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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

#271

Post by toast_coder »

matz1 wrote: post #264
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.

Yes, It is discriminatory. So ? Not able to code is also discriminatory to someone who don't know how to code.

You bet there are absolutly people who want protection from this discrimination. Those people want it broken down to the concept of nothing more than 'I was here first, you must offer the job to me or I have cause to sue'.

It is one of the hallmarks of union labor management. It is one reason why private labor has a competitive advantage.

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

#272

Post by vonmoltke »

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?

That is an absurd definition of doxxing. Reporting the names of you have had in-person interactions with, in cases where it would not expose someone's pseudonym, is in no way, shape, or form doxxing.

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

#273

Post by GuB-42 »

jMyles wrote: post #254
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…

I was with you until you said that refraining from hiring someone because his accent was too difficult to understand. That's an insane reason - why pass on a good candidate for this reason? Can your company afford this? If you are working closely with this person, it will be 3 months before his accent is sufficiently adjusted. This is a stupid reason to pass.

Accent is the hardest part of a language to acquire. That person may take 3 months to adjust, or maybe much more. In the meantime that accent hinders communication, which is a bad thing.

Accent is part of fluency, and fluency is a skill, like coding or graphic design. Hiring someone without an important skill in hope he will acquire it later is a risk you may not want to take.

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

#274

Post by reversecs »

j2kun wrote: post #260
jMyles wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until you said that refraining from hiring someone because his accent was too difficult to understand. That's an insane reason - why pass on a good candidate for this reason? Can your company afford this? If you are working closely with this person, it will be 3 months before his accent is sufficiently adjusted. This is a stupid reason to pass.

I've seen this a million times teaching students. They raise a shitstorm for two weeks because they can't understand their TA's accent. Then they learn and can understand them just fine. The truth is it's part laziness and part racism. That being said, there is reinforcing incentive to be a bad communicator when the people around you don't make the effort because of your accent.

I am conflicted about the use of racism in this context. Accent varies by ethnicity and ethnicity is a proxy for race, so they are disadvantaged by their race. But if a student had a ta of the same race but no accent it would be fine. Or if the ta was white but had a bad accent the complaining would continue but it wouldn't be considered racism.

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

#275

Post by mmt »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #58
PascLeRasc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be nice to have some kind of public list where we could report companies that ghost, to warn other engineers to stay away.

You can't trust this because candidates do get petty when they get rejected and invent or omit details. That happens often on glassdoor.

Just like with any "crowdsourced" review site, I find value in the reviews, even if I don't, strictly, trust them.

Of particular value are multiple reviews that corroborate certain details, especially in the absence of reviews providing contradictory details.

At the very least, with something like "ghosting" during the interview process, it can help set expectations and inform behavior such as follow-up. For example, if interview reports complain of ghosting, I might still apply, but I wouldn't exert as much (if any) effort in soliciting a post-interview reply.

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

#276

Post by jasonlotito »

jMyles wrote: post #254
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…

I was with you until you said that refraining from hiring someone because his accent was too difficult to understand. That's an insane reason - why pass on a good candidate for this reason? Can your company afford this? If you are working closely with this person, it will be 3 months before his accent is sufficiently adjusted. This is a stupid reason to pass.

> why pass on a good candidate for this reason?

Given two people otherwise capable of doing the job, one you can easily communicate with, and one you cannot, which would you choose?

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

#277

Post by simsla »

slg wrote: post #258
wildmusings wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

>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 The existence of that pattern by itself might be enough for a company to be guilty of discrimination. If a policy disproportionately harms a specific protected class and they can't show a legitimate business reason for that policy, it is illegal regardless of intent. It is…

No. Any data exhibits random patterns, especially if you try too hard.

If you check for 10 patterns, each at the 95% significance level (pThat's why science requires you to formulate a hypothesis before running the experiment. And why finding a pattern through data analysis does not warrant a witch hunt.

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

#278

Post by HillaryBriss »

> Even Triplebyte only sends individualized feedback to candidates who've done a two-hour interview with us - we simply don't have the resources to do it for everyone who takes our online quiz.

I'm surprised by this. I would think that Triplebyte could automate the feedback for applicants who took the online quiz but didn't make the cut.

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

#279

Post by rootusrootus »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #234
irq11 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”I've seen candidates with anything between 1 and 15 years of full time coding work on their resumes fail to answer basic fizz-buzz level coding questions.” I haven’t seen this. I have, however, seen lots of junior interviewers ask idiotic questions and wash candidates out for bad reasons, and then turn around and claim the candidate ”failed at fizzbuzz”, just to cover their own ass (or because they think TopCoder me…

> Me personally? I’ve never interviewed a senior person who couldn’t code at all. Not after the phone screen, anyway. Not sure how common this is, but I've been one of those flame-outs. It was during a Google phone-screen. I was given a very simple programming problem, and something in my brain just broke (figuratively). In retrospect it was probably from being too tense because I was star-struck about the employer.…

I think that's pretty common. At least, I hope it is. I have been that person, and completely flamed out. Probably came across like I knew exactly nothing. I do well under routine job stress, tight deadlines, etc, and I have a great track record producing real results, but something about the interview process puts me on edge and stresses me in unique ways.

Fortunately I don't find myself in that style of interview anymore. The guy interviewing me already knows I can code, so all we are really trying to see if there is a culture fit. My preferred interview location is over beer.

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

#280

Post by panda888888 »

jMyles wrote: post #254
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…

I was with you until you said that refraining from hiring someone because his accent was too difficult to understand. That's an insane reason - why pass on a good candidate for this reason? Can your company afford this? If you are working closely with this person, it will be 3 months before his accent is sufficiently adjusted. This is a stupid reason to pass.

I've had projects where I've been able to understand everyone just fine, but the non-native speakers who were from different countries couldn't understand each other. Luckily, it was a minor inconvenience that all of us could easily handle, but I could see this being a valid reason in some circumstances (e.g. jobs that require a lot of time spent on the phone)
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