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

blog.interviewing.io

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

#221

Post by kenhwang »

ddelt wrote: post #169
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.

Hot take: you could hire someone who did absolutely well in the interview, and they could find a few weeks into the job that they loathe everyone, and go on a social media rampage. What I’m getting at is, there will always be bad apples, or people who react in a way that damages your organization. But not providing useful feedback to people who ask for it simply because one person went crazy is punishing a lot more p…

In our case, it's not an iron-clad no feedback allowed policy. We're just much more careful about giving it, approval is given on a case-by-case basis.

A good typical whiteboard interview naturally includes hints, feedback, and collaboration. After several hours of it, we have a very good idea of how well they may respond to feedback from members of our organization.

Honestly, I love giving feedback. I love helping candidates be better at interviewing. Bad interviews are painful to the interviewer too. I'm out of a small market so people and word gets around.

If it really isn't their fault they didn't get the job, we try to make that very very clear. It really sucks when we have to pass up on someone who absolutely killed the interview because someone else did better.

The harsh reality is, many people that don't pass on the interview are people we do not want in the industry. The good ones we give every hint and help we can.

There's also more tactical ways of extracting feedback from companies rather than directly asking for it. We can't tell you about how you did well after rejection, but we can talk about what our expectations are during the interview; put two and two together. I've noticed the good candidates that are serious about improving their interviewing do it, and from the company side, it's a strong signal they're not trying to contest a decision.

Food for thought, when was the last time you gave a company feedback on their interview process? I've traded feedback for feedback quite successfully many times when I was interviewing.

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

#222

Post by filoleg »

ihodes wrote: post #153

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.

Noticed the same thing with some finance companies too (mostly those that are known to be tech-strong, however). Got some of the most detailed and useful feedback throughout my years of interviewing from those.

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

#223

Post by jolmg »

_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 and interview here again

If the decision to reject was purely objective then sure, but isn't a big part of it if not most of it subjective? And even when the reasons could be objective, I imagine people are deciding in part through gut-feeling and might not be able to articulate the reasons for rejection in an objective enough manner. That's why I imagine people are inclined to fight when given the reasons for rejection.

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

#224

Post by bobthepanda »

Apocryphon wrote: post #219
bobthepanda wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they blab their mouth on social media and it goes viral they've already done the damage before you could serve court papers. Why even bother with the risk?

Because that’s allowing risk adverse mentalities to prevent companies from innovating in their hiring processes to build a more transparent and improved culture of hiring, and a chance to differentiate themselves from competitors with a reputation of good interviewing practices?

Sure.

> Then maybe there can be a system that provides a disclaimer where they waive all ability to sue or otherwise get into a fight with you.

This ain't gonna help though, because it's not particularly useful at preventing the damage that these companies are afraid of, so it's not really going to tilt the existing balance.

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

#225

Post by mxcrossb »

Thriptic wrote: post #160
leothekim wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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…

> we really like you as a candidate

It’s not you, it’s me

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

#226

Post by slimed »

bobthepanda wrote: post #212
Apocryphon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe there can be a system that provides a disclaimer where they waive all ability to sue or otherwise get into a fight with you.

If they blab their mouth on social media and it goes viral they've already done the damage before you could serve court papers. Why even bother with the risk?

This is the sad truth of it. As a candidate I greatly appreciate feedback but I know there are others who will try to paint their not getting hired as due to bias (classism, racism, sexism, etc) without any evidence. I don't blame those who have been burned and ended the practice. An accusation might as well be a conviction in some situations.

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

#227

Post by duxup »

LordFast wrote: post #139
duxup wrote: post #121

On the topic of form letter rejections: I WISH I even got those... durring my last job hunt most of the time the company just goes dark and stops contacting me or doesn't respond. I say this and other recruiers tell me they're shocked and yet getting ghosted seemed to be the rule rather than exception durring that time. Maybe I'm such a bad canidae that they don't even want to bother with a form letter. Strangely one…

Don't take it personally. As someone who's hired a lot of people, the unfortunate times when I "ghosted" people were mostly due to internal company problems, not candidate problems. Anecdotally, these were always situations when I wanted to pass someone but received weird resistance from other stakeholders and it ended up being a situation of stalemate. So, you could have faced similar things.

Yeah I experienced enough of it to where it just seems like it is how things work ;)

Job hunting is / often is pretty brutal / stressful so I try to avoid taking anything personally.

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

#228

Post by Thriptic »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #209
Thriptic wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They gain the goodwill of a prospective employee who might cycle back and be a great fit later on in their career (and who has more skills then). It's also about what they don't lose, which is not only me but potentially other prospective candidates. Know what happens when someone mentions they are considering applying to a place that never got back to me? I tell them don't apply there, they waste your time / they do…

And providing feedback is very likely to hurt your reputation. One major company did give me feedback, and I've made fun of them endlessly for it - they explained that the manager loved me, I did great on systems design and architecture, but I couldn't pass the hiring committee because I didn't do well enough on tree traversal tricks.

Even that in a way is useful to them. If they are constantly getting confused, bemused, or angry responses to what they think is honest feedback, it is a red flag about their hiring process.

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

#229

Post by taneq »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #216
mrfusion wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should produce it in “I feel” phrases. That makes it known that it’s your opinion and could be wrong. Treat it like couples therapy.

The challenge isn't figuring out how you or I personally would deliver feedback, given time to plan it out and a good set of feedback to deliver. The challenge is establishing a process that ensures everyone at the company will always do it, even when the real reason is something like "meh I'm not sure the candidate quite clears our bar".

> even when the real reason is something like "meh I'm not sure the candidate quite clears our bar".

That's the problem, though - you're trying to make a hiring decision on hopelessly incomplete information, and so it will come down in large part to gut feeling. And the moment you admit to using some non-quantifiable feeling as a basis for not hiring someone, you open yourself up to claims of some form of discrimination.

It's all around safest to just stay quiet.

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

#230

Post by rendall »

winrid wrote: post #192
rendall wrote: post #189

Companies who don't give feedback because they believe there is no upside are building a team that lacks empathy, with all that implies regarding technical debt and final product. If the company is successful, it is despite the team, not because of it. This is tantamount to a mathematical certainty. I will always reject an offer from any company that I know does not give feedback to their rejected candidates, and hav…

I think I've gotten turned down by at least a dozen companies. I never got feedback, except for one and it was pretty silly.

I've been on both sides, interviewer and interviewee. I always give feedback if asked, and endeavor to be scrupulously fair.

My take is that it's all pretty arbitrary, at the end of the day. Most interviewers do not 1) spend time putting the candidate at ease, 2) ask the same interview questions across candidates for the same position, 3) really introspect about whether they are doing it well.

Interviews are a notoriously terrible way to get a good grasp of how someone will do on the job, and most interviewers in my experience do not recognize that. The more an interviewer is convinced they are good at it, the more they really just suffer from Dunning-Kruger. No interviewer ever feels like they have failed when they reject a candidate, although it's very well possible that they did, and badly.

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