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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

#211

Post by FLUX-YOU »

scarface74 wrote: post #195
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once you get to a certain level in your career, part of your job is to be the go to person that explains things, mentor, spend way too much time in meetings and just grease the wheels. The heads down developer is not seen as the multiplier like the team lead/architect is and they get paid accordingly. Great. That's exactly what I said in my original post -- hire someone specifically to do that. Problem solved. Now y…

If someone's going to deny me a promotion for linking a wikipedia page that answers a basic question and completely ignore my technical contributions, I absolutely do not trust that place has the best interests of its developers in mind and is likely driven more by politics than anything else. No place has the "best interest of its developers in mind". That's true for any industry. It's a lot easier to replace the on…

Why do I need to punch above my weight? So I can finally tell people 'no' when they try to take my time away with stuff that they can fix themselves?

I think it's clear we have two very different motivating factors in careers. You want to climb the corporate ladder and get power and influence, and I'm content building things.

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

#212

Post by groestl »

stone-monkey wrote: post #181
icedchai wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naming a specific person is not nice, but still not "doxxing."

That's exactly what doxxing is.(Paraphrasing here) "This guy was really shitty in my job interview. Here's their LinkedIn page." Seemed pretty cut and dry to me. What about it disqualified it as a not-doxxing situation?

I thought doxxing was the act of publishing the true identity of a person which was only known by their online handle before.

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

#213

Post by sdegutis »

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…

This is absolutely correct. Companies can and should discriminate against anyone who wouldn't be a good culture fit for any number of reasons. I don't fault anyone who has ever refused to hire me for personal reasons. At the end of the day, a company is a group of people working together toward a common goal. Company is Latin for those you break bread with, and although companies aren't usually that close-knit (modern business lunches don't have the same level of trust and closeness as an ancient meal) the point is still the same: you're a team.

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

#214

Post by wrecursion »

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…

You make a strong, valid point. However, in this case, as someone who worked there for a long time, and knew both the owner, and her family rather well.... I can say with absolute certainty it was to avoid the conflict / hard feelings.

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

#215

Post by bitwize »

I've occasionally had a moment of schadenfreude where, after interviewing at a place I hated, I could write something like this:

Dear ,

Thank you for considering me for . I certainly enjoyed talking to you in person. Unfortunately, I feel that is not a fit for my needs at this time. I wish you the very best of luck in your candidate search.

Sincerely, etc.

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

#216

Post by btilly »

biotech wrote: post #203
tptacek wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 individ…

In my opinion as someone present, this standard was met.

(1) Programmers need to be able to communicate about what they did, what they need to do, and how things are designed. (2) Interviewers kept on saying things like, "I managed to pick out enough of the right words that he probably answered me, but I wasn't sure."

None of us cared that he had an accent - we hired plenty of people with accents. We cared that we could not understand him well enough to coordinate with him. But if we had told him that, he would have had grounds to file a lawsuit. We'd have hopefully won, but he could still file it.

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

#217

Post by michaelt »

tptacek wrote: post #168
michaelt wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 candidat…

If you insist on doing the interview in person, why not just tell them ahead of time what their environment needs to do when they get there? Give people instructions and a script (formal or just a numbered list of steps) that determines they're ready to go. Better yet, just don't make people do that stuff in your office. Why bother videorecording interviews at all? I'd have problems writing a line of code with someon…

  Why bother videorecording interviews at all?
We don't record interviews. By "remote video interviews" I meant "remote interviews by videoconferencing such as Skype or Google Hangouts" which I assumed was what you meant when you proposed candidates use their own office or couch.

  why not just tell them ahead of time what their
  environment needs to do when they get there?
We did this, including a github test project they could check out and build to make sure everything was working. Still, about 50% of candidates arrived without a working environment.

We chose to supply a known-good laptop instead of rejecting such candidates instantly when they've spent time travelling to us etc.

  every time I hear someone explain how challenging or
  untenable our process is, I keep wondering, "what am
  I doing wrong to make this work so well for us?"
I'm not saying your process is challenging for _you_ given _your_ situation; I'm sure it works very well for you! I'm saying it's challenging for _us_ given _our_ situation :)

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

#218

Post by almostdeadguy »

dsajames wrote: post #188
mrkurt wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Can't understand their accent" _is_ discriminatory. Please don't ever recommend against a candidate for that. Companies are definitely taking the easy way out. The reality is that most of them don't have a good hiring process, aren't consistent about hiring decisions, and tend to choose based on factors that have nothing to do with the job they're hiring for.

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.

This goes both ways, and frankly it is racist to say you can't be bothered to try to understand someone's accent. I've worked with asian immigrants who learned english on the job, it's really not that hard to work with someone with a non-American accent.

And if the DSA in your name stands for what I think it does, you should know better.

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

#219

Post by mrkurt »

btilly wrote: post #216
biotech wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 individ…

In my opinion as someone present, this standard was met. (1) Programmers need to be able to communicate about what they did, what they need to do, and how things are designed. (2) Interviewers kept on saying things like, "I managed to pick out enough of the right words that he probably answered me, but I wasn't sure." None of us cared that he had an accent - we hired plenty of people with accents. We cared that we co…

How would you have handled a deaf candidate in the same position?

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

#220

Post by PopsiclePete »

mrkurt wrote: post #182
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…

"Can't understand their accent" _is_ discriminatory. Please don't ever recommend against a candidate for that. Companies are definitely taking the easy way out. The reality is that most of them don't have a good hiring process, aren't consistent about hiring decisions, and tend to choose based on factors that have nothing to do with the job they're hiring for.

>"Can't understand their accent" _is_ discriminatory. Please don't ever recommend against a candidate for that.

Sorry, I disagree. A team is more than just a bunch of automatons punching the keyboard.

If I can't understand what you're telling me, if you can't communicate your ideas, if nobody can understand what you're saying, if everything needs to be explained multiple times, and/or slowly, it becomes exhausting to work with a person like that.

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