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Tell me why I suck

injekt.net

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Re: Tell me why I suck

#31

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

darklajid wrote: post #26
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 lik…

First of all: I'm not sure if my "I hate your .. way" was taken as a personal accusation of some sorts. It wasn't meant to be one. Were these 10 responses valuable for your wife, or "We're sorry to inform you.." useless types that didn't help at all? Not providing feedback on company time is an shady argument from my point of view as well. The decisions to hire someone that involved me (granted, maybe roundabout a do…

  > ... not sure if ... was taken as a personal accusation
  > of some sorts. It wasn't meant to be one.
None taken.

  > Were these 10 responses valuable for your wife,
  > or "We're sorry to inform you.." useless types
All useless. She also got about 5 or 8 interviews, which resulted in exactly 2 rejection letters, and the remainder gave neither reply nor feedback.

  > Not providing feedback on company time is a shady
  > argument ... we discussed the very reasons, on
  > company time anyway and by definition.
  > ...
  > Writing them down and sending an email if you are
  > in that situation doesn't cost your company a lot
  > of time
If you're blunt, honest and open, maybe not. But being careful, constructive, and defensive against counter-attack then it can be time-consuming. The argument goes "We've had the discussion, we're not going to employ them, why should we spent 30 minutes documenting the reasons, only to open ourselves thereby to the potential of a lengthy, drawn-out process of arbitration or agrument? Better to just ignore them from now on."

I don't do that, and my co-directors know that I won't. I always provide some feedback, but I'm always ultra-careful in what I say. Even then I've had stand-up knock-down arguments about opening the company to the potential for undesirable consequences.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#32

Post by bena »

Even small companies get many applicants.

Think about it this way. You are vying with 30 - 40 other people for one spot.

Failure should not be a surprise. Especially when there is no way to clearly differentiate the best from the top 10%.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#33

Post by mkr-hn »

Nitramp wrote: post #17
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, ...).

Any recommendations? It would save me a lot of time if I could spend a little money and read a book to save the hours wasted on applying for junk offers.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#34

Post by bryanlarsen »

Nitramp wrote: post #13
darklajid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 troub…

I'd like to emphasize this point. Any sort of personalized response is seen as an invitation to initiate a conversation. Which is fine if you want to have that conversation and the person on the other end isn't a sore loser or doesn't have an overinflated ego that you just bruised. Sore losers and overinflated egos aren't the majority, but they do seem to form a very large minority...

Re: Tell me why I suck

#35

Post by injekt »

troels wrote: post #19

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 t…

I totally agree. I guess it's limited to the cases where you feel you can help the candidate with further job searching

Re: Tell me why I suck

#36

Post by AngeloAnolin »

Just a thought.

Maybe it is not who sucks.

But rather the first person in line receiving and reviewing your profile who has the crab mentality thinking that this person seems so good that s/he may change the way how business is done.

And let's accept it. A lot of these front end people dislike change. A lot of them have the same repertoire of outdated processes in hiring and looking for people who would be a good fit in their organization.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#37

Post by gulbrandr »

oscardelben wrote: post #21
injekt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very good point. It's actually the UK, but to be honest.. The same can be said in most countries nowadays

I hope not, I hope this trend stop. It's ridiculous that you can get sued for everything these days.

Unfortunately, it won't.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#38

Post by petervandijck »

stop wrote: post #27
petervandijck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, for real, about 8 out of 10 people take it badly. I've tried it. It just doesn't work. Why don't you ask for it though? A quick reply: "I'd love to hear why I was rejected, won't take it badly, but as an opportunity to learn". Don't make them do all the work.

Good point but I would say don't bother asking. The answer will be useless to you because you can't trust its authenticity. Only people inside the company will know the real reason and perhaps not even there.

If someone would ask me, I'd tell them honestly. Never happened though.

Re: Tell me why I suck

#39

Post by wheeliemow »

This is great article. I recently was to an interview with a company and thought the interview went great. They even told me they had been looking for a candidate since August. To my dismay one week after the interview I received a similar email. No reason, just the "we looked at your credentials and those of other applicants and have decided to continue with other applicants". Funny thing is the job is still posted and probably will be for another 6 months.

What I don't understand is that if company x has been looking to fill a position for 6 months is company x just too picky or have too high expectations of a new applicant?

I really have to agree with this that companies should at least give some additional reason for the turn down instead of the typical form letter. You as an applicant spent a lot of time working on your resume and interviewing skills the least the company could do is let you know why they wont be offering a jab.

Just my two cents...

Re: Tell me why I suck

#40

Post by whow »

I think all these explanation of fear of legal ramifications and how it's hard to provide feedback are just covers.

Employers and/or recruiters don't provide any reason because the the minimum that they have to do to let you know that you are not accepted is to tell you no. They are not bounded in any ways to do more than that. Telling you why means they have to think, to sit down and write more than a sentence. It's easier to just give a canned answer and send it out.

All the outer explanation of legal ramification, hard to provide feed back, it's just smoke screen to cover the most basic human nature to be lazy. Period.

Personally I've had good feedback 1 in every 50 application I sent. I've always proactively asked for feedback when I can and I think I've probably had 3 good feedbacks so far. One went as far as buying me lunch and explain the decision to me while another invited me back to his office where we sat down and chatted for quite a bit.

It's not that you suck, it's just human nature. Most of us are a lazy bunch.

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