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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

#301

This is probably me just screaming into the void, but I'll provide my experience anyway. I've found the entire "finding a new job" / interviewing process to be an incredibly alienating process. It truly brings me despair. I've been working in IT for my entire professional career. I've worked as an analyst, project manager, and I'm currently a developer. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a phenomenal developer, but…

I'm interested about your entire interview experience, but I really would like more info about this bit:

>I've been asked to do push-ups in an interview

What?

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#302
post #203
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work at pays a lowish rate for our 10 hour take home project, which is also the last step of the interview process. I think this is a great practice, as this shows that we're taking this seriously and are willing to compensate for your time.

Does your company then issue 1099 forms (assuming US taxation)?

$600 is the cutoff for requiring a tax form to be issued.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#303
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large company can afford bad hires. You can shuffle them around or find something they can do. A small company can not afford that luxury so they have to be more careful in their hiring. A bad hire completely distracts a small team.

Why is simply letting the bad employee go not mentioned as an option? We had a new hire that didn't work out at a place I used to work at. Fired after 3 months. No hard feelings, he took it well and found a good job a few weeks later. Everyone is happy.

> Fired after 3 months.

Which means you probably went 6 months or more without a role properly filled.

On a small team that's a huge dent. For half a year.

Not to mention the time spent in the hiring process itself, which you now get to repeat.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rejected from hundreds of jobs Sounds extreme. Were you applying to random jobs?

This year alone I’ve applied to over 800 C# or .Net related positions and have yet to get any offer. It’s incredibly difficult for some of us unfortunately. Precisely 886 if anyone was interested

How popular is .NET in your market? Have you considered learning other technologies to enhance your skillset?

I would recommend that you attend local user group meetings and talk to people. Weak social connections are an excellent source of referrals.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if people cared at all about interviewees they’d give some semblance of honest feedback rather than “no thanks.” A former Apple architect once gave me "honest feedback" about the languages I work with. It was his opinion about industry direction, that 8 years later, was 100% wrong. (Although I don't think I was a good match for his startup.) That's why I consider honest feedback flame bait.

You take the advice with grain of salt. Still better than receiving no feedback. I don't think it is productive to think of it as flame bait.

> Still better than receiving no feedback

If he had said, "I need someone with more experience in language XXX," it would have been 100% true for his case, and 100% appropriate for me. I can read the market for technology.

Instead, he basically said, "you have a lot of experience in language YYY, which isn't going anywhere." That was quite subjective, as language YYY has significantly more use and investment since our conversation.

It also isn't really appropriate, because the job was in language XXX, not language YYY. Assuming he hired me, we'd have to agree that my learning curve in language XXX was appropriate for his needs in a developer. (He clearly needed someone who could hop in without much of a learning curve.)

(Remember, sometimes you hire the candidate and expect them to learn the stack on the job, other times you hire someone because they are already an expert in the stack.)

Debates on languages like this are really just pissing matches. IMO, dressing up the debate as "constructive feedback on my merit as a candidate" hurt his credibility in his leadership role.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#306
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Phone screen from HR? Maybe not. Though I'd prefer a simple form email "sorry, not interested". As noted elsewhere, build it into the HRIS - as soon as the applicants status is flipped to "No", automatically generate the email.

Phone call with hiring manager or team members? I expect a rejection of some sort.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#307
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is simply letting the bad employee go not mentioned as an option? We had a new hire that didn't work out at a place I used to work at. Fired after 3 months. No hard feelings, he took it well and found a good job a few weeks later. Everyone is happy.

> Fired after 3 months. Which means you probably went 6 months or more without a role properly filled. On a small team that's a huge dent. For half a year. Not to mention the time spent in the hiring process itself, which you now get to repeat.

That’s one of the things. The other is some people are more litigious than others. When that happens, even though they don’t have a case, it can result in distractions —gags, evidence gathering, being called as witness, etc. On occasion companies will rather settle and get the distraction over with than go to court because it drains a small team who are now weary when hiring.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#308

This is probably me just screaming into the void, but I'll provide my experience anyway. I've found the entire "finding a new job" / interviewing process to be an incredibly alienating process. It truly brings me despair. I've been working in IT for my entire professional career. I've worked as an analyst, project manager, and I'm currently a developer. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a phenomenal developer, but…

I'm interested about your entire interview experience, but I really would like more info about this bit: > I've been asked to do push-ups in an interview What?

It was what it sounds like; I was interviewing for a project manager role at a IT security company. The lead PM in the middle of her interview questions said "Drop down and give me five push-ups." I didn't think it was that strange, so I did it, but everyone I told about that experience thought it was incredibly strange. Her reasoning was that it showed that I was willing to follow orders, or something.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#309
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people frequently request justification when they're rejected romantically. This is also why people get ghosted while dating nowadays. Many of the same reasons at play.

> people frequently request justification when they're rejected romantically. This is also why people get ghosted while dating nowadays. I'm not sure I understand this. I'm under the impression that ghosting people while dating is a new ish phenomenon. Is requesting justifications a similarly newish thing? If one didn't change, why would the other? It doesn't seem like we've gotten to the root of the matter.

Not sure how you're defining newish. It was routinely used as a storyline in 80s and 90s sitcoms (shows up a lot in Seinfeld, say) and I don't think it was new then.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#310
This just happened to me and I was kind of shocked. I haven’t taken a formal interview in a long time, but 0 feedback, not even a thanks for your time, seems potentially damaging as well. Especially in the long run. Word of mouth is a powerful thing and I’m definitely not going to say kind things behind closed doors after this.
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