I know why rejection emails suck – I write them • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by pmiller2 » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 8:37 AM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #354

pmiller2 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a “which is the brake pedal” level question in an onsite interview. Usually it’s more like I’m a mechanic being asked “how do you replace the water pump on a 1999 Saturn Ion, from memory, please.”

That's a benefit of the coding interview, actually. We don't ask you about that particular feature of some library from 10 years ago, which is basically a luck question: you either happen to know or you don't. We ask you to code a simple task that you should be able to do in your favorite programming language. Not entirely sure how the discussion of coding interviews veered towards obscure knowledge interviews - the…

That’s just it: replacing a water pump on a common used car is a task any competent mechanic should be able to do. But, possibly not without the repair manual. And, I certainly wouldn’t think they’d be able to describe step by step how to do it without the car or manual in front of them!

Likewise, many interview programming tasks can be are ones a competent programmer should be able to do with the tools of the trade accessible (namely Google and time to think).

Some simply are not. I was once expected to write, debug, and modify a concurrent chat server in an hour long interview. I do think that’s a reasonable programming task, but not one to be completed in an hour, under scrutiny. It’s the equivalent of being asked to rebuild a motor in an interview : definitely doable under real world conditions, but not a realistic test to determine whether to hire someone.

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

#372

Post by pmiller2 » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 8:38 AM UTC

presscast wrote: post #359

pmiller2 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may raise the question, but it’s not evidence, and it’s not actionable. No lawyer would ever take a case based on a lack of interview feedback, or “not a fit.”

No, but it might prompt someone to dig deeper. I think companies are starting to treat the hiring process as a security risk and are trying to minimize the attack-surface.

To anyone who’s try “digging deeper” in a situation like this, I say good luck.

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

#373

Post by ericdykstra » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 8:42 AM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #177

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…

Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence. The amount of people I've washed out of the interview process because they've gone on some rant about windows vs linux, political ideology or just came off as unable to communicate in general. This is also the hardest to communicate as it is something inherent to the candidate. It's not per…

Whether hiring managers want to admit it or not, in the vast majority of cases, the person giving the interview already has their mind made up about a candidate before they've said a word (so everything from the resume/background info to initial impression based on looks).

I have a ~90% success rate in guessing whether I'll go on to the next stage / get an offer based on how warm the interview is to me within the first couple of minutes of the interview. The interviewers pre-judged you positively are rooting for you to succeed, and those who are biased against you are looking for reasons to not pass you. (This is assuming, of course, some very basic level of competency and that one passed the initial screening without lying)

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

#374

Post by MaxBarraclough » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 8:59 AM UTC

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 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

So the intent of the law is to prohibit making hiring decisions on the grounds of "I don't like that particular accent", it's not intended to force companies to disregard whether a candidate is intelligible.

Seems sensible enough. I imagine this isn't even specific to foreign candidates - here in the UK, there are quite strong associations with different regional accents (which ones sound 'refined' or 'unrefined', etc). It would of course be unfairly discriminatory to rule out a candidate on those grounds.

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

#375

Post by taneq » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:00 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #328

taneq wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We always get these kinds of responses when interview testing is mentioned. This isn't some high-level algorithm analysis on a whiteboard with a panel of examiners grilling you. This is a simple test of basic competence. It's like interviewing a candidate Formula 1 driver and asking them "so which bit's the brake pedal?" If they can't tell you that instantly then they shouldn't be applying for the position in the fir…

> We always get these kinds of responses… Perhaps you should start listening. > This isn't some high-level algorithm analysis on a whiteboard with a panel of examiners grilling you. Happened to me just three months ago. The req is still open, wonder why? To reiterate: - Exams have a topic known in advance. - Exams never have a person sitting there waiting for the answer. - Exams are never 1 or 2 questions binary pass…

We're talking about "basic fizz-buzz level coding questions". It sounds like you had a bad experience with something else that we weren't talking about.

(As for 'topic known in advance', I'd suggest that if you don't know what topics that you might be asked about in a job interview, maybe you shouldn't be interviewing for that job.)

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

#376

Post by joesb » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #241

btilly wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how few companies give interview feedback, I would predicted very little in the way of lawsuits involving that. People can't "willfully or accidentally mis-interpret" what you don't say. The real question is, "If people gave interview feedback, would they get sued for it?" I think so. Doubly so if the feedback was at odds with the candidate's self-image or if it is written. (It is a lot easier to file a lawsuit…

HR departments say so because if no one ever gives interview feedback, no one will ever get sued for giving the "wrong" feedback. They are like the legal department in that they will never look to help a company actively gain a competitive advantage, and certainly never to do the decent thing by people outside the company's management.

Then it's correct to never give feedback. Company getting sued is not a competitive advantage.

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

#377

Post by presscast » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:21 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #372

presscast wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it might prompt someone to dig deeper. I think companies are starting to treat the hiring process as a security risk and are trying to minimize the attack-surface.

To anyone who’s try “digging deeper” in a situation like this, I say good luck.

For most of us, dealing with this kind of issue is a hassle, even when there's no actual legal danger. Substitute "bad PR" with "litigation risk" if you prefer.

The point is: there exists an incentive to think in terms of information leakage, and it's a very unfortunate state of affairs because everybody loses.

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

#378

Post by joesb » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:26 AM UTC

dbt00 wrote: post #286

PopsiclePete wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

If someone can't communicate their knowledge and skills that's one problem, and a very common one with or without an accent barrier. If someone can communicate their ideas and do the job and you don't want to hire them to avoid having to actually expend effort in communicating, that's a different problem, and it's not theirs.

If you can't understand them, then they can't do their job. The one who have accent also have to expend effort in communicating, too.

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

#379

Post by michaelt » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:40 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #230

michaelt wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Maybe I'm being unclear. I'm asking: why does there need to be video or telephonic oversight of any sort for a work-sample challenge? Why are you assigning yourself that problem? We've never done that and never had a problem.

Ah, you mean a take-home test?

Some people involved in our hiring process don't like them, they say experienced candidates stop responding when sent take-home tests. Their theory is employed people with families don't have the time - although we don't have hard empirical evidence for this for obvious reasons.

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

#380

Post by heavenlyblue » Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 10:14 AM UTC

simsla wrote: post #277

slg wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 (p That'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.

And here you're forgetting about the significance of the patterns themselves.

95% significance of the fact that no women or ex convicts were hired for the job? Seems significant enough that a newspaper would write about it.

95% significance of not hiring a guy who looking too much of a hipster and has too many tattoos? Not sure, to be honest - I can see how society (and newspaper writers) would easily dismiss that as bs.

Don't try to abstract it away as otherwise it just seems you're justifying something absolutely ridiculous.