- there's no incentive for them to do it - it's a rejection, they don't have a reason to please you
- the less information they give, the less exposed they are to liabilities like being accused of hiring discrimination
Oh, my gosh. The sheer quantity of candidates I reject. I have a complicated puzzle that is poorly described by the Job Description. In the interview, I try to see how you fit I to the existing puzzle. If you don't fit, then you "don't fit". As simple as that. Don't take it personal. Don't re think your life. Just... keep looking.
No wonder i didnt get the job, but rejection email said they thought I am a good engineer. I replied if they can tell me where I can improve. They did so politely.
Few months down the road, I improved and applied again. I got the job
If the interviewer says "I think you're a good engineer", the next sentence should be "we would like to make you an offer".
If I could hire people by reading their mind and understanding their ability, without requiring an ounce of preparation, I would do that.
It’s entirely possible that the candidate was just off their game that day, or they weren’t “warmed up”. I get noticeably better at interviewing after the first few. It happens, but the interviewer has the information they got, and it’s not possible to totally control for that kind of variance.
What hiring managers should be actively minimizing, that most hiring managers I’ve seen do not, is variance that their interview process introduces by, for example, not standardizing and training their interviewers.
Even with the most perfectly defined job description, you might have many candidates who "fit" that description, so you have to weigh a lot of other factors which run a huge gamut. Many, many times I've had multiple candidates that are more-or-less the same in terms of experience, technical competence, ability to learn, get shit done, etc - so you start looking at other factors and it can get down to things like communication, personal hygiene, general awkwardness, etc.
Just want to point out that this really depends on your location - here in Switzerland, the talent pool is vastly smaller compared to the number of companies and open positions.
I have in fact, reapplied to companies before that had a very honest and feedback-rich hiring process and simply rejected me because they found a better fit with another candidate.
(For full disclosure: I reapplied at that company, was hired, and fired after three months for office political reasons. So do take this story with a generous pinch of salt.)
Even so, lot of companies are deficient in explaining to their employees that certain kinds of discrimination are illegal, coz it still happens plenty - almost always during interviews. Remarks about pregnancy do happen.
It is more work to provide feedback (which I think is mainly what people hate) but it's better for your hiring reputation, provided the feedback isnt routinely nonsensical - in which case staying quiet probably is better.
Plus, if a company is worried that revealing their reason for rejecting is legally risky, then maybe they should stop rejecting candidates for legally risky reasons. If they are worried about a lawsuit, they might want to consider that their evaluation process could be either overtly discriminatory, or reliant on people’s personal biases (conscious or unconscious). For example if they reject based simply on some gut feeling, or whether or not they like the person, or the classic bias: “cultural fit”. Basically, reasons they would not want to have to articulate in front of a judge.
Also if they give reasons, I suppose it's also an invitation to the candidate to rules lawyer why those reasons aren't actually accurate and they should still get the job, which would be even more work for someone to deal with.
The result was a lot of candidates trying to prove me wrong with relentless e-mails and phone calls. One of them even went on Glassdoor and other websites to write long reviews about how we misunderstood him in the interview. This was the same guy who didn’t even try to answer about half of the interview questions.
I stopped giving any feedback after that. Wish I could help candidates, but it’s not worth the risk of dealing with more angry candidates viewing it as an opening to argue.
Related: reasons you might explain as little as possible when firing someone, or when breaking up with someone.
I've done the same thing with the same result. It became an argument/pissing match that I just ended up ghosting.
If you are working with a recruiter, it may be useful for you to ask them - as a Hiring Manager, I shared candid feedback with the recruiter so that they could provide better candidates in the future. Alternately, if you connect with someone in the Interview Team, you may be able to get them to give you "off-the-record" feedback.
Please remember to accept all feedback without getting defensive or pushing back, even if you believe the Hiring Team didn't do the right thing. If you want to set the record straight, it is better to do so in a separate conversation.
About setting the record straight: you'll never "overturn" a rejection; it would set the wrong precedent for every other hiring decision and also would create a very weird work environment. It's just never worth the trouble. Reapply in a year, many places will give you a totally fresh attempt (which I think is actually a bit charitable).
To echo other anecdata: I've been mildly confronted by previous interviewees who I've rejected and it was always very uncomfortable. The decision is almost never personal, and in one of these cases I actually voted for hire, but was overruled.
- Time and volume: think of how many applicants they've been through and the time it would take to write this feedback for each of them
- A good chance that people will dispute the reasons, leading to more time, more effort and more chance of a lawsuit
If it's at the final or penultimate stage, I've known this to happen. I also find it more common coming through a recruiter (as the company will be speaking to the recruiter anyway and knows that they will shut down any disputes you have).
As long as there's a concrete rejection email rather than never hearing back, that's all you should expect.
It does not matter and it would only hurt your feelings.
This is not solely about you or them its a match between the two.
Therefore its the same thing as asking a girl "why dont you like me? I am a such good guy". There simply are no answers for this.
Btw, one of successful dating advices I remember was to create a detailed realistic image of a partner beforehand and compare/ask about it on a date. No need to make it strict, but this simply makes you aware of what you want (or not) in a relaxed state instead of allowing your sub to decide under pressure or effect of the moment. Sounds reasonable and pretty sure if true then that applies to jobs as well.
I agree there are always answers, but nobody should be obligated to give them.
"Because I don't want to" should be a perfectly acceptable answer to any question of why we're denying a request. Assuming, of course, we are familiar with the consequences of not completing the request and okay with them.
