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Comment by wgerard | Hacker News Reader

We interviewed a lot of hiring managers/etc. while we were working on a previous business in the hiring space. As part of that, we asked them this very question.

The fear of litigation was by far the biggest reason we heard, but there were some other popular reasons (mostly relating around conflict avoidance):

* Notably, giving feedback feels like an opening for the candidate to submit a rebuttal instead of ending the conversation (e.g. "You didn't do well on X" "Well here's a list of reasons why I didn't do well, and here's me demonstrating I actually understand X").

* It was just a personality conflict that few people would admit to in writing (e.g. "You're kind of an asshole, I don't want to work with you" isn't something you tell a candidate).

* There just isn't much actionable feedback to give. "Nobody felt excited to potentially work with you" isn't really actionable feedback, and sharing that just feels kinda mean for no reason.

* Someone better came along to fill the role and nobody wants to tell a candidate "We found someone better than you".

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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.

Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual.

Sometimes they'll dangle candidates if they're waiting to hear whether their first choice accepts, but even then it's rare not to communicate at all once you've done an on-site.

It happens a lot. Even Google ghosted me after an all-day onsite interview in Mountain View in 2015.

Microsoft did the same to me, the same year. Product owner/manager position.

Bloomberg did it to me. Even blocked my phone number. I figured that out when I changed my caller id. It was back in the day when VoIP was new and they didn't expect that someone could do that. It was worth hearing the panic on the voice when they realized who it was.

The only reason I called was because they stiffed my the reimbursement for travel expenses which they had agreed to pay for. The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement.

> The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement.

Clearly things went your way if you didn't get the job in that environment.

Interesting, when I worked at Bloomberg we had a standard form letter for rejections that was sent every time. (Email)

Funny story about that, I'd set up a macro to fire off said email with one keypress. Finishing up a phone screen that went horribly, I thanked him for his time and all the other niceties, and pressed the key right as I was about to hang up.

"But wait! I have some questions for you, too!"

Cue the longest 5 minutes of my life.

Couldn't you just say the same thing over the phone? Or do you need to keep the mask on during the call? As if the rejection is only possible in the next turn.

24-year-old me didn't create the process, I just followed it. Well except for the part about waiting until the call is really over ;)

After reading some of the comments here about candidates who want to debate the interviewer's decision, it seems to make sense.

Indeed did this to me after I completed and presented a 2-day paid project. Ironically for a role with their new assessment acqui-hire company...

I did 2 remote coding interviews for aws, years apart, and was ghosted twice.

"Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual."

It's probably at least 50% of my interviews. Roughly 1/4 of my interviews have any kind of follow up at all.

It doesn't hurt to tell people that someone else was hired. Closure is important to job seekers.

My stats from my latest job hunt sprint are about 50% as well.

Aviat Networks flew me to Wellington for a whole day interview a few years ago.

I was expected to prepare (in advance) a number of things including a technical presentation and detailed answers to a large number of questions, which took me several evenings and most of a weekend. I flew there on a monday for what was an exhausting full day of interviews before my return flight that evening. The recruiter phoned me the following day to say they were very impressed and would be making an offer, but there were some other people who wanted to meet me.

So a few days later I took another day off work to fly down for a second round of meetings. At the end of this second day I was told that the senior manager was abroad and they would finalise the offer when he returned.

I flew back home and waited a week or 10 days before emailing to hear how things were progressing. The recruiter responded "to recap, we are waiting for $manager to return before finalising the offer".

That was about 7 years ago, and it was the last thing I heard from them. I get that employers can't be bothered responding to every CV that crosses their desk, but this was a demanding process that cost me several days effort and 2 days salary. Maybe they lied when they said they liked me, I have no idea and don't really care. But I certainly didn't expect to be ghosted after all that.

A year or two later I had a new colleague who had been working there around the time of my interview, and I told him this story. His response? "You dodged a bullet".

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?

My thought is that they don't say "no" because they are waiting for their top pick to confirm or deny.

When I did hiring, I had several top candidates take a different position, so I had to go to a second or even third choice.

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.

But the company too spent at least 6 man/hours to interviewing you. Whatever reason they had to not call you back, they didn't come out of it unscathed, interviewing someone is not cheap.

likely far more than 6 hours, probably more like 50+ with all the people and tasks involved. But they also cost this as part of their model - I don't think it's fair for individuals to eat the cost of the hiring process dictated by prospective employers; that's why in-demand candidates won't put up with their nonsense.

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.

Sure, but they moved on, have stopped wasting their time and missing opportunities.

You, on the other hand, are quite possibly still thinking about it every day, and turning down or delaying (and missing) other offers.

This happened to me with RedHat. They were my first choice, so being ghosted by them delayed my job search by several weeks. It was a serious problem for me.

