Ask HN: Why do companies take 2 months to send job rejection letter? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do companies take 2 months to send job rejection letter?

6 pointsgoing_ham27 comments

Of all concern, when they know I am going to be rejected, why do they take 2 months to send that generic rejection letter? They aren't even looking at my thing. Can't they just do it immediately?

And why should they put "careful consideration" when they know they are going to reject as soon as they see my CV?

It would be lot easier if they can reject within 30 minutes. Companies pretending to review documents just wants to make me puke.

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Why? Any number of possible reasons.

“Companies?” Certainly not all. There’s no standard hiring process that all companies use.

“2 months?” Some tell candidates right away. Some never contact rejected candidates.

You are looking for a pattern or reason that doesn’t exist.

Until a company shows interest in you go about your job search.

If you are submitting your CV to a lot of companies and then waiting for replies you have landed on one of the least productive ways to get a job. Complaining about things you can’t control doesn’t help.

Your experience doesn’t match mine and I’ve been in the software business for 40 years, both finding jobs and filling them.

> If you are submitting your CV to a lot of companies and then waiting for replies you have landed on one of the least productive ways to get a job.

What alternatives do you have?

Do you think that you consider sending a CV to be unproductive exactly because the process is dysfunctional (in the way OP points out and in other ways)?

> What alternatives do you have?

Talking to people in-person at meetups, being curious about what they are working on, listening attentively and following up.

> Do you think that you consider sending a CV to be unproductive exactly because the process is dysfunctional (in the way OP points out and in other ways)?

Yes. Thats why the parent comment is suggesting that you not spend much time engaging in it.

> Talking to people in-person at meetups, being curious about what they are working on, listening attentively and following up.

What if the company you're interested in doesn't present at meetups? What if you don't attend meetups? What if you do but you're rarely interested in the speakers? What if you're interested but you don't establish rapport? If all things align well, how many relationship like this can you realistically maintain and rely on when you need a job? How many people can realistically do this in parallel for the same contact at the company?

It really sounds like the advice is to be constantly schmoozing so that you have contacts when you need them. I don't get how that's a more productive way to match company with employee than sending your details to companies that are looking for people. Getting a job through your network clearly works for many people. I just don't think it works for everyone and wish that we had something more honest and efficient.

> What if the company you're interested in doesn't present at meetups?

Options:

A. Reach out to one of their recruiters on linkedin

B. Ask someone you already know (classmate, TA, professor, etc) if they know anybody at the company.

C. Release your attachment to this particular outcome. There are other fish in the sea.

> What if you don't attend meetups?

Go to other social events. If you are still in uni then definitely work on problem sets together. If you are not in uni then find some other community of people trying to learn something.

> What if you do but you're rarely interested in the speakers?

If the particular speaker is boring, then sigh and take notes on how not to give a boring talk.

If the topic is habitually super scattered and unclear, find a more focused meetup.

If you cannot muster curiosity about the topic, then consider improving your sleep patterns or changing to a different subfield.

> be constantly schmoozing so you have contacts when you need them.

Nope. When you are not actively job searching, you should be occasionally nerding out about something with people so that you explore your shared interest in category theory or good API docs or whatever. Also, with a small small circle of those people you like for weird reasons, you should be playing League of Legends or Settlers of Catan and talking about colonoscopies and the shittier parts of life.

> I just don't think it works for everyone and wish that we had something more honest and efficient.

The goal of networking at its worst is just to quickly get a job and make money. The goal of networking at its best is to create the conditions for honesty so that you build teams with healthy trustful working relationships. The latter is much harder and requires courage from all involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5qQJhe7sLE

There’s no one “process” that companies follow. The OP describes a process but it’s one they initiated — sending out CVs and applying online and then waiting. Some employers probably have dysfunctional hiring processes, but you can find alternative routes that have better chances of success.

The alternatives have been understood for a long time. Look at What Color Is Your Parachute? by Bolles and Who’s Hiring Who? by Lathrop, for example. I haven’t applied for a job in decades but I have found continuous employment. I know plenty of other people in this business who do the same.

A person with little or no actual experience will find it difficult to get attention from employers, but that’s not a broken system nor is it specific to software dev jobs. There’s no shortage of inexperienced applicants, which is why they get little response from employers.

