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Tell me why I suck

injekt.net

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Re: Tell me why I suck

#11

Post by tow21 »

Have you tried asking?

I've done this in the past with jobs for which I was not accepted. Some were happy to, some weren't, but where they did it was useful.

And as an employer now, I'm generally happy to share useful feedback. But I'll usually only bother if the candidate asks me. This is at least partly because - as RiderOfGiraffes alludes to, there are legal issues involved, and I have to think very hard about how I word a reply to make sure it stays within the bounds of relevant laws. And I'm happy to do that if the candidate asked after it - but not if they've expressed no interest.

(fwiw, this is in the UK)

Re: Tell me why I suck

#12

Post by tintin »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #3

Companies won't do it because they fear being taken to court for discrimination. When hiring we were specifically advised by our legal team not to tell people why they were unsuccessful. It doesn't matter how careful you are, anything you say can be leapt upon by an unsuccessful candidate and used as an excuse to drag you to court claiming that they were discriminated against. This is especially true in these days of…

You could also tell why the one you hired was successful.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#13

Post by Nitramp »

darklajid wrote: post #7
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #3

Companies won't do it because they fear being taken to court for discrimination. When hiring we were specifically advised by our legal team not to tell people why they were unsuccessful. It doesn't matter how careful you are, anything you say can be leapt upon by an unsuccessful candidate and used as an excuse to drag you to court claiming that they were discriminated against. This is especially true in these days of…

This comes up a lot in these types of discussions, but I have a (major) gripe with this: Laws differ. There are some large (and overrepresented on this site?) countries in the world that have a "sue them" culture and, obviously, laws to back this type of behavior. Lots of countries don't, though - and there I'd expect this kind of feedback. I know, I'm not a lawyer and I might even be a bit naive here, but telling me…

Look at it from the company perspective. Out of 10 people, you'll probably upset 5, or enter a discussion with them asserting they are actually good; maybe 4 actually accept criticism and are thankful, and one sues.

So for the most part, it's doing more damage than good to the company image (and from my personal experience, I guess the ratio of not-taking-criticism people is much higher), and might get you into trouble that is at least annoying (sued).

On the other hand, the company has exactly nothing to win from this. If the candidate really were good and only had to learn X, then they'd probably hire him anyway, and the negative image effects for many people certainly outweigh the positive for a few.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#14

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

darklajid wrote: post #7
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #3

Companies won't do it because they fear being taken to court for discrimination. When hiring we were specifically advised by our legal team not to tell people why they were unsuccessful. It doesn't matter how careful you are, anything you say can be leapt upon by an unsuccessful candidate and used as an excuse to drag you to court claiming that they were discriminated against. This is especially true in these days of…

This comes up a lot in these types of discussions, but I have a (major) gripe with this: Laws differ. There are some large (and overrepresented on this site?) countries in the world that have a "sue them" culture and, obviously, laws to back this type of behavior. Lots of countries don't, though - and there I'd expect this kind of feedback. I know, I'm not a lawyer and I might even be a bit naive here, but telling me…

  > Bottomline: I hate your easy way out, giving no
                valueable feedback at all/in general.
Yes, laws differ, and there are no doubt countries, and perhaps places within countries, where giving constructive feedback would not result in any problems. Then I fall back on - I simply don't have the time.

Besides, you're arguing with the wrong person. You may hate the situation. I hate the situation. As I said, I'd really like to take some of the unsuccessful candidates for a coffee and tell them how they could improve their chances. I'd even consider running a one-off, one hour "seminar" to show people what they did wrong, and why their existing skills didn't match.

But I can't do that on my company's time, and I sure as hell would feel uncomfortable charging people I've just rejected for an hour of time. They're unemployed! (usually)

So it's not going to happen. The market doesn't allow for it - these days you're often lucky even to get a rejection letter at all. I watched my wife send out over a thousand job applications and get perhaps 10 responses. Companies are, almost by definition, sociopaths. It does them no good at all to spend time or money helping people they've just rejected.

The individuals in the company may, and often do, feel bad about it, but that's simply the way it is.

Bottom line: This is how things are now, and if you don't like it, find some way to change it.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#15

Post by injekt »

tow21 wrote: post #11

Have you tried asking? I've done this in the past with jobs for which I was not accepted. Some were happy to, some weren't, but where they did it was useful. And as an employer now, I'm generally happy to share useful feedback. But I'll usually only bother if the candidate asks me. This is at least partly because - as RiderOfGiraffes alludes to, there are legal issues involved, and I have to think very hard about how…

It's not really happening at the moment, I'm a freelance developer now. But after having a discussion with a friend going through the same trouble, I had the question.

I probably didn't ask as much as I should/could have, I possibly asked 5-10% of employers, and when I had either no response or a negative 'you didnt suit our needs', I guess I just gave up. I think it's extremely dependent of the company, and surprisingly the person you're dealing with directly inside the company.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#16

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

tintin wrote: post #12
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #3

Companies won't do it because they fear being taken to court for discrimination. When hiring we were specifically advised by our legal team not to tell people why they were unsuccessful. It doesn't matter how careful you are, anything you say can be leapt upon by an unsuccessful candidate and used as an excuse to drag you to court claiming that they were discriminated against. This is especially true in these days of…

You could also tell why the one you hired was successful.

No you can't. The rejected candidate can say "But I can do X Y and Z better than they can!" and now you're in an endless death spiral.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#17

Post by Nitramp »

edw519 wrote: post #10

1. There is no position. We're just "feeling out" the marketplace. 2. There is no position. This was a headhunter building his database. 3. We were planning to promote from within, but HR made us post the position anyway. We didn't read or respond to any of the resumes. 4. We already had the perfect candidate, but HR made us post the position anyway. We didn't read or respond to any of the resumes. 5. We posted the p…

There are actually courses/books on how to spot the faux job ads (forced by HR policy, worker's council, ...).

Re: Tell me why I suck

#18

Post by rexreed »

As a tech employer, I can tell you the top 3 reasons why it's hard to provide the feedback you seek:

1) Many times it's not that you're lacking in any manner, it's just that there's someone that suited the position better. It's like dating - if you reject someone because someone better came into your life, what do you tell the other person? Usually it goes "it's not you, it's me...".

2) Sometimes I don't know what I'm looking for until I look. Then I get responses and realize I'm looking for the wrong thing. Then when I say no, again, it's not because of you, it's because of me. Sounds like dating again.

3) Finally, connections and personal relationships help. If I don't know you from Jack Adam, then it's hard to provide any sort of useful feedback if I don't have that much useful feedback. If we had a relationship, then I could give you some sort of advice on what would be a better fit for you, make a recommendation to someone else.

Instead of asking "what went wrong", maybe you might want to ask "is there anyone you can recommend or do you think that something / someone else might be a better fit"? You never know whomever else we might know in the space that's hiring. And while we might have found for ourselves a great mate, that doesn't mean you're not dating material. Perhaps we have just the right fix-up for you. Or maybe not.

Just one additional perspective.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#19

Post by troels »

When I have hired people, I have always offered to explain the reasons for rejection, when I turned people down. The ones that opted in, I have given an answer. This way, I don't have to spend time on telling people why I turned them down if they don't really care.

The thing is - It's quite hard to give that kind of feedback. A great deal of the assertion of candidates ultimately comes down to instinct. That's hard to qualify. Besides, you want to be very careful about your wording, so it usually takes up a lot of time to write even a few paragraphs back to a candidate.

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