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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

#101

Post by rleigh »

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…

There are considerations other than pure technical prowess, and if you're failing on any of these counts, some feedback could really help in the future.

- your CV could have undersold much of your expertise - you may have come across badly in the interview for multiple reasons, from shyness to overconfidence - you might not have prepared sufficiently for that specific role in that particular business in some way - you might have acted in a way which gave the impression that you were immature or unprofessional, from your attire, body language or communication style

Any feedback which can help you improve selling yourself and make a better impression is useful.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#102

Post by m0zg »

That's actually not universally true. SpaceX would happily share feedback with you (or at least it did in the past). FB will share it if you request it.

This strikes me as a more "honest" and transparent position on the issue, and it also forces the company to stay well clear of race/gender/age/sexual orientation/ethnicity/etc as _latent_ disqualifiers (it's never overt, mind you), because factual justification is required in the feedback.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#103

Post by clarry »

lnanek2 wrote: post #33
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.

"Learn to feign enthusiasm better next time."

It sounds useful and depressing at the same time.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#104

Post by ghaff »

davidw wrote: post #27
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…

> Did 10+ hours of a challenge project Those things are a hard "no" for me. 10 hours of interviews... I might not like it, but at least it's symmetric. People at the company are putting their time in to the process as much as I am. But with a job, kids, hobbies, volunteer work and so on, I just pass on companies that have day+ long 'coding challenges'.

For the most part I agree. Let me offer one counterexample though.

I've never been primarily a developer but I have worked in areas where one of my primary outputs is writing. When I've hired for a similar role, if someone doesn't (for whatever reason) have writing sample(s), they're not going to get hired unless they produce one. It doesn't have to be an assignment; choose a relevant topic. But I'm not going to trust you that you've done tons of great writing if I can't see it.

And that may take a day or two.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#105

Post by the_jeremy »

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…

Telling someone the lack of a specific detriment and that it was a close decision is useful information - they know to spend their efforts on applying to other places rather than filling some imagined gap in their knowledge, which they might otherwise fixate on.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#106

Post by cwyers »

sideshowb wrote: post #98
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…

If a rebuttal allows you to identify a good candidate you would otherwise have missed, that's actually a positive thing though? (I appreciate many rebuttals won't be in this category).

Very often you don't tell a candidate they're not getting the job until you have already filled the position.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#107

Post by CapmCrackaWaka »

gwbas1c wrote: post #83

As a candidate, I've always preferred polite "thanks, but no thanks" responses in a timely manner. The other kind of feedback that I like is things like, "we need people with a different background / experience than you have." IMO, judgement feedback (you screwed up how you handle your yak shaving, or I don't think we'll get along with each other) is too subjective to be constructive. And, I get it. As someone who's…

I feel that most of the time candidates just want to hear something that puts the situation out of their control, and therefore wasn't merit based.

It's always easier to hear "I'm breaking up with you because I'm moving for a new job and want to concentrate on my career" than "I'm breaking up with you because you're awkward around my friends and aren't interesting".

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#108

Post by itronitron »

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 it's actionable feedback then the person can improve that skill and apply to the position again

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#109

Post by awinder »

kilroy123 wrote: post #13
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…

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.

The asymmetry is actually pretty funny if you think about what happens when a candidate declines an offer or ghosts a company.

If you ghost, they’re likely going to continue to contact over multiple channels. Because they want an answer so that they can take next steps. Same as a candidate.

If you say thanks but no thanks, they’re going to want to know why, is there anything they could have done differently, or try to convince you that you have it wrong.

There’s basic human reasons for these very common reactions, we just put a construct in front of one of those groups and tried to explain it away as being acceptable.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#110

Post by milesvp »

beezle wrote: post #95
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.

This is a societal problem and not just employer/jobseeker. "Friends" and aquaintances do it now. Vendors/contractors/trades people do it. Only a matter of time before our pets ghost us too.

Have you ever owned a cat? Growing up, my family consistently was adopted by neighborhood cats. It was bad enough that owners would knock on our door and ask us to not be so nice to their pets so they'd come home.
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