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Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

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Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see why. (Shouldn’t stop looking around, ever.)

You interview at two companies. Your first choice rejects you. Your second choice says yes immediately, then gives you time to decide. If the first company rejects you and tells you so, you can immediately accept the second choice. If the first company rejects you and ghosts you, you instead wait a month hoping the first company will get back to you, then accept the second choice. If you are willing to completely bur…

It's very simple. Contact the first choice, ABC, and tell them "Looks like things may be moving forward with XYZ. I have a preference for ABC, but we have fallen out of touch. If I don't hear from ABC in the next day or two, I will likely be signing with XYZ."

Be specific with the details, to make it clear there is no bluff. (If they are so inclined, they could call XYZ and confirm everything you said.) And if they don't respond, then go through with XYZ.

Anyway, unless the first versus second choice thing is about something concrete like compensation/benefits, or work location, a lot of it is just in your head; you have not actually worked at either place.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#343
post #24

FWIW I do try to tell folks what went wrong and what were the perceived gaps through the recruiters. I in fact ask my recruiters to give them known ways to prepare for our loop. You'd be surprised how many don't even after all this. I am assuming this is because many are just trying to see what's out there, don't have time to prepare etc. But the flip side is we do want candidates who are obviously good AND are excit…

>If I were to start a company, I know how I'd want to hire: It will be just like finding co-founders. But that doesn't scale.

This rings true to me (both parts), and it makes me wonder if it's a viable path to attack it from the other side, where you restrain yourself to markets/projects of a size that it doesn't have to scale.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#344
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That in no way absolves them of the responsibility to treat you like a human and give you a simple "no thanks." This attitude it toxic and feels like you're looking to turn an interview into a lose-lose situation. It doesn't have to be.

I feel like people have forgotten the golden rule... everything has become transactional.

Even if it is transactional it still makes sense. People talk and if a company gets a bad reputation it will be harder for them to recruit and retain which translates into a cash cost.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#345
post #83

As a candidate, I've always preferred polite "thanks, but no thanks" responses in a timely manner. The other kind of feedback that I like is things like, "we need people with a different background / experience than you have." IMO, judgement feedback (you screwed up how you handle your yak shaving, or I don't think we'll get along with each other) is too subjective to be constructive. And, I get it. As someone who's…

It's safer to pass on a good candidate than hire a bad employee.

Hence the byzantine process interviewing has become. Like most of what Joel says it’s flattering to the audience but just not true. Pretty much every company in the universe operates a 3-month probationary period. The risk of a bad hire in the real world is well mitigated. Also true in the real world, it is better to do this than waste months of time looking for the perfect candidate when you could easily get someone decent on board in mere weeks.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#346
post #340
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can people just drop "fear of being sued" as a catch-all reason for any behavior? It is incredibly expensive and time consuming to file a lawsuit. The average person doesn't go around suing other folks regularly.

Filing a lawsuit can be quite profitable for the lawyers involved. What's preventing someone from trying to extract $3M in settlement money from a rich company that doesn't want its reputation tarnished in a long running discrimination lawsuit? And $3M is a lot of money that lawyers would eagerly represent someone that has an evidence of discrimination.

The time it would take out of your life (just because you hire lawyers doesn’t mean you’re spending no time on the lawsuit). And once you file that lawsuit it’s going to become public record that you sued a company you interviewed for, so there’s a lot of downside risk for the rest of your career. I understand the fear but I don’t think there’s realistically a lot of downside risk for employers to responsibly share some feedback. And certainly there’s no legal risk to just letting candidates know they went in a different direction.

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#347
post #312
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it's not likely they're going to sue you regardless of what reason you give for not accepting their offer. There's asymmetry from the other side too.

Can people just drop "fear of being sued" as a catch-all reason for any behavior? It is incredibly expensive and time consuming to file a lawsuit. The average person doesn't go around suing other folks regularly.

they don't want the hassle of getting drag into one?

Re: Reasons Why Job Seekers Are Not Given Feedback

#348
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's all very understandable, at the very least give some kind of generic rejection. This was many years ago, but one time I did an all-day onsite interview (~6 hours long) and I was ghosted and never heard from the company again. That infuriates me even to this day. At least give me some kind of news that it was a no.

Yeah, that's the worst. Going through 5+ interviews and then not getting any communication afterwards. Just send a simple 'No', is that so hard?

They don't see that as part of their job. On the short term that behaviour probably doesn't create problems for them. On the long term, they likely will be responding to job adverts themselves :)

Anyway, no answer is sometimes preferable to some of the nonsensical standard doublespeak letters you might receive ("niet weerhouden...").

Respect is far to be found in these HR practices, in my experience. It usually reflects in the business who took them on board. Once you see through all these efforts to make people behave exactly like they want, I doubt there will be much workplaces left considering.

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