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No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

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Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#151

Post by bradlys »

wvenable wrote: post #122
kryptiskt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a vacuum that might be true, but software engineers know other software engineers, and there are plenty of forums for discussing hiring experiences, including HN. If a company systematically treats people they don't intend to go further with like crap, their reputation with other candidates will suffer. You'd like failed candidates to not talk shit about your company when their friend considers applying.

Not giving feedback though is not "treating them like crap" in fact the opposite is far more likely to be true (as interpreted by the non-hired candidate). You literally can't go wrong doing nothing.

You can do wrong - I do not reinterview with startups that do not give feedback at the end of the interview process. So, if you're a startup that's struggling to hire - good luck getting that candidate to come back in 6 months to a year when you're struggling. (Plenty of companies flip-flop on hire/no-hire as time goes on)

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#152

Post by majormajor »

dahfizz wrote: post #113
wolco wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want the candidate to be more likely to reapply feedback would help. In fairness I received feedback I didn't get the position because I was too chatty from a hr person who told me to act more chatty because qualified candidates on paper were failing for being too quiet. I kinda wished they didn't provide feedback because I have an opinion on the internal culture that would make me avoid them in the future.

> If you want the candidate to be more likely to reapply feedback would help. Do companies really want that? Presumably they didn't hire the candidate because they believe better candidates exist. Why invest in someone if there are better candidates readily available?

They'll have openings again in the future, and maybe at that time their desires and your skills will be a better match.

Especially when interviewing for non-intro-level stuff...

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#153

Post by ihodes »

As an anecdote, the major consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain), all provide constructive interview feedback after interviews. They do this regardless of if the candidate is moving on to the next level of not.

It's strange that other industries haven't followed suit.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#154

Post by [deleted] »

tmpz22 wrote: post #138
LordFast wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, refreshing to see that someone still remembers how to do company-building.

Most companies lack the resources/willpower to train/code-review/mentor their own employees, expecting them to do it for candidates is kind of naive. So do it at your company and have a competitive advantage.

[deleted]

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#155

Post by komali2 »

_cairn wrote: post #120

So many comments in the vein of "who has time to waste on candidates we aren't going to make an offer to?" - You are damaging your companies brand thinking this way. You want people who you reject to say to themselves "I can't wait to study up and interview here again, they said no, but I still want to work here!"

> I can't wait to study up

Surely if a rejection was for a reason that a couple weeks of study could "fix," it wasn't worth a rejection, right? Are hirers out there really being THAT picky?

I'm going through resumes right now and rejecting people if I think they need a year or more experience under their belt than what they're presenting. If it's because they know react and not vue, that's not reject worthy at all...

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#156

Post by dingribanda »

One company in particular, gave me fairly useful feedback. For a design question, I was going all over the place not taking hints from the interviewer. I did not realize that I was trying to cram everything into one hour. Anyways, I will consider them in the future. Usually other companies do not bother.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#157

Post by Impossible »

zippergz wrote: post #114
plake wrote: post #29

Because giving good feedback is hard work, and candidates won't always take it well (even if they don't sue). If the employer has already decided not to hire you, there's just not that much in it for them. For what it's worth, as an interviewer I'm happy to give feedback in person, at the end of the interview, if the candidate asks for it. It's much easier to do when you're both in the same room, and asking e.g. "is…

I hate it when candidates put me on the spot at the end of the interview, because it feels like they're trying to get me to tell them (or at least hint to them) if they're going to get an offer or not. Even if that decision were wholly within my hands (it rarely is), I'm not ready to discuss it with them at that point. The other way it sometimes goes, if I do cave and give some feedback, is that they try to disprove…

When I interviewed at a FAANG company, I had multiple candidates do this to me after it was clear that their performance wasn't great. One person even asked me if they could interview with another team. This usually happened after it was clear that the candidate didn't perform very well. It was extremely frustrating for the reasons you mentioned. These were candidates that should have gone through multiple hiring cycles and known what the process is like, that I'm only doing the coding interview and recruiters and potentially hiring managers have final say based on my feedback.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#158

Post by AmericanChopper »

wpietri wrote: post #110
AmericanChopper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could just as likely demonstrate that very few companies provide feedback to rejected candidates, or at least that when companies do, that they legally vet the feedback first (which would make you question the value and candidness of it). I have personally never heard of anybody giving or receiving it myself. So I’m not surprised that you would fail to find cases of disputes originating over it.

