It's less effort and seems kinder to give a soft "no" by more-or-less ghosting the candidate. It's better to focus on "yes," actionable interest than get hung-up on where there's no business to be had.
I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
301–310 of 426 posts
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
They can't code because you are looking figuratively over their shoulder---the clock is ticking next to a hundred grand in a suitcase. A single question is pulled from subjects vast enough to fill up years of college and there is no time to research, as one would in the real world. Binary pass/fail with your pride/livelyhood/family on the line. Please state your last exam conducted under such conditions? Oh and your…
> They can't code because you are looking figuratively over their shoulder---the clock is ticking next to a hundred grand in a suitcase.
There is a difference between me asking you how to optimize a graph algorithm (good luck--I probably couldn't do that on the fly with references in front of me) vs giving me a basic FizzBuzz.
If I let you pick your language for your FizzBuzz, you need to demonstrate at least some of the following things:
I/O of any flavor (I'll even accept Logging if you don't do standard I/O or console I/O)
String formatting
Modulus Operator
Nested-If statements (or equivalent--Matching, case/switch, etc.)
I'm not looking for production code. I'm looking for 10-20 lines of "A High School senior with a computer class could pass this."
This is not limited to programming, sadly.
I used to have to interview VLSI designers with "Draw me an inverter", and 70% of them couldn't pass.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
I'm not suggesting directly asking these questions of the other person. I'm suggesting these as topics for you to think about if you're getting the polite excuse and want the actual reason. To get that you have to actually make them more comfortable; calling them out on a polite lie obviously isn't going to do that.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#304If 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…
> If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please consider doing this at least for junior people. If you want to keep your job, don't follow this advice. Honestly, I would love nothing more than giving junior people (all people in fact) feedback on why they didn't get the job, but people will sue at even the slightest hint of any type of potentially litigious situation. It's even worse w…
Why not make candidates sign a non-liability agreement to receive feedback? Of course, choosing to ask for such feedback would be optional - but if you want it, sign the form so you agree you won't sue.
Most people would find this information quite valuable to correct their mistakes for next time. It makes the whole process much more efficient for all parties if there's quick, specific feedback.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#305I 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…
Well that sucks for the person if they were rejected because of their accent and no feedback was given. All that hard work in preparing for interviews and you don't even know for sure why they didn't pick you.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can't code because you are looking figuratively over their shoulder---the clock is ticking next to a hundred grand in a suitcase. A single question is pulled from subjects vast enough to fill up years of college and there is no time to research, as one would in the real world. Binary pass/fail with your pride/livelyhood/family on the line. Please state your last exam conducted under such conditions? Oh and your…
> They can't code because you are looking figuratively over their shoulder---the clock is ticking next to a hundred grand in a suitcase. There is a difference between me asking you how to optimize a graph algorithm (good luck--I probably couldn't do that on the fly with references in front of me) vs giving me a basic FizzBuzz. If I let you pick your language for your FizzBuzz, you need to demonstrate at least some of…
To be totally honest, I always find these stats about some x% > 50% failure to program at all totally unbelievable. What do these people do all day, if not design and build software? Yet they're apparently completely unable to write code? How is that possible? I understand that there is always a certain amount of slack and underperformance but any workforce would be completely paralyzed by 70% completely incompetent workers. And yet companies everywhere still produce software.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#307I recently bombed a Triplebyte interview. I didn't realize how badly until I got the feedback email. It honestly hurt, but it was really useful. I definitely respect their approach.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#308I 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 m…
My friend works for a large consulting company (you've heard of them). They were hired by a client who needed to reduce their labor costs by 10-15% (read: fire people) because they were hemorrhaging money. The team of consultants asked to NOT be given any performance data - and recommended that the consulting team handle the layoffs and fire randomly - this immunized the client from any discrimination lawsuits and was, according to the senior consultant, the most cost effective way to handle a layoff, once the cost of litigation was factored. The client signed off on the plan and the consultants executed it. The client was a big (>10k employees) tech company.
This is the world we live in, unfortunately.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please consider doing this at least for junior people. If you want to keep your job, don't follow this advice. Honestly, I would love nothing more than giving junior people (all people in fact) feedback on why they didn't get the job, but people will sue at even the slightest hint of any type of potentially litigious situation. It's even worse w…
Why not make candidates sign a non-liability agreement to receive feedback? Of course, choosing to ask for such feedback would be optional - but if you want it, sign the form so you agree you won't sue. Most people would find this information quite valuable to correct their mistakes for next time. It makes the whole process much more efficient for all parties if there's quick, specific feedback.
You can't absolve a company from liability for US labor laws. So even after you sign the non-liability agreement, you can still sue. It's not a real shield for the company.
Re: I know why rejection emails suck – I write them
#310Earlier 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…
>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."
Did it ever occur to them to ask "Sorry, could you repeat that?"
Sometimes it takes a bit more effort to understand someone, whether it's because of an accent or a speech disorder or whatever. As an interviewer, you're in a position of power, and you have an obligation to put in that effort.