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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

#11

Post by rchaud »

The hiring process is a black box for a reason. The HR department's role is to protect the company first, not the employees, and certainly not prospective employees. If feedback can be interpreted as being discriminatory, or reflective of bad company culture in general, well, word gets around.

For much of the time, the reason people don't get the job is that there was someone marginally more qualified/attractive/likeable, or some combination of the three; the classic "there were many qualified candidates and we could only choose one" line in the rejection email.

That doesn't help the interviewee beyond telling them that it's a numbers game, but that's the truth.

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

#12

Post by nimbius »

>Does the fear of getting sued even make sense?

No. most job offers are liberally padded to seek a massively overqualified candidate in the unrealistic hope of attaining one that hasnt gone to work for a much nicer competitor, or in order to give the interviewer and HR ample reasons to reject an applicant that arent pertanent to their manner or person (which would get them sued.) the latter is also effective in ensuring jobs that require an outside posting will always favor an inside candidate, or a nepotist's ringer.

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

#13

Post by heavyset_go »

kcmastrpc wrote: post #5

Perhaps if more people utilized glassdoor and talent steered clear, then we might see a positive change here. Until then, there is no incentive for employers to spend time formalizing and providing that feedback.

Glassdoor is absolutely filled to the brim with reviews clearly written by HR, marketing firms or by current employees who were told to write reviews.

If a review's only advice to management are: "Continue doing what you're doing!", "keep up the good work!" or "make sure our awesome culture isn't diluted as we grow!", then they're fake.

If a review's only cons are reframing the cons left my legitimate reviewers as sour grapes by someone who can't handle fast-paced environments, startups, or responsibilities that aren't clearly defined, they're fake.

But the biggest red flag is positive reviews left in succession over the period of a few days to a month.

Much like Amazon reviews, it seems that the only reviews you can glean worthwhile information from are the bad reviews.

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

#14

Post by draw_down »

I think you could tell them a little something about why you decided not to make an offer. But this is riddled with problems, sadly. For example, candidates often take it as an invitation to a debate. You can agree with the feedback or not, but you're not going to talk your way into an offer.

In sum, it's all downside with little upside. The lawsuit thing is a red herring, imo.

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

#15

Post by leothekim »

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.

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

#17

Post by three_seagrass »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

How would you know that no one has ever sued? It if happened (and I'd bet it did many times), it wouldn't be public knowledge.

Yep, this is survivor bias.

i.e. No ships ever sink if all you can see are the floating ones.

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

#18

Post by nobleach »

Got feedback, "you didn't really know anything about Ruby on Rails". I was a Rails developer at the time, but no questions were asked about Rails during the interview (asked me nothing but JavaScript). I mentioned that to the recruiter, but when a recruiter is calling you to tell you that you didn't get the job, that's not the time to lodge a protest. Since this was an internal recruiter for the company, I thanked him kindly for actually calling me instead of sending an email. That was a solid move in my opinion.

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

#19

Post by AmericanChopper »

gruez wrote: post #10
bluGill wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it went to court it is public knowledge by the US constitution. If someone settled out of court that is not easy to find (as the article points out)

>If someone settled out of court that is not easy to find (as the article points out) Even if it was settled, surely the initial complaint would be public?

You don’t have to file any court documents to inform somebody that you believe they have wronged you, and that you believe you are entitled to compensation for the resulting damages. The civil court system is there to handle things if you can’t work it out among yourselves.

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

#20

Post by tstrimple »

Ain't nobody got time for that. When I was hiring developers, I was conducting dozens of interviews based off of hundreds of applications. My goal is to hire people who can help me solve problems. Running an interview improvement service isn't something I have time for.
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