I know why rejection emails suck – I write them • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by ddebernardy » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

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 are you asking questions about relational databases? Why not just have candidates accomplish the thing you're assessing with an actual relational database?

It's not the same thing. Browse around the various SQL tags in StackOverflow and you'll see plenty of candidates who can "accomplish" things using relational databases yet have positively no idea of how they work.

When shit hits the fan they're asking strangers to optimize their thorny queries. But a modicum of understanding of how a relational database works would have led them to a better way to do things to begin with.

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

#152

Post by lizhang » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

I went through the Triplebyte process 1.5 years ago and their feedback was so influential in where I spent the next few weeks studying. I think their process and feedback played a huge role in getting my first (and probably current, too) developer gig.

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

#153

Post by michaelt » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #114

michaelt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is harder to build a work-sample regimen than to just send candidates to interviewers, sure. But then, the point of Triplebyte is that they're eating all that work for you. Regarding "fleets of laptops" and environments and all that jazz: these seem like unforced obstacles. Just have the candidates use their own machines. Here's a crazy idea: have them use their own offices/couches, too. Regarding security practic…

  Just have the candidates use their own machines.

We tried inviting candidates to bring their own laptops, and it turns out often they didn't _have_ laptops - or we'd tell them there was a Java-based test and (perhaps due to a miscommunication or because this is an uncommon interview practice) they'd arrive with a laptop without a working Java VM or compiler.

Needless to say, you can't objectively compare two candidates' progress if one of them spends half the interview trying to get their environment set up!

  Regarding security practices... come on. [...]
  These are simple engineering problems.

Perhaps I wasn't clear: My employer is a medium-sized company, and consequentially IT security is actually a complex political problem rather than a simple engineering problem.

You've also made a pretty big shift in the goalposts there, from asking "why don't companies have candidates accomplish the thing they're assessing?" to asking "why don't companies have candidates accomplish the thing they're assessing, and perform remote video interviews, and have the ability to give spin up clean AWS environments and give remote semi-trusted interview candidates access to them?"

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

#154

Post by tajen » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

shimon wrote: post #127

abakker wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managerial CYA, and fear of the potential for litigation are crippling corporations more that I think we'd like to admit. Financial risk is something people seem comfortable accepting, but the specter of unknowable legal risk cause so many management anti patterns and so much passive aggressive behavior is it incredible. As a relatively junior person in management, it is amazing the kind of phantom fears I've been ca…

For a swath of business responsibilities, this "phantom legal risk" is the Most Available Excuse (TM). We see Most Available Excuses in product feedback ("it's too hard to use" is easier to say than "I didn't see how this would help me accomplish anything I actually care about"), in social engagements ("sorry, too busy this week"), and many other areas. I'm a natural skeptic so I maintain a mental set of Most Availab…

Except when it’s really the reason for not saying. Should I tell my 48 candidates that I didn’t take them because they’re foreigners and I don’t want to do the visa parkour? Is it illegal to select on this criteria? Do I want the antiracism unions on my back? Ok let’s tell them a generic reason. Here again, the legal excuse is the genuine reason for not telling.

PS: my first employee is already a foreigner, so don’t lecture me on racism.

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

#155

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:37 PM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #51

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…

Isn't a lot of the job of software engineering to quickly and concisely communicate complicated concepts? Might this actually be an accurate work sample? How else might you measure something like this? Also the next few lines kinda address what you are saying: > 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…

"or that our question didn’t use the vocabulary they’re familiar with"

I lost out a job interview in 1997 because I wasn't familiar with "state management" for websites. The guy was pretty insistent I needed to know what "state management" was. I'd already sent over a project using session management (and he'd created an account, logged in, I sent him the code, etc), but... I didn't know what 'state management' was, so I was passed over. I wasn't strong enough on the phone (and was in a different country at the time - was worrying about the long distance charges!) and... it fell apart. I was essentially a perfect fit (had had an interview before - this was second interview with someone else), but I choked on that phrase, and they passed me by...

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

#156

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:37 PM UTC

c3534l wrote: post #150

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…

No, I get that! I think the author does a good job of implicitly recognizing the weakness of interview processes. I'm really just saying 2 things:

1. They missed a failure mode: in addition to (a) lack of knowledge and (b) lack of communication skills, there is also (c) lack of interviewing skill.

2. It's possible to design an interview process that is resilient to both (b) and (c), and I figured Triplebyte, "who has just one job", would do that.

In addition, on this thread, I've tried (badly) to point out that while (b) is maybe a reasonable thing to check candidates for, it's better to do that explicitly, with an actual test of communication skill, rather than something that can easily get confounded with (a) and (c) (and all the attendant stress that situation generates!).

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify; I'm doing too many things at once today.

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

#157

Post by pmiller2 » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

nosseo wrote: post #74

pmiller2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

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…

So, concretely, how would the process look different to someone who went through the project track 2 years ago?

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

#158

Post by wildmusings » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #141

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-technic…

On the point of legal risk, I’m concerned by the authors naïveté in believing that as long as you’re not actually discriminating based on race/sex/religion, you won’t be accused of it.

The more data you put out there, the more likely that someone will crunch it and find some statistical patterns that they will label “racism” or "sexism". Even if you’re innocent, you will get dragged through the mud in the press and maybe even in court. Not worth it. No matter what, you lose. And what’s the upside? You gave some random guy some feedback.

This is the world we live in, unfortunately.

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

#159

Post by nosseo » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #116

nosseo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that as long as you're not discriminating against candidates on the basis of race, gender or some other protected category membership, and as long as your feedback reflects that by being focused on the technical abilities the candidate demonstrated during the interview, you're not actually at all that much risk. Of course, if you are illegally discriminating, or if your feedback suggests that you…

How do you imagine they would give feedback on something that's neither technical nor illegal? I'm imagining everything from "we found you too arrogant" to "you smelled awful when you came in"...

For arrogant, I'd try to make the feedback as concrete and specific as possible - "sometimes you gave confidently wrong answers. If you're guessing, it's better to tell your interviewer that. Interviewers typically won't hold it against you if you guess and guess rightly, but if you don't acknowledge you're guessing and get things wrong, it raises questions about whether you know what you don't know." or "sometimes it's great to ignore the spec because you have something better in mind, but on an interview it's typically better to demonstrate your creativity and knowledge while still building to the spec - it makes it easier for us to evaluate you" or "when talking about your last company, you said some things that came across as disdainful about your coworkers. It'd be better to highlight your achievements."

All of those are ways being arrogant can manifest, but they're much more actionable than 'you were arrogant' and unsurprisingly get received a lot better.

I wouldn't comment on smell - yes, that's valuable feedback a candidate really ought to hear from someone, but the risk of really angering them is too high for me to feel comfortable with it.

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

#160

Post by MBCook » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #112

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…

Agree. I remember having applied to McKinsey many years ago as a graduate. I got rejected after the first round of interview, but one of the interviewers would call me to explain their rationale. I was very grateful but I can imagine that it must be painful when the candidate doesn't react well or sees that as an opportunity to put the foot back in the door.

Having to give that kind of feedback just sounds horribly draining to me. I know there are people who would accept it. There are people it would really help.

Some would already know it and just say ‘thanks’.

But the people who argue with you that you’re wrong, or they need another try, or ‘I forgot to mention X’, or ‘you just hate me because Y’... the people who feel hopeless and you’re just ‘confirming’ their fears (even if they applied for something way outside their qualifications) or falling apart over it.

I would never want having to deal with that be a big part of my job.