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?
What's the benefit of feedback to someone you already decided won't be on the team?
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.
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.
For those curious, the two companies were Coinbase and Envoy. Interviewers at both companies were across the board superb.
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.