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

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

#561

Post by irahul »

kamaal wrote: post #548
irahul wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welp. This is the point I checkout. You do you, but I have to ask. Do you have any production experience[1] and/or hiring experience? Because you have a very fundamental misunderstanding of both, and I find it very hard to believe that someone who has written even trivial applications would think that not having sql injection is an extra requirement or is going to take too much time, or anyone in hiring position is n…

I keep repeating that this is not about SQL injection. You could be asked to write a command line app which doesn't even involve a SQL database. And yet there could a lot of such security or even other add-on's on which your code could be evaluated. We are literally discussing code quantity + time Vs Quality here. >>Do you have any production experience >>db calls aren't randomly placed in try/catch - that will be ab…

> I keep repeating that this is not about SQL injection.

Is that why you made that absurd claim about sql injection being an explicit requirement? And that weird figure of 24 hours for handling sql injection, and api validation?

> Never assume a database or any IO call for that matter will always go right.

I said "db calls aren't randomly placed in try/catch - that will be absurd". Because they will be handled at app level to return uniform error messages. Now I am sure you will go on pretending that when you said "db calls aren't in try/catch", what you meant was db calls can throw an exception and app will handle it.

> Pretty much any large codebase, that passes objects around should always do Null pointer checks. This is because several times resource heavy objects are initialized only on certain conditions, and if such objects are passed around they must be checked.

What did I say about None checks not necessary because of something which is visible in the code? What do you think those marshmallow schemas and use_kwargs is for?

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

#562

Post by balfirevic »

baron816 wrote: post #431
aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened next?

A day after I wrote the review, they tried to email me and offer me the job. I was pretty desperate, but not THAT desperate knowing they had only done so because of the review. So I replied, saying I wasn’t interested. The day after that is when the CEO called me to threaten me. They probably couldn’t have done much to me, but still nothing for me to gain from the situation, so I took it down and moved on with my lif…

It would've been funny if you added to your review that they've threatened you.

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

#563

Post by ThePhysicist »

iagooar wrote: post #395
vector_spaces wrote: post #246

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had ze…

In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response. This has to do with how law is structured here: giving feedback gives an attack surface to candidates that could sue you for the feedback you gave (because they do not agree with it). So this is it, companies do not do this because they're evil, they do this because nobody wants legal consequences.

I have never heard of something like this, and we're hiring people in Germany. Which leverage would a candidate have if you give him/her specific feedback regarding lack of knowledge in required areas?

Can you name one case where this actually happened?

The only practical way someone could sue you is through "Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG)" if they can prove that you discriminated them based on their age, gender or ethnicity.

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

#564

Post by ash »

swish_bob wrote: post #501
hvidgaard wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone actually told me they'd use 'cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l' to find an error count, they'd have to be gigantic drama queens or asshole for me to not hire them for a position, I'd even look for a different one if it's not quite the right fit for the one they're interviewing for. That is textbook example efficiency.

Dunno, watching people cat something then pipe it to grep drives me up the wall. I'll let piping grep to wc -l instead of just using -c pass this time though.

I prefer cat-then-pipe while using shell interactively. It's easier to add things to the middle of the pipeline. You simply move the cursor the pipe character, and type another command.

Original:

  cat error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l
After change:

  cat error.log | grep -v 'SENSITIVE' | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l
But with cat-less version, you have to think and sometimes even move things around.

Original:

  grep error.log 'ERROR:' | wc -l
After change:

  grep -v 'SENSITIVE' error.log | grep 'ERROR:' | wc -l
Moreover, some commands behave differently in cat-less mode. For example, gzip:

  gzip file.js | wc -c # oops, we've just removed file.js
  cat file.js | gzip | wc -c # shows compressed size

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

#565

Post by Kalium »

jakobegger wrote: post #464
iagooar wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all, just a generic response. This has to do with how law is structured here: giving feedback gives an attack surface to candidates that could sue you for the feedback you gave (because they do not agree with it). So this is it, companies do not do this because they're evil, they do this because nobody wants legal consequences.

> In Germany every single lawyer or HR responsible would tell you not to send any reason at all I can't imagine that this makes any sense. Let's say you give every interviewee feedback: - 90% of candidates will be grateful - 10% of candidates will not like the feedback and start to argue (at this point ignoring emails might make sense to avoid wasting time) - 0.01% of candidates will actually sue you over it The laws…

> But all the good will from the other people must be worth something!

Is it possible that there may be a distinction to be made between all the good will from the other people being worth something and all the good will being worth more than the legal headaches, PR headaches, and other potential consequences of someone reacting badly to feedback?