Anecdotally, when I listen to young inexperienced developers I think they have an inflated idea of their prospects and value in the software dev job market, which is something we programmers do to ourselves. I don’t know if the OP is new to the business or has years of experience, but someone with years of experience should have contacts and friends and connections to leverage.

Sorry about putting it that way. I have no idea how to get answers at all. I have tried rewriting my CV, writing cover letter, doing projects, etc. but nothing is helping at all.

How should one apply for a job?

Any suggestions on this one! I don't understand how to land a job. Most people can get one by just applying, but for some reason, I can't. Can you link some resources or write tips on this one! That would be super helpful! I want to start from the basics with internships. Unfortunately, I get a generic reply that I am not even qualified for internships or working student positions.

> Most people can get one by just applying

You are a victim of your own selection bias. As you didn't ask 1000 random developers, think what selection process happened before you got that confusing info from some developers (I guess there were between one and five of them).

> Can you link some resources or write tips on this one!

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

If you want any job then applying for all of them may be the best strategy. Eventually supply & demand should work in your favor. If you want to target a small number of companies you will have to do the work to get your foot in the door.

In the software development business you see lots of companies hiring, but few willing to take on juniors or people they will have to train. You need to present yourself as the person who can get productive quickly, and work as a member of a team. Past work experience sends that message better than a list of languages and frameworks, which is why people with little or no actual work experience have a disadvantage.

Competition is most intense at the low end. Companies get lots of applications from people who don’t have a lot of experience, and people who don’t even match the requirements. You need to get out of that queue.

The best way to get the job you want is through personal contacts. Those can be people you know from school or previous jobs, people you meet at conferences or meetups, friends of friends. Good recruiters (yes, they exist) can open doors and get around automated CV screening. You don’t have to fake schmooze or build up LinkedIn “connections,” but you do have to put in some effort beyond clicking Apply on a web site.

I have some articles on my web site typicalprogrammer.com you might find helpful. I recommend the book Who’s Hiring Who by Richard Lathrop.

Thank you for the tips!

> Your experience doesn’t match mine and I’ve been in the software business for 40 years, both finding jobs and filling them.

OP could say the same. Their experience does not match yours, making your experience irrelevant to them, since they are facing a problem you did not face. 40 years ago, when you were entering this market, things were different. 30 years ago, different. 10 years ago, different. Last year, different.

It is not so hard to understand how someone entering the job market would face the issues described there, have some sympathy. That is all people expect from others.

The OP needs actionable and helpful information, not sympathy. I posted some below. Even if I agreed that OP is the victim of some industry-wide dysfunctional process and posted my own job-hunting sob story that wouldn’t help. Our experiences don’t match for a variety of reasons, sure, but one reason is different approaches to finding a job.

Many companies wont reject you if they aren't sure they wont hire you. They might have several other candidates they like more but until those accept the offer they will keep you in the process.

Exactly. "Maybe" is slower than either "no" or "yes".

If they interview 10 people, and you're ranked second, they don't tell you no until their top choice actually shows up on his/her start date.

If a company doesn't get back to me within a few days, I'm looking for something else. This isn't something I've ever had to worry about (or have even noticed before) because if a company isn't prompt I'll be interviewing elsewhere within a few days. I certainly don't have time to wait weeks between interviews, or 2 months for a rejection.

I guess what I'm wondering is why do you care? It's like a girl ghosting you for 2 months and then saying she wants to break up. Whether it's right or wrong, why are you even still waiting around?

> It would be lot easier if they can reject within 30 minutes. Companies pretending to review documents just wants to make me puke.

If you're talking about the first stage (reviewing CVs) then some companies will hold off on arranging interviews for a week or two so they can select applicants with the strongest CVs. In my experience as you move up in seniority this becomes less of an issue because it gets so much harder for companies to find a qualified candidates to fill a role that they'll arrange an interview with almost anyone that applies with the right skillset.

After an interview they may take a few days while they're interviewing and considering other candidates, but I've never known this to take longer than a week or two. And normally when it takes over a week, I'm interviewing for someone else and will now need to weigh up my options.

If I'm honest, I've never seen what you're describing in tech. From what I've seen this is something that happens more when you apply for a retail job or something. Because they can get tens or even hundreds of applicants they do tend to hold CVs for a while and batch the interviews when they've received enough.

