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I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

triplebyte.com

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Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#141

Post by btilly »

I believe that the article is fundamentally wrong.

The bulk of the article is true. But companies are not lying when they say that legal risk is a reason not to send feedback.

Triplebyte is in the unusual position of being able to say, "Everyone who has enough technical skill gets through the interview." And that fact is sufficient to defuse their risk. But real companies don't have the luxury of ignoring non-technical aspects of the job.

Here are real reasons why I've seen people denied a job. "Nobody could understand his accent." "Accidental personal referenced summed him up as, 'Loves to make things crash and burn in production to see the pretty fireworks.'" "Nobody could believe the argument he got into at lunch."

In my books those are all valid reasons to not want to work with someone. However the first opens you up for an accusation of racism, the second would break a personal confidence, and the third had demonstrated sufficient irrationality that tiptoeing away was a great idea.

And you can't give feedback on technical issues, and not on the rest, because that amounts to a tacit acknowledgement that there was something non-technical. Leave the non-technical to your imagination and guess what happens?

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#142

Post by lostcolony »

michaelt wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #40

When someone can’t answer an interview question about relational databases, it might be that they don’t know anything about relational databases. I thought you all were better than this. Why are you asking questions about relational databases? Why not just have candidates accomplish the thing you're assessing with an actual relational database ? I know you're work-sample-literate! But if your feedback emphasizes comm…

Why not just have candidates accomplish the thing you're assessing with an actual relational database? My employer interviews like this, and I can tell you one reason it's not very common: It's a pain in the ass. After all, it'd be unfair to judge someone on a platform they weren't familiar with - so now you gotta maintain a fleet of laptops with a really wide range of tools. And these have to sorta float outside the…

And I don't know that that's better than "walk me through the query you'd use to do X". Because the reality is they may need to look up the exact syntax for something, and I can't gauge how much they actually know based on their googling; someone who knows nothing might stumble on a good search and seem to get it really quick, someone who knows all the fundamentals might spend 5 minutes trying to find a keyword that's just slipped his mind ('having', for instance, which I've used maybe...once? :P), who will seem like they know nothing.

Instead, just describe it to me. Best guess it. We'll dive into that.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#143

Post by Liron »

rdl wrote: post #50

I'd settle for "do you at least send a rejection email of any kind to the candidate?" vs. the "dropping someone on the floor and not responding for weeks/months/ever". Even without detailed or personalized feedback, it's a huge improvement. Also if an internal person refers someone, you should let the internal person know if you're passing, I think (depends on other factors, though.)

"Ghosting" seems like a common phenomenon across different types of human interaction. There's dating, interviewing, and even pitching investors.

This was a common experience for me pitching my company last year:

1. Investor likes my co enough to schedule an in-person meeting

2. I meet investor in person to pitch

3. I send them a followup email

4. Radio silence

I'd read that investors like to keep you in limbo instead of passing, I just didn't realize these well-respected professionals would value someone highly enough to give them an hour of their day, but low enough to neglect all followup communication. In retrospect I don't think it's a big deal, but I felt bad about it at the time.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#144

Post by mbesto »

werbel wrote: post #70

If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please consider doing this at least for junior people. Volunteer your after work time if needed. Trying to find the first job is extremely stressful process. A junior person has no notion of his worth on the market. Each rejection even if only by a lack of any response ("I'm sorry, I'm afraid we are looking for a bit more experienced person" would…

> If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please consider doing this at least for junior people.

If you want to keep your job, don't follow this advice. Honestly, I would love nothing more than giving junior people (all people in fact) feedback on why they didn't get the job, but people will sue at even the slightest hint of any type of potentially litigious situation. It's even worse when the person is in a position of desperation ("I can't pay rent because I can't find a job...oh what this lawyer is going to take my case on a performance basis...heck ya, let's sue those assholes!"). Most of these cases get settled because no one wants to deal with them and it's easier to just pay the problem to go away, so they're easy wins.

Seriously, most good honest HR people WANT to give rejected candidates feedback, but asking them to benevolently provide feedback at the risk of their own job won't earn you many friends.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#145

Post by kevindong »

I've applied to hundreds of internship positions by this point (I'm a senior looking for a full-time job starting this upcoming summer). During those hundreds of applications, I've only received explicit feedback (aside from getting offers, since getting an offer means I did good enough; I never got explicit feedback from any of those offers) a total of twice.

One was for a marketing company that's already gone public because I made it to the final round and really fell apart during the coding portion. I knew I screwed up and the recruiter confirmed that (without me asking) during the "thanks for applying, but no thanks" phone call.

