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No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#32
post #7

I got verbal feedback exactly one time (at Microsoft) during my attempt to land a post-1-year of university internship. I had solved the algorithm in a few minutes, but when trying to code it up, I struggled a fair amount before figuring it out. The feedback I got was "You seem like a smart person, who hasn't done very much coding. That makes you a bad risk. Go practice programming and come back next year". It was in…

> You seem like a smart person, who hasn't done very much coding. That makes you a bad risk,

Assuming Microsoft actually measures this stuff, that's kind of surprising to me. I've never placed much weight on being able to write a program on the spot.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#34

Ain't nobody got time for that. When I was hiring developers, I was conducting dozens of interviews based off of hundreds of applications. My goal is to hire people who can help me solve problems. Running an interview improvement service isn't something I have time for.

This is a bad, bad take. You aren't "running an interview improvement service". You're being a decent human being to another human being.

Being decent is important.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#35
post #8

Half joking answer: because no engineer has ever received interviewing feedback

I have a handful of times. They we're quite insightful and entertaining, though mostly not helpful since most of time they were commenting on things that just weren't meant to be. "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is ~life~ interviewing."

Definitely a few times where I raised an eyebrow at obviously-not-HR-approved comments that made it through.

Only benefit these companies got from providing feedback was some word-of-mouth to my friends to interview there.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#36
post #30

Why can't companies provide feedback iff the candidate agrees that the feedback is subject to NDA? Interview candidates already sign NDAs for the coding questions asked. Granted those NDAs are always ignored (based on coding interview sites) but the NDA would at least provide the "protection" that these companies want. Then the companies benefit from having candidates actually improving and potentially coming back hi…

like a company is going to sue over this.

social media and shame culture makes this silly to attempt.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#37
post #6

One time we gave feedback on request and the candidate contested the feedback, then went out on a social media rampage. So yeah, we stopped after that. It only takes one bad candidate to make it not worth the effort.

I think this is the main problem. People just don’t take rejection well, or it’s taken too personally.

Sometimes it’s no one’s fault and it’s simply a bad fit.

And of course like you say, people aren’t taught how to evaluate feedback and they may actually contest what is a courtesy in an adversarial manner and thus make things so much worse.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#38
I write a form letter. If someone asks for feedback, I give it to them. Nothing's ever happened to me, but one of my colleagues once had a guy get very angry and say that he had, in fact, solved the problem and yell at him and then go write this angry Glassdoor review.

I guess I've got to thank this guy for any mild resistance to giving feedback that I have.

The sad answer for why my feedback isn't great, though, is that I can't bring myself to care about someone who is so far outside my Dunbar number. At the point where we've decided not to work with this person, they're just some rando. It's like if someone walked up on the street and asked me for feedback.

I mean, I try anyway, but I know I'm not doing the best job.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#39
post #7

I got verbal feedback exactly one time (at Microsoft) during my attempt to land a post-1-year of university internship. I had solved the algorithm in a few minutes, but when trying to code it up, I struggled a fair amount before figuring it out. The feedback I got was "You seem like a smart person, who hasn't done very much coding. That makes you a bad risk. Go practice programming and come back next year". It was in…

> You seem like a smart person, who hasn't done very much coding. That makes you a bad risk, Assuming Microsoft actually measures this stuff, that's kind of surprising to me. I've never placed much weight on being able to write a program on the spot.

While you may not, Microsoft's hiring process (as well as others) clearly do.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#40

Ain't nobody got time for that. When I was hiring developers, I was conducting dozens of interviews based off of hundreds of applications. My goal is to hire people who can help me solve problems. Running an interview improvement service isn't something I have time for.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

If a company doesn't have the time to treat human beings like human beings, it's not a good company for which to work.

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