This is the kind of question that demands a quantitative analysis, but I hardly know where to begin beyond that it's an expected value question. Where do you go about putting a number to the value of something that "must be worth something"?

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

#566

Post by Apocryphon »

scarejunba wrote: post #486
Apocryphon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe there can be a system that provides a disclaimer where they waive all ability to sue or otherwise get into a fight with you.

Are you serious? Imagine the first HN headline that reads "Company X requires you to waive your ability to sue if you apply to them". Come on, man. Apply some tests to your ideas.

That's already how most EULA click-through NDAs are, and no one blinks an eye. People are just numb to legal disclaimers now. One outrage article will not go viral, and will not sink any companies.

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

#567

Post by Double_a_92 »

tron27 wrote: post #532
Double_a_92 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people actually accept such interviews? That seems quite disrespectful to me, tbh. > Oh you've been working in a relevant field for 10 years? Here take this written test first, so we can check how well you can memorize hundreds of random irrelevant algorithms... I'd walk out, unless it was maybe some simpler algorithm that you can actually figure out yourself by thinking for a few minutes.

I recently got ambushed with one of these types of interviews. I was going for a senior dev role, in the same industry I've been working on for the last 5+ years. Had done the normal initial phone interview (overview of experience etc), a take home code challenge (only took ~1hr) then I was asked to come in for a final interview that was to be a 15-20min presentation on project I'd worked on (that related to what I w…

> 15-20min presentation on project I'd worked on

Are you sure they didn't just try to steal intellectual property of your last employer? ._.

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

#568

Post by TheRealPomax »

bradlys wrote: post #151
wvenable wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not giving feedback though is not "treating them like crap" in fact the opposite is far more likely to be true (as interpreted by the non-hired candidate). You literally can't go wrong doing nothing.

You can do wrong - I do not reinterview with startups that do not give feedback at the end of the interview process. So, if you're a startup that's struggling to hire - good luck getting that candidate to come back in 6 months to a year when you're struggling. (Plenty of companies flip-flop on hire/no-hire as time goes on)

That's not doing wrong as far as the company is concerned, though. Harsh as it may sound, this is just another version of a customer going "I will take my business elsewhere!" and walking out of a store: the store couldn't care less, because your business is irrelevant. In the same way, "your" interviewing is entirely irrelevant, the only thing the company cares about is that they get applications from qualified folks, whether that's repeat applications or not. You not coming back in 6 months doesn't stop them from getting new applications from other folks with just as good a skill set as you.

Of course for you, personally, it sucks and you want to know how to improve, but for the company the very act of talking to you after your temporary relationship is over does come with the potential for incredible harm. It's unlikely, but a liability they have zero responsibility to take on. As far as companies are concerned, not interacting with anyone they don't have a business relationship with is solid business practice, and while applying, you're just an application; you're not someone whose education and growth path they are responsible for. You would be, if you got hired, but until then you are not their responsibility in the slightest and any unpaid, no-contract interaction between them and you is a liability to them.

Doing nothing is by far the smartest thing the company can insist on. Even if it sucks for us applicants.

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

#569

Post by rchaud »

pm24601 wrote: post #364
rchaud wrote: post #11

The hiring process is a black box for a reason. The HR department's role is to protect the company first, not the employees, and certainly not prospective employees. If feedback can be interpreted as being discriminatory, or reflective of bad company culture in general, well, word gets around. For much of the time, the reason people don't get the job is that there was someone marginally more qualified/attractive/like…

> If feedback can be interpreted as being discriminatory, or reflective of bad company culture in general, well, word gets around. If the feedback can be interpreted in such a way .... then the rejection is discriminatory. Pure and simple. "Culture fit" reasons are code for bias. "Culture": * national origin * age * religion * gender * sexual orientation.... ... all protected classes, yet covered with the "culture fi…

I agree. Looking back at my comment, I did phrase it in a way that made it sound like "the company has no choice but to do this"; that wasn't my intention.

Discrimination on the basis of the school you attended, your nationality/race/ethnicity, even what you choose to do in your free time, is likely to be behind more than a few rejections. "Culture fit" is a polite fig leaf to hide that.

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

#570

Post by ProZsolt »

5cott0 wrote: post #338
vector_spaces wrote: post #246

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had ze…

Interview homework is in many cases more of a disrespectful waste of candidates time than fresh grad whiteboard hazing rituals.

I prefer homework over whiteboard or any on-site coding challenges. I'm really bad under pressure.

But I only do homework after the on-site interview, so I know I really want to work there and they have some "skin in the game" too not just shotgunning random candidates that they never actually planning to hire.

Also, anything over 3 hours is a no go.

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