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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

#391

Post by mathattack »

hoka-one-one wrote: post #259
vector_spaces wrote: post #246

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had ze…

I had a guy at Qualcomm Austin tell me to read Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Muchnik. I read it and a few months later I was working for Qualcomm San Diego. I've thought about thanking him but I doubt he'd remember me, it was such a small comment.

Only upside in thanking him, and it will give him the encouragement to keep doing it.

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

#392

Post by mathattack »

For better or worse people don’t give feedback because they don’t want candidates arguing with them. Picking candidates is very subjective in the end.

I’ve become professional contacts with many folks I’ve interviewed and dinged. Doesn’t need to be negative.

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

#393

Post by mdorazio »

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.

This must be a newish thing. Back when I interviewed with Bain in college the only feedback after multiple interview rounds and social events was "sorry, you weren't as strong as other candidates". McKinsey sent a blanket "no thanks" email.

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

#394

Post by safety-third »

Aeolun wrote: post #186

To be honest, reading all the interviewing.io feedback makes it clear that I would never want to use it. It’s literally leetcode with interviews. I don’t think I could do anything with the feedback if it was something like: > ‘you didn’t say that the alghorithm you were using here was using the bayesian-green notation, and you should have used n+1 instead of n++’

People get rejected for reasons like that everyday. I have been part of several interviews where a co-interviewer would say something at least as stupid as that.

This is the real problem with giving feedback in our industry's interviews. The interviews are usually random circuses.

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

#395

Post by iagooar »

vector_spaces wrote: post #246

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had ze…

In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response.

This has to do with how law is structured here: giving feedback gives an attack surface to candidates that could sue you for the feedback you gave (because they do not agree with it).

So this is it, companies do not do this because they're evil, they do this because nobody wants legal consequences.

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

#396

Post by 5cott0 »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #386
5cott0 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interview homework is in many cases more of a disrespectful waste of candidates time than fresh grad whiteboard hazing rituals.

I've just finished a job search, and the company I ended up going with (with the best offer, by far) was one of the only ones that didn't want a take-home project. With several of the companies, I managed to (via either vowing silence to recruiters, or having an inside guy) get feedback on my projects. Nobody volunteered feedback willingly. And honestly, based on what feedback I did get, I see why they didn't want to…

The lack of feedback makes sense if you think about it; lazy, vaguely expansive requirements that even the interviewer cannot be bothered to figure out.

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

#397

Post by quadrifoliate »

allovernow wrote: post #132
criddell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem like a smart person, who hasn't done very much coding. That makes you a bad risk, Assuming Microsoft actually measures this stuff, that's kind of surprising to me. I've never placed much weight on being able to write a program on the spot.

>I've never placed much weight on being able to write a program on the spot. I don't disagree, and personally I hate in person coding exercises, but if you keep the question simple and allow the candidate to code in their native language, something fizz-buzz like will go a long way in weeding out the people who have languages on their resume but can't code. At our company we offer two simple coderpad tasks to be done…

> You pay attention to the candidates who use templates, destructors, smart pointers, even if they make mistakes those are the ones you probably want to hire.

Maybe I don't know enough C++ to understand this, but I don't understand why using fancier features would make you like the candidate more when they are making mistakes. Unless you ask them to write a templated linked list, why would you grade them for automatically deciding to write one (and then making a mistake while doing so)?

Trying to understand the thought process here since I have been on the receiving side of some of these "Look I used the cool feature!" candidate programs in Python, and they often make pretty bad mistakes while using said advanced features. That personally marks them down slightly in my estimation, but curious to know your view is the opposite.

Meta: Maybe the problem with hiring via takehomes/code samples is precisely exemplified by the above discussion.

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

#398

Post by bagacrap »

somebodythere wrote: post #371
reificator wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then after two rounds of interviews they rejected me because apparently 'cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l' is not how real programmers find error count, but write python programs every single time they face such a problem. bulletsDodged += 1

Real programmers would write bulletsDodged++;

our style guide dictates ++bulletsDodged;

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

#399

Post by planetzero »

nkingsy wrote: post #170
ddelt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a tried and true practice in dating, and it translates well to hiring, which is basically the same thing. Most people, ESPECIALLY people who ask you for feedback, do not want feedback. They want to get in a fight with you. Edit: I don't remember ghosting anyone personally in either setting, but it's happened to me plenty. Getting upset about it just means you're new to the experience.

A couple of years ago, I was ghosted by a company after being interviewed. A few weeks later, I realized that the guy that interviewed me was just hired as a consultant by the company, and convinced the boss to hire him instead of me for my job.

How did I find all of this out? Over A month later, they called me back.

This was after I had been strung along by the business owner and the guy that interviewed me for over a week where they were going to make a final decision about hiring me..and then nothing. They couldn't be bothered to return my phone call or respond to any emails.

They left a message that I had to schedule an appointment with the guy that interviewed me to basically interview me again.

I, of course, never called them back, but sent both of them a nasty email telling them to fuck off in so many words.

I never thought I would be ghosted like this from a potential employer.

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

#400

Post by theshadowmonkey »

Giving feedback is bad for the companies initially as a lot of biases are exposed when the feedback is reviewed. As in some engineer thinks something a candidate doesnt know makes him dumb. Just because the engineer has worked a lot on that problem and the candidate never saw it. In the longer term, I think its good as even constructing the feedback makes you look at your biases in an objective way and evaluate candidates better. I wish every company I interviewed for would give me feedback.
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