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 burn bridges, you could accept the second choice, with the intention of immediately leaving should you hear back from the first choice. While possible, I'd have some qualms about doing so.

Exactly this.

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.

This is a societal problem and not just employer/jobseeker. "Friends" and aquaintances do it now. Vendors/contractors/trades people do it. Only a matter of time before our pets ghost us too.

Have you ever owned a cat? Growing up, my family consistently was adopted by neighborhood cats. It was bad enough that owners would knock on our door and ask us to not be so nice to their pets so they'd come home.

With all the means to communicate with one another, are we getting better or worse at it?

All the means reinforce impersonal interaction

The asymmetry is actually pretty funny if you think about what happens when a candidate declines an offer or ghosts a company.

If you ghost, they’re likely going to continue to contact over multiple channels. Because they want an answer so that they can take next steps. Same as a candidate.

If you say thanks but no thanks, they’re going to want to know why, is there anything they could have done differently, or try to convince you that you have it wrong.

There’s basic human reasons for these very common reactions, we just put a construct in front of one of those groups and tried to explain it away as being acceptable.

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.

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.

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

Not asymmetrical, in my opinion. Companies are holding all the cards, otherwise I wouldn't be looking for a job in the first place. I believe that someday there will be too few jobs for all the people on this planet.

someday there will be too few jobs for all the people on this planet

There are too few jobs now. Paul Krugman called it a "savings glut". There are no opportunities to invest the cash you are holding productively, consequently interest rates are low and the best thing you can do is buy back your own stock.

Investors who sell to a buyback deploy the money elsewhere, including new issues and private investment, which leads to hiring.

Not completely true. You're holding some cards too if they're desperately needing a position filled.

A similar thing happened to me too; it was a 3 hour onsite. No news at all... until about 2 weeks later I got an automated request from the agent asking me to fill in a feedback form on how they did. I had fun filling in that form!

When I ran my recruiting business, we told people they were awesome, but not the kind of awesome we need right now. Sometimes I would offer personal feedback that was "off the record" if I felt they really needed to hear it.

I had a one candidate come thru who wasn't a fit. But on top of that, his clothes were filthy and his resume had a bunch of typos in it. I told him after the interview that we wouldn't be hiring for skills match reasons, but also offered the feedback on his appearance. He wrote me a letter a couple years later thanking me for the advice, which I guess he hadn't realized was holding him back.

Another time a hiring manager told me that a candidates mullet haircut was too unappealing. I decided to pass that feedback tactfully to the candidate after buying him a beer. Mullet guy actually ended up interviewing me for a job years later, and brought that up. He said his job prospects got much better after he got a haircut and thanked me for the feedback.

While I think giving no feedback is good advice in general, I think it's fine to tactfully offer feedback to a candidate if they really need to hear it. No one is going to try justifying the ketchup stain on their shirt. Haircuts might be more sensitive, but I was fairly confident mullet dude wasn't rocking business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back style for religious or cultural reasons.

This is close to my heart because I'm transgender but in the closet at work. My long hair is really important to me and close to my heart. I suspect I'm having trouble landing business analysis roles because of it and that sucks.

I think you're a ---- for considering someone's haircut a reason not to hire.

Here's another one:

* We already had a candidate in mind but our hiring process requires us to publicly post the opening and interview other candidates before we hire the person we already decided on.

Literally half the jobs out there!

Yuuuuup

here's one specific to me: we said we offer a visa but only because so we can hire immigrant that are already on a visa sponsored from another company and need to retain sponsorship as we poach them

I honestly wonder how much time, energy, and resources are wasted on that type of process across the US. Direct placement isn't necessarily a bad thing, I don't know why organizations don't just do that.

Maybe it's to spread the fault around if it goes bad?

did one of these a while ago and they even told me during the interview. It took the pressure off I suppose ;)

> Someone better came along to fill the role and nobody wants to tell a candidate "We found someone better than you".

This is actually the most common feedback i that i get :D

That's because it's the safest thing to say, even if it isn't true.

Notably, giving feedback feels like an opening for the candidate to submit a rebuttal instead of ending the conversation

Definitely. Send feedback from a no-reply box and make this apparent.

It was just a personality conflict that few people would admit to in writing (e.g. "You're kind of an asshole, I don't want to work with you" isn't something you tell a candidate).

Nothing wrong with pointing out a perceived deficit in written & verbal communication skills.

There just isn't much actionable feedback to give. "Nobody felt excited to potentially work with you" isn't really actionable feedback, and sharing that just feels kinda mean for no reason.

If you stress during the interview that culture fit is a large component of the hiring process, simply stating that there wasn't a strong enough culture fit should be enough. No need to go into further detail, there are a lot of applicants.

