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

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

#201

Post by PopeDotNinja » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #185

jorblumesea wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence. The amount of people I've washed out of the interview process because they've gone on some rant about windows vs linux, political ideology or just came off as unable to communicate in general. This is also the hardest to communicate as it is something inherent to the candidate. It's not per…

> Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence. Not my experience. At least when hiring for programming positions, the typical fatal issue is that the candidate's coding is weak. In my first role as a hiring manager, I didn't stress coding tests for candidates with long work history on their resume. Since then, I learned better. I've s…

I personally don't care that much on how well a candidate can code, as measuring that is itself quite hard (in my opinion). What I like to interview for is someone who really likes to code. I look for things that demonstrate recent personal growth, ability to explain & teach something they do know, a tendency to avoid claiming they are good at anything, open mindedness on trying new things, etc. In my experience, someone who really wants to code and shows a minimum viable capacity for doing so is the person I want to hire.

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

#202

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

mrkurt wrote: post #194

wildmusings wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why I said it’s unfortunate. I intended to capture the logic of why things are what they are. And as much as it’s great to help someone out with some feedback, it’s not so great to risk the livelihood of your employees—you know, the people who actually depend on you to provide for their families—and the survival of your company for it. Sometimes doing the right thing requires you to have some perspective and b…

I think you're way overblowing this, but it's possible you know more than I do. What makes you think "either willfully or accidentally mis-interpreting rejection feedback" is a meaningful threat to any company? Have there been cases where companies were wrongfully sued for such a thing that I'm not aware of? And have they gone out of business as a result? I've read an awful lot of employment case coverage and don't r…

[deleted]

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

#203

Post by biotech » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #190

dsajames wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good communication is a requirement of the job. If you can't communicate, you aren't likely to be efficient. Take some time to take classes and learn the language better. Try working in a Spanish-only environment as a pure English speaker and see how far you get. This doesn't mean "he has an accent", just that they couldn't understand it.

We don't have to litigate this from first principles; this is such a common problem that there is a name for it in EEOC circles: "accent discrimination". You can be civilly liable if you do it.

I wasn't aware of this, but sure enough, "accent discrimination" is addressed by the EEOC. However, in the case that nobody can understand the person due to such a thick accent, the employer may have some argument that it is not discriminatory. Here is the relevant text from the EEOC Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination:

Under Title VII, an employment decision may legitimately be based on an individual's accent if the accent "interferes materially with job performance." To meet this standard, an employer must provide evidence showing that: (1) effective spoken communication in English is required to perform job duties; and (2) the individual's accent materially interferes with his or her ability to communicate in spoken English. [1]

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/national-origin-guidance....

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

#204

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #190

dsajames wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good communication is a requirement of the job. If you can't communicate, you aren't likely to be efficient. Take some time to take classes and learn the language better. Try working in a Spanish-only environment as a pure English speaker and see how far you get. This doesn't mean "he has an accent", just that they couldn't understand it.

We don't have to litigate this from first principles; this is such a common problem that there is a name for it in EEOC circles: "accent discrimination". You can be civilly liable if you do it.

[deleted]

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

#205

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:30 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #176

thaumasiotes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought you all were better than this. Why are you asking questions about relational databases? You write about hiring from the perspective of someone with hiring authority. TripleByte doesn't have hiring authority, or even sufficient reputation to get their candidates out of doing another technical interview at the companies to which they apply. There are two problems you might solve: - Joe Nerd needs a job. He…

My experience with trying this for a year at a previous startup which shall remain nameless is that no matter how I approached candidate qualification, work-sample or interview or ritual chicken sacrifice, I'd still have the same problem of clients rejecting candidates by default. Recruiters mostly all work on your "second" model. So why add crappy tech qualification to your problems? Do at least that right!

According to my mental model of the world, if I'm trying to find people who will pass their interviews at IBM, then the more my qualifying interview looks like IBM's interview, the better I'm doing.

I find it very plausible that your experience ("acceptance rate doesn't seem to change no matter how I personally vet the candidates") is more realistic than my armchair model, but I suspect the model is intuitive to a lot of people and will go a long way toward explaining "why are you asking questions about relational databases?".

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

#206

Post by nosseo » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #157

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…

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

We don't have the project track anymore, because most candidates weren't willing to do it and it wasn't successfully predicting hires. (There's actually a blog post about this upcoming). We have generalist, front-end and mobile tracks but none of them involve take-home work anymore.No matter which one you do, the feedback will be a lot more thorough than we were able to be two years ago.

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

#207

Post by echevil » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #177

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…

Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence. The amount of people I've washed out of the interview process because they've gone on some rant about windows vs linux, political ideology or just came off as unable to communicate in general. This is also the hardest to communicate as it is something inherent to the candidate. It's not per…

> Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence.

This must vary from company to company, but it's clear that tech companies spent tons of time and efforts in technical screening. Most questions asked in these interviews are also technical. It's hard to see why candidates would even have a chance to talk about their political views

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

#208

Post by laurentl » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

tajen wrote: post #137

mikeleeorg wrote: post #102

When I was a hiring manager, I used to always include a personal note that included suggestions and constructive criticism for the candidate. In a couple of cases, those people replied to me, demonstrated some actions towards those goals, and I hired them later, when I had more available positions. And those that I didn't hire, I encountered them at other companies. It was flattering to hear them say they remembered…

I once sent 49 rejection letters (for an internship!): « Here are statistics about the 50 applications I’ve received. » Received big thanks from at least 50% of them.

Last internship position I opened, I received more than 100 applications. Going through all of them and replying (even with a standard template) was grueling. I did give feedback to everyone we interviewed, though.

A good 50% of the resumes were flat out wrong for the position or missing critical information. A standard rejection letter with stats like these and basic recommendations might be useful in the future. It might also trigger a lot of self-righteous justification though... Don’t know if I’m up to receiving another 100 re-submissions with cooked CVs.

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

#209

Post by RoryRecruiter » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

Interesting read/points about risk and candidates not being receptive to feedback. I've worked for companies that reason like this but personally, I believe the biggest challenge to overcome is for the person declining the candidate to articulate clear/concise constructive feedback over the PHONE vs sending an EMAIL.

My current firm (McKinsey & Company) expects every candidate in round 1 or final round interviews (either from the recruiter or hiring manager) to receive a call same day or within a day of interviewing with their interview results. If the results are a decline, feedback as to how and why we came to that decision is provided. It's painful for sure and no one likes to give bad news but the firm has been operating this way for years and I’ve found candidates appreciate knowing sooner rather then later.

Let's face it, there are a lot of bad hiring processes out there and not hearing back is the WORST when on the job hunt. At my firm, we rigorously evaluate candidates based on performance and will always do our best to ensure they are provided with feedback in a timely manner (note: I'm sure there have been slip ups in the past RE: same day/1 day after interviewing feedback but the firm expects every recruiters/interviewer to follow this process).

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

#210

Post by chongli » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:40 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…

Why don't they want to do it? How might I make them more comfortable with me so they can explain how they really feel?

I'd be very cautious with this approach. Politeness is an extremely important social defense mechanism for most people. By ignoring the standard polite response and trying to get at the truth you're undermining a person's attempt to save face. By doing so, you're attacking their autonomy and agency as a human being.