I give it whenever asked. Last I was interviewed, I got it at about half the places I talked to. It's a very natural thing for people to ask about. And answering questions is also pretty natural. The notion that it happens approximately never strikes me as something that needs a lot more evidence than your personal experience.

The entire premise of the OP is that candidates are “rarely told why they got the outcome that they did”. The author claims to have a survey supporting this, but they didn’t publish any of those details. I did a bit of googling and found this[0] article citing a report that claims:

* 69.7% of rejected candidates receive no feedback

* Of those that did, 77.3% said the feedback wasn’t useful

That leaves 6.8% of rejected candidates receiving useful feedback, which sounds quite plausible to me. In reality “risk of getting sued” is over simplified. If you want to give feedback to candidates, you can choose between two options. Just do it (and risk getting sued), or have your feedback legally vetted. The number of people receiving useful feedback is so small that it’s entirely plausible that those cases mostly represent the employers who choose to accept such an expense when rejecting candidates. The author makes no attempt to explain why they think such risk aversive behaviour is not the cause of the lack of lawsuits, instead jumping to the conclusion that the aversion is unnecessary.

The other half of the headline claim (regardless of any debate about its technical accuracy) is spurious at best. Any plaintiff would know that the threat of filing a discrimination case is leverage in a settlement negotiation. Without knowing how many settlements of that nature take place, it’s not possible to draw such a conclusion.

Finally, the authors methodology is questionable. A survey (especially one that doesn’t report its sample, or methodology) is not sufficient to draw the conclusion “never”. Putting aside the matter of out of court settlements, you’d need to perform a rather extensive study of case law to draw such a conclusion. Certainly something more than “had a quick look, didn’t find anything”.

[0] https://www.thebalancecareers.com/must-employers-tell-applic...

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#159

Post by throwaway2048 »

ggggtez wrote: post #131
_cairn wrote: post #120

So many comments in the vein of "who has time to waste on candidates we aren't going to make an offer to?" - You are damaging your companies brand thinking this way. You want people who you reject to say to themselves "I can't wait to study up and interview here again, they said no, but I still want to work here!"

If you don't why you didn't get an offer, then you aren't worth the time to explain it. 95% of the time, you didn't give as strong answers as other candidates. The other 5% of the time, you came across as a jerk.

You can find plenty of competent people to fill a position that you have no room to hire. Its also possible to give an accidentally weak interview.

Treating people like disposable garbage because they didn't check the checkboxes the best is a great way to be a shitty manager and a shitty human being.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#160

Post by Thriptic »

leothekim wrote: post #15
kenhwang wrote: post #6

One time we gave feedback on request and the candidate contested the feedback, then went out on a social media rampage. So yeah, we stopped after that. It only takes one bad candidate to make it not worth the effort.

+1 on this. The company has nothing to gain in delivering more feedback other than a thumbs up/down, and a lot more to lose.

I disagree with this. I've had two companies contact me and offer legitimate feedback after interviews, and I always left feeling happy and with good feelings about them.

I applied to one company and got a response back which was effectively "we really like you as a candidate, but it doesn't seem like you would be the right fit for this job / it doesn't seem like the interests you expressed in your interviews [which they correctly restated] matched up well with the duties we would have you perform. We will likely have jobs opening up which would align with what you like and you will be on the shortlist of candidates if you apply for those". Was it truthful? Who knows, but it left me feeling happy about how things went and I would consider applying there again.

Similarly, earlier on in my career after taking a few CS classes I applied for a different job, and the response was effectively "You are smart but you don't have the skills we require yet which are [x, y, z]. Come back when you do". What they said was true and I appreciated the feedback.

Contrast that with the myriad companies I applied to and never heard a response back from or didn't get a response back for many months from. I will never apply to these places again because it is clear that they don't respect prospective employees enough to even send a perfunctory email. Boiler plate rejections aren't as irritating but they are definitely still irritating. If you don't provide reasons for not hiring then employees will construct their own reasons, and they may not be true and / or favorable towards your company.

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