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I know why rejection emails suck – I write them

triplebyte.com

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

#71

Post by [deleted] »

nosseo wrote: post #45
mpeg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you pat yourself on the back about it, I think the whole Triplebyte interview process is poorly thought out, including your email comms. I did your online code quiz and got sent an email about doing a 2-hour technical interview, without really knowing much about what the job I was supposed to be applying for was. On the interview, since I didn't really want to waste 2-hours on something I didn't…

Yeah, another disadvantage of feedback is that some people really resent suggestions on how to improve - they can come across as condescending. I definitely would rather get feedback to someone who wants it even if this annoys someone who didn't, but I think lots of companies are making the opposite tradeoff - and that's part of why feedback is so rare in the industry.

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by wdewind »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #62
wdewind wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a lot of the job of software engineering to quickly and concisely communicate complicated concepts? Might this actually be an accurate work sample? How else might you measure something like this? Also the next few lines kinda address what you are saying: > It also might be that they know them inside-and-out but aren’t used to answering questions on the fly, or that our question didn’t use the vocabulary they’re…

>Isn't a lot of the job of software engineering to quickly and concisely communicate complicated concepts? No, I write code daily but I might have to distill down technical concepts once a week or so (usually not even that much) and even then if I happen to be the only one who can distill it down. If your devs are often explaining basic stuff like 'what is a relational database?', you need to hire someone specificall…

Sure, people don't need to explain RDBMS frequently, but that code you wrote last week? Or that reason you can't do exactly what the PM wants? YMMV but I spend a LOT of time communicating difficult concepts to other engineers (not only mentoring juniors, but also just doing hand-offs and stuff to others), to product managers, sales people etc.

Some engineers really do sit in a quiet room all day writing code, but my experience has been that it is an extremely communication-centric job.

Either way: if you do work in the kind of environment where you need to work with other engs and teams frequently you do need to test communication skills, and simply coding is not always sufficient.

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

#73

Post by Johnny555 »

If they send feedback which tells candidates, truthfully, that they were rejected because they didn’t get very far on the coding project, then if anything a company reduces their legal risk: they have a transparent track record of evaluating candidates based only on their skills

I think the problem comes when he talks to his friend of another race/gender and that friend said "Yeah, I couldn't finish that either, but they still hired me". The company may have had a legit reason to overlook the coding project (like the second candidate had experience in some other technology), but when you tell candidate X that they didn't get the job because they didn't complete the coding exercise, but then you hire candidate Y despite him not completing it, it provides candidate X with some concrete evidence of discrimination.

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

#74

Post by nosseo »

pmiller2 wrote: post #55
nosseo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a feedback email from a couple years ago - am I right about that? We've definitely gotten better at this over time.

How so?

All the ways I discussed in the article - more nuanced, more thorough, more detailed, more focused on constructive advice you can take to your next interview. Plus, we've just improved our process in general so you aren't tested on skills you don't need. It's easier to give constructive feedback about an interview process you have a lot of confidence in, and much of the work we've put in as a company over the last few years has been designing an interview we think really works.

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

#75

Post by pmiller2 »

minimaxir wrote: post #67
ransom1538 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been doing mysql database type things for 15 years solid. Once during a job interview at digg.com, someone [ok ok doxx removed] asked: "what is a having statement in sql?". I jumped in explained how you can filter aggregated sets performed by a 'group by' and rambled on and on. He stopped me and said, "You can use a having statement without a group by, are you sure you know how they work." I have never seen th…

[No longer applicable]

Naming a company and recounting an interview experience is not doxxing.

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

#77

Post by wolco »

minimaxir wrote: post #67
ransom1538 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been doing mysql database type things for 15 years solid. Once during a job interview at digg.com, someone [ok ok doxx removed] asked: "what is a having statement in sql?". I jumped in explained how you can filter aggregated sets performed by a 'group by' and rambled on and on. He stopped me and said, "You can use a having statement without a group by, are you sure you know how they work." I have never seen th…

[No longer applicable]

Don't censor others.

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

#78

Post by scarface74 »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #62
wdewind wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a lot of the job of software engineering to quickly and concisely communicate complicated concepts? Might this actually be an accurate work sample? How else might you measure something like this? Also the next few lines kinda address what you are saying: > It also might be that they know them inside-and-out but aren’t used to answering questions on the fly, or that our question didn’t use the vocabulary they’re…

>Isn't a lot of the job of software engineering to quickly and concisely communicate complicated concepts? No, I write code daily but I might have to distill down technical concepts once a week or so (usually not even that much) and even then if I happen to be the only one who can distill it down. If your devs are often explaining basic stuff like 'what is a relational database?', you need to hire someone specificall…

If your devs are often explaining basic stuff like 'what is a relational database?', you need to hire someone specifically to do that. It's not a good use of time especially when they can go google/wikipedia those concepts and figure it out themselves.

If you can’t communicate ideas and basic concepts to non technical people, you will both limit your career opportunities and not be able to get your ideas implemented while someone with worse ideas will.

Developers underestimate the amount of influence you can have just by being able to communicate effectively.

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

#79

Post by minimaxir »

pmiller2 wrote: post #75
minimaxir wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[No longer applicable]

Naming a company and recounting an interview experience is not doxxing.

He named a specific person before the edit, which is a bit different. Nothing wrong with naming/shaming digg.com, though.

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

#80

Post by Dwolb »

>I heard back from many of the engineers I write to, and often, they were furious

Bingo. I've opted to share specific team feedback via phone and although candidate feedback was generally positive and thankful, once in awhile the reaction would be extremely negative. I now opt for the much more (emotionally) safe route.

Triplebyte is more incented to provide candidate feedback because if the candidate improves, Triplebye may be more likely to place them in the future. With companies, this incentive is less apparent.

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