> I guess what I'm wondering is why do you care? It's like a girl ghosting you for 2 months and then saying she wants to break up. Whether it's right or wrong, why are you even still waiting around?

Totally relatable.

>If I'm honest, I've never seen what you're describing in tech.

I may have exaggerated by mentioning 2 months, but it took be 1 and half month on some case and 2-3 weeks on most cases. There was one which took more than 2 months.

> If you're talking about the first stage (reviewing CVs) then some companies will hold off on arranging interviews for a week or two so they can select applicants with the strongest CVs.

I didn't know about this one. It's really tricky for starting out without any connection. Because it's hard to get that chance :(

Having been on the hiring side, most of the time it's because it's a maybe. There's probably an overqualified candidate who could work somewhere better and you.

Or in some cases, sometimes there's nobody else but you. Startups have very low application rates and often with an active hiring period, there's still nobody who qualifies for the job. Four times I've seen a company go with a "last resort" applicant after 2 months of interviewing everyone else. Come to think of it, I was actually rejected for my current job but they actually put me on file when they said they would and hired me 3 months later.

It is frustrating. For some companies I believe it is because you might be the second or third choice, so they keep your application around just in case the first choice doesn't accept the offer. Obviously this is less likely the case after a few months!

That said, I have heard back from applications months later quite a few times asking for an interview! I have no idea what took them so long!

I think part of the problem is just getting through 3,000 applications.

The other part is public relations -- if they notify you right away, then they are admitting that an algo rejected you.

And they probably usually wait, often if not always, until the position is actually hired -- which can take months. Because if someone doesn't accept the position, they might want to ping you.

Companies just need to fill the position, and owe unsuitable or discarded candidates nothing. It is easier to get a job through internal referees, so start networking maybe? Advertised jobs are just the tip of the iceberg and too many times such adverts just serve a different purpose, so you are possibly looking at them in a naive manner.

Please teach me on how to network? I am really bad at networking!

The three steps to networking:

1. Find conversations with people who are working on problems aligned with your interests. Be present. Listen and pay attention.

2. Ask questions which demonstrate your genuine curiosity about their problems and how they overcame struggles with them. "Clean Language" questions are a neat hack which does authentically work here.

3. Do the boring admin work of sending an email expressing gratitude for their time and following up on opportunities to help out and learn more.

The intro book here is How to Win Friends and Influence People. Also, Half of Models by Mark Manson is also relevant (gender is mostly irrelevant) because the underlying philosophical principles are the same. EDIT: Berne Brown is probably more relevant than Mark Manson.

I have enough problems finding jobs aligned to my interest, let alone people working on them already.

> Please teach me on how to network? I am really bad at networking!

Ok, I am taking this plea seriously and assuming you are not constrained to your basement and your laptop (yes, you will need to show up in person, sooner or later)!

1- Select five recent applications you made to five companies you would really like to work for (that is, start with affinity instead of trying your indifferent luck).

2- Trace the company’s contact list and the exact role of some of their employees (from the company website, from LinkedIn, from a meetup or what else…), that is the ones that may possibly become your colleagues, in case you are hired.

3- Conjure a professional hook related to the company (a recent meetup, a conference they went to, a technical workshop or paper from them and in your field of interest, a recent press release showing their latest milestone) and send one of the designed contacts a cold email to ask more info, while introducing yourself as a passionate guy doing similar things… this will however kickstart an informal screening without or by-passing your CV.

4- If unsuccessful at first shot, just align your manners and persist… maybe instead of five companies, try ten companies… align more, persist and repeat.

All this converging effort, if done without seeming a stalker, would lead in a few weeks to someone you are starting to know offering you something to progress things further, be it at a conference or at their office, upon the basis that you showed already you can at least interact with them in a way they like, that you seem to know and like what they are doing, and that they think you may help and become part of their team.

Hope it helps. Good luck!

Most likely your CV got forgotten when they decided to reject. After recruiting someone they decided to go through their HR tool and "clean-up" then send all the rejections in bulk.

Your application was not adding any value to them, so they didn't spend time on it. As simple as that.

Most places won't even send a rejection letter. It's just radio silence in my experience.

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