The other time was for a medium-size startup. I had to ask the recruiter via email after I got the "no thanks" email, but she provided the info within minutes.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#146

Post by nosseo »

meggar wrote: post #118
nosseo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the ways I discussed in the article - more nuanced, more thorough, more detailed, more focused on constructive advice you can take to your next interview. Plus, we've just improved our process in general so you aren't tested on skills you don't need. It's easier to give constructive feedback about an interview process you have a lot of confidence in, and much of the work we've put in as a company over the last fe…

I'd try it again, what is the process to reapply?

Shoot me an email (kelsey@triplebyte.com) and I'll reset your account.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#147

Post by shawn »

michaelt wrote: post #117
shawn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we specifically designed the take home project track to help overcome the difficulties of coding under time pressure with someone watching, we do still need to see a certain level of programming during the interview. “How to set up a test that works and then completely ruin the results by doing nonsensical things during a dumb ritual that our entire industry seems set on preserving.” Question for Triplebyte: wh…

You need something that confirms the take-home test was really done by the candidate. I have received take-home tests, passed via recruiters, where the recruiters literally sent me the solutions given by previous successful candidates "for reference".

Although that seems like a valid reason, consider how many justifications have been used throughout history to scare people into submission. “There May be cheaters out there” is of the same form as “there may be out there, so you’d better .”

If there is data to support that most people are cheaters, that’s fine. But at Matasano I believe the statistics were ~30 candidates who were invited for an on-site interview after a take home test, and ~30 happy hires.

The on-site interview was also mostly a formality; the fact that they could do the work was enough to all but guarantee an offer.

And when you reduce it to those terms, it seems ludicrous that the world should be any other way. You can either do the work or you can’t. And if you can, nothing else should matter.

There are other counter arguments: what if someone is a huge introvert and not suited to working in a team environment? Bring on the introvets, I say. You won’t regret it. The most talented coworker I’ve ever seen was also someone who had stammering problems and would barely talk. But he was very nice, and much more skilled than I was at the time.

You don’t know someone until you work with them. And if they’re a bad hire, it’ll work itself out within the first month. It’s far better to deal with a possible cheater than to miss out on a skilled, solid hire. The latter makes or breaks companies; the former are just a temporary thorn.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#148

Post by gamblor956 »

jstarfish wrote: post #60
wrecursion wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is worse to not hear back at all. As someone who has dealt with this recently, the one positive thing I can tell myself about the experience is that I would not work for a company that cannot be bothered to write a rejection letter. It reminds me of a restaurant I worked at in my youth - because the owner and her daughter were so conflict averse - rather than fire someone, they would just slowly write t…

> because the owner and her daughter were so conflict averse - rather than fire someone, they would just slowly write them off the schedule. Firing someone (without cause) leaves you open to having unemployment claims filed against you. Writing them off the schedule so they're forced to quit on their own accord negates that leverage; underemployment claims are harder for complainants to pursue/win. Restaurant owners…

Hourly workers who have their hours dropped below a minimum threshold qualify for unemployment in many states, as that is frequently treated as a de-facto layoff.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#149

Post by werbel »

mbesto wrote: post #144
werbel wrote: post #70

If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please consider doing this at least for junior people. Volunteer your after work time if needed. Trying to find the first job is extremely stressful process. A junior person has no notion of his worth on the market. Each rejection even if only by a lack of any response ("I'm sorry, I'm afraid we are looking for a bit more experienced person" would…

> If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please consider doing this at least for junior people. If you want to keep your job, don't follow this advice. Honestly, I would love nothing more than giving junior people (all people in fact) feedback on why they didn't get the job, but people will sue at even the slightest hint of any type of potentially litigious situation. It's even worse w…

I didn't say to do that against the policy. What I meant was if your company simply doesn't have a habit of doing it just say: "Hey, can I write some feedback and provide some resources to that candidate in your rejection message?".

Edit: My intuition is most companies don't provide the feedback because simply they don't see a value in the time spent or simply never really considered that as there are always other things to do than think about people you'll probably never meet again.

Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

#150

Post by c3534l »

tptacek wrote: post #40

When someone can’t answer an interview question about relational databases, it might be that they don’t know anything about relational databases. I thought you all were better than this. Why are you asking questions about relational databases? Why not just have candidates accomplish the thing you're assessing with an actual relational database ? I know you're work-sample-literate! But if your feedback emphasizes comm…

You're ignoring the sentence that came immediately after that one:

> It also might be that they know them inside-and-out but aren’t used to answering questions on the fly, or that our question didn’t use the vocabulary they’re familiar with, or that they misheard the question and answered a different one. [...] People are generally open to hearing that, one way or another, they didn’t manage to demonstrate that they understood a topic.

The author is actively acknowledging that being unable to answer a question about RDMSs doesn't mean they don't actually know anything about them.

And the point, I think, stands. An interview isn't a passive process where by some magic algorithm they determine good candidates from bad and the candidate just sits there hoping the right question will be asked. You have to actually communicate to the interviewer your knowledge and experience because they don't know.

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