They Rejected Us • Hacker News Board

Re: They Rejected Us

#101

Post by yodon » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #70

eqdw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it feels like they want medals for getting rejected at companies that haven't even bothered to give me a callback. We all get rejected from dozens of interviews. That's just life. Did anybody ever think it wasn't like this?

When I was a senior at university, my friends and I all had a wall at our apartments covered with our rejection letters. Back then (if they gave you the courtesy of a reply) they were sent on paper in the mail. So yes, it's always been that way. I myself have been on interview committees and voted to reject candidates who got hired, and turned out to be good. Why did I want to reject them? Don't really know, just got…

As a nice twist on the rejection postings, while in college I visited a friend at Yale. He and his roommates had hung all three of their Harvard acceptance letters next to each other on the wall.

Re: They Rejected Us

#102

Post by Ensorceled » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #95

I don't understand what this page does, it shows normal examples for everyday life. There aren't even enough details to judge whether company A made a mistake not hiring a person now working for company B. Maybe the match was just poor. Everybody gets rejected, you probably rejected a lot of people and stuff yourself (if you didn't you should try it sometimes), who cares, get over it.

That is the point of the site. Everybody gets rejected; here's a bunch of people that got rejected and went to get great jobs and you can to.

Re: They Rejected Us

#103

Post by sho » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

I still can't get over the fact that Google rejected mxcl, author of homebrew, possibly the most important piece of software on OSX, because he couldn't remember some useless piece of easily-googleable (ha) CS trivia on the spot. Even though they all run it internally. If that isn't the purest, most concentrated form of arbitrary, blind, own-goal beaureaucratic corporate idiocy I don't know what is.

And people actually try to emulate their interview practises.

Re: They Rejected Us

#104

Post by idontpost » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

kevinconaway wrote: post #69

joshbetz wrote: post #7

Do practice interviews at companies you don't really want to work for. It takes the pressure off and makes the real interviews easier.

Recruiting is a time consuming task for all involved and for you to casually waste peoples time in that manner is horribly disrespectful

Sure, but that's a two way street. Companies disrespect candidates by making them jump through irrelevant hoops.

The job candidates didn't create this problem.

Re: They Rejected Us

#105

Post by downandout » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

Interesting that Chris Wanstrath, a newly minted billionaire and the counfounder & CEO of Github, just chimed in on the site and said he was rejected for an engineering job at Yahoo. If the standard Valley screening/interview process isn't able to pickup on the abilities of someone obviously very talented, self-motivated, and entrepreneurial, doesn't it call into question the efficacy of such procedures? It seems like existing hiring procedures might be very broken.

Re: They Rejected Us

#106

Post by corn_dog » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

I'm starting to think institutionalizing this kind of convoluted hiring/hazing ritual also keeps developer salaries down. Imagine if whenever you interviewed, instead of getting say 1 offer in 5 you got 4 out of 5. Now you'd be in a better bargaining position when considering offers.

Re: They Rejected Us

#107

Post by hodgesrm » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

myth_buster wrote: post #90

The best one I've come across yet is Brian Acton being rejected by Facebook [0] ends up creating Whatsapp and in turn selling it to Facebook for $19B. Talk about comebacks. [0] https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383?lang=en

This resonates.

I'm terrible at big tech company interviews--kind of a generalist, read Cicero rather than Knuth in college, tend to start out problems kind of muddled, etc. After a while I concluded the only way to get into large SV companies was to sell a company to them. It's easier to go through due diligence than the corporate interview process in a lot of places.

(That's how I got my current job.)

Re: They Rejected Us

#108

Post by teekert » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #102

teekert wrote: post #95

I don't understand what this page does, it shows normal examples for everyday life. There aren't even enough details to judge whether company A made a mistake not hiring a person now working for company B. Maybe the match was just poor. Everybody gets rejected, you probably rejected a lot of people and stuff yourself (if you didn't you should try it sometimes), who cares, get over it.

That is the point of the site. Everybody gets rejected; here's a bunch of people that got rejected and went to get great jobs and you can to.

Ok, I don't really see why there should be a site for this, I mean it's like making a site of people saying they fell a couple of times when they learned to walk.

Re: They Rejected Us

#109

Post by Ensorceled » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

kevinconaway wrote: post #69

joshbetz wrote: post #7

Do practice interviews at companies you don't really want to work for. It takes the pressure off and makes the real interviews easier.

Recruiting is a time consuming task for all involved and for you to casually waste peoples time in that manner is horribly disrespectful

Multiple, full day interviews are horribly disrespectful.

Re: They Rejected Us

#110

Post by victor9000 » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #95

I don't understand what this page does, it shows normal examples for everyday life. There aren't even enough details to judge whether company A made a mistake not hiring a person now working for company B. Maybe the match was just poor. Everybody gets rejected, you probably rejected a lot of people and stuff yourself (if you didn't you should try it sometimes), who cares, get over it.

I think it's just meant to serve as inspiration to folks going through the interview process.