Someone better came along to fill the role and nobody wants to tell a candidate "We found someone better than you".

It can be relieving to know that the fault doesn't lie with your character or presentation, and that management simply decided to hire the person with more experience.

Barring liability cases, it's all about managing expectations.

How about the fact that there's absolutely no upside for a hiring company/manager to give feedback? It's all potential downside...

There's a perceptional upside. It's difficult to measure, however.

Facebook gave (gives?) feedback. It's good PR in the candidate community, not just bet candidates like it, but because it promotes Facebook's reputation as a fearless company that does what they believe in regardless of conventional wisdom.

Uh no they don't. At least not in all cases. They refused to give me feedback after requesting it. I even asked an inside friend to follow up with the recruiter.

If a rebuttal allows you to identify a good candidate you would otherwise have missed, that's actually a positive thing though? (I appreciate many rebuttals won't be in this category).

Very often you don't tell a candidate they're not getting the job until you have already filled the position.

Just like you don't tell a job offer 'no' until you've already signed a better offer. There's nothing to gain by closing off options prematurely.

The challenge is one of scale. Anything you do for one candidate you have to for 500. Writing personalized emails in a sensitive way is a significant time and emotional burden.

> Someone better came along to fill the role and nobody wants to tell a candidate "We found someone better than you".

On the contrary, most automated reject messages from recruitment systems use something along the lines of "we regret that other candidates were a better fit for this job".

This turns it to be widely useful, inoffensive and can be used instead of the real reason.

We give people actionable feedback at work because we expect the team to benefit from the feedback.

What's the benefit of feedback to someone you already decided won't be on the team?

It's not meant to be a benefit for the company, other than good PR I suppose.

It's meant to be a gesture of good faith towards the candidate that invested their time and energy to interviewing with you, i.e. at least the candidate didn't walk away with nothing from the process.

Many many years ago I applied at IOActive as a security hobbyist on the off-chance they were willing to take a chance on someone trying to switch specialties.

They were not, but they were super, super nice about it. I was on all their email lists and they would reach out from time to time. In fact the founder took me out to lunch at least three years later just to catch up and see where I was.

He didn't have to do any of this. I've never had anyone but consultancy recruiters keep in touch for that long, and they often feel fake and exploitative.

There was an old saying in Seattle that 'Seattle is a small town'. From a software perspective, there are a ton of people in the city, but up until pretty recently you were virtually guaranteed to bump into old coworkers again, or at least work with people who also worked with them. It's no good pissing off people who aren't a fit for this job now but might be a great fit in three years. They may remember how you treated them... Google.

In my last cycle of interviewing in SF, I ran into two folks I had interviewed in the past. Both very strong interviewers in that I could sense they were putting their full energy into collaborating with me. I remember thinking I really hope I was as gracious of an interviewer. I don't think I have ever been an asshole, but I felt guilty because I have gone into interviews at 70%. SF is small too.

For those curious, the two companies were Coinbase and Envoy. Interviewers at both companies were across the board superb.

I was just thinking this may be like the first date advice to watch how your date treats the waitstaff. Are they gracious or petty to people they don’t need something from?

If you decided that the person won't be on any team in the entire company ever then, go ahead and ghost. Otherwise, you might want to consider that both the company and the candidate will change over time but having been rudely ghosted in the past will always be an issue between them.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it’s mostly been about how I was treated during the interview and less about after. I am deeply opposed to hazing rituals.

I would probably apply again at places that ghosted me, but not ones who use stress tests. Only two types of people use stress tests. Sadists, and groups that spend most weeks running around with their heads on fire.

You’re not going to learn this about me in an interview, but if you put me in a room of panicked people I’ll be the calmest one. If you keep us there, I may not be the last person to tap out but when I do there will only be one or two left in the room and the end will be in sight. And for sure I’ll remember more details for the postmortem than the next two people combined, and I’ll do more with that info than anyone else.

The ugly truth is that I keep going even when I get into deficit territory, and since I know this about myself I’m highly motivated to prevent such situations for recurring. I’m always on the lookout for antagonistic people and processes. I’ll work my ass off on these problems on my schedule if that means that they don’t keep happening at random to me or others. If the antagonist is a person you immediately go into the untrustworthy bucket.

So if you antagonize me in an interview, we’re already off on the wrong foot, I don’t trust you, and who likes to collaborate with engineers they can’t trust? And since you didn’t give me time to ask revealing questions, how do I know you aren’t like this every day? Working for crazy people just makes you crazy too.

Just basic politeness? Or is that not sufficiently important to the bottom line. Of course. How silly of me.

if it's actionable feedback then the person can improve that skill and apply to the position again

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