mean that the head of HR who set the policy was the biggest believer in said policy?

You're right, that does sound like unjustified whining on my part. I looked up the email to check why it might have rubbed me the wrong way. The reason actually given for not sharing feedback was privacy--mine and theirs. Protecting my privacy didn't make any sense--I'm the one asking for it. If privacy of the five interviewers was a concern they could have just anonymized a bullet or two. If they're worried about liability they should just say that.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#76

Post by hailwren » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #68

hailwren wrote: post #30

> Many job seekers take the not-recommended approach of submitting their résumés for dozens of jobs I wish I only had to apply for dozens of jobs.

What's your field and geo area? I don't think I've ever applied for more than 6 jobs in a round of looking. And more often than not I haven't even had to look. ~20 years, bay area.

It's sort of complicated. I did a boot camp, 100 applications 3 interviews 0 offers, went back to school (Harvard, the real one not the extension school) and am currently doing the summer internship grind (30 applications 3 interviews 0 offers). But I'm CS.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#77

Post by D-Coder » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #19

Sometimes there isn't much in the way of actionable feedback. The most recent position I was on the interview loop for, after a long filtering process (pre-me), we interviewed 5 candidates and chose one. In the final debrief, there were 3 very much viable candidates and significant discussion to winnow down to the one we ultimately hired. A few butterfly wing flaps could have led to a different candidate being offere…

Almost any feedback is useful. "The other candidates were a better match" — okay, perhaps I'm applying to the wrong jobs. "You failed roll of the dice" — so I did everything right and should keep doing that.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#78

Post by RockIslandLine » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

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.

"Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual."

It's probably at least 50% of my interviews. Roughly 1/4 of my interviews have any kind of follow up at all.

It doesn't hurt to tell people that someone else was hired. Closure is important to job seekers.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#79

Post by rconti » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

hailwren wrote: post #76

rconti wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your field and geo area? I don't think I've ever applied for more than 6 jobs in a round of looking. And more often than not I haven't even had to look. ~20 years, bay area.

It's sort of complicated. I did a boot camp, 100 applications 3 interviews 0 offers, went back to school (Harvard, the real one not the extension school) and am currently doing the summer internship grind (30 applications 3 interviews 0 offers). But I'm CS.

Ugh. I hear that first step can be rough. I took a non-traditional path so it wasn't an issue for me. I didn't realize internships were so hard to get, though.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#80

Post by yborg » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #41

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…

That doesn't excuse neglecting to send a rejection notice for candidates that were initially considered. If a company contacts me, I expect the conversation to be concluded formally. I do not expect to be ghosted.

I don't expect to be contacted again after a screening conversation or a simple application, but if I am interviewed in-person by multiple people I consider it common courtesy to provide at least a from letter "No". This is becoming very uncommon these days for the various reasons given, as well as the fact that there is little downside to being rude - it's not like the candidate can do anything to the interviewing company.

However, in my own hiring I always send a thank you for the candidates time, because I'm old, and manners, etc. but also I consider it the long game. You never know when you will run into someone again and in what context, and the extra effort to email a "thanks for interviewing with us" is tiny compared to potential upside/downside.