Like they said the company hired 0 grads from Historically <Minority> Universities (HMUs) before they were hired, and they increased it to 300. And they said it was "a 300% increase". Their words, not mine.
When people from the co went to one HMU, and they hired a very low number of people, and the engineers wrote in their documents absolutely true things, like, "the grads have no idea about even the basic algorithms" (paraphrased). They cited that report and accused the engineers and the whole company of discriminatory practices.
Now, say, you start writing weaknesses, and write "lack of understanding basic arithmetic like GCD" for some of the candidates.
Now all it takes for your company and you to be accused of discriminatory practices is one zelous reporter from WaPo or NYT to get a sample of ~15 of these rejection mails and find your list of weaknesses. Then they just have to show that all of the ~15 people are from historically underrepresented communities.
This is the reason I am never going to do it.
Sounds like this happened to you.
From an interviewer perspective, I suspect it's mostly a time/volume thing. Last time I did it, I put out a req for a position, I'll get 10-20 resumes trickle in over the next week or four. I pick the ones that are the best of the lot and schedule interviews until I find someone that I think has the best chance of being successful. Some of it is the way the resume reads, some of it is how well the skills match what we need, some of it is just gut. I certainly don't have the time to go through all the ones that I didn't pick and give a detailed (re: useful) explanation on why. Most of them I could't really offer much advice other than there were better matching resumes. It's usually someone has more years experience, or were better able to articulate their experience, or had more skills that matched what we need, or had more experience in my particular industry.
Also, for most smaller shops, it's the devs that are doing the interviewing and filtering. Typically, we should have hired someone months ago, but companies usually hire later than they should, so I'm buried in work and I have the additional task of filtering resumes and interviewing on top of my already overburdened workload.
Maybe you just don’t fit with what their team needs. You could be excellent, but be a duplicate of skills they have enough of already when they need something different.
Maybe you’re good, but it just so happens that someone did a god-tier interview that day and they have to choose between you for a single post.
Maybe you’re god-tier but the reason they were hiring has changed (ie a person they thought was leaving got persuaded to stay, headcount allocations suddenly changed, the project got cut etc).
Maybe it’s just a timing thing. You applied and before your application got processed they saw someone great and that person had a competing offer so they had to close them quickly. You might be better than the person they ran after but that’s life.
Why in the heck would I bother to write 400 customized rejection letters when most applicants can't even be bothered to spend 2 minutes reading the JD fully, and avoiding applying unless they: Are actually qualified, and are willing to put at least a modicum of effort into a good first impression?
I feel like people on the application side have no idea about the sheer volume of people who apply to each role. In "Smart and Gets Things Done" Joel might of hit the nail on the head with his speculation that we are all receiving the same mountain junk application from the same junk "developers" and it just drowns out everything else.
It hurt, but I decided to try something. I sent an email with something along the lines of "I am disappointed that you decided to pass on me, but I respect your decision. I know this is a big ask, but I'd really like some feedback on how I can be better at what I do".
Surprisingly, both companies agreed to meet with me again (via Zoom), and the feedback sessions were about 1/2 hour each. I just sat back and listened (and at the end, thanked them again for their time). In one case, it was with the hiring manager, in the other it was with the recruiter. What I learned was very valuable, and these two companies are definitely on my list to work with again. With one company, what sank me was that they felt I did not have the technical depth for the role (and I was impressed with how detailed their feedback was). With the second company, they felt that I did not have leadership experience of the breadth that they needed.
Now, granted, it is pretty rare for companies to invest time in a candidate that they have already rejected (unless they figure this is someone they would love to recruit in the future when they had more experience or for a slightly different role), but it is possible if you send an email thanking them for the opportunity and phrase the request for feedback as a growth opportunity for you that they might be open to it.
Also, I know that some people state that companies do not do this for legal reasons but truth be told, unless the company is rejecting you for an illegal reason, this is a non-issue. It is more an issue of how much bandwidth the company is willing to spare.
Also, being rejected sucks (I've been in the field 25+ years, I have been rejected by a lot of companies), but contextualizing it as "I was not right for the role" rather than "I suck" (which used to be my go to), has been hugely helpful.
- they decided to have this session, but via a call, not e-mail - it's psychologically safer this way for the hiring manager who might be doing that against company guidelines
- you passively listened to the feedback - that's the way, DO NOT try to argue - it's extremely unlikely to benefit anyone
I said "You've just interviewed me, what do you think I need to improve?" That way it's really easy for the interviewer to give the feedback and you get round any corporate policies about not giving feedback.
I think the question as phrased is a good way to ask it, and more likely to make it land. It just also has the potential to leave things on a more sour note than they would have been if not done right.
i prob read it somewhere as advice.
In terms of qualifications or just being a good fit for the position, does it sound like I might be a good fit? Maybe I'm missing some experience? For instance, I haven't done 'x' but, to me, that's baby stuff. But are there some other things?
I have to imagine that something else in the "number of factors" matters much more than "high applicant volumes".
[1]: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/hiring/interviewing/#rejec... > Everyone who interviews a candidate must complete a scorecard and are required to input pros and cons as well as an overall recommendation.
That sounds like the exception, but ok, what happens when it is not possible?
Like you know, send a message "Dear candidate, unfortunately the talent acquisiton team did not manage to provide decline feedback because of xxxxxxx[0] , sorry."
Or "nothing"?
And in how many cases does this happen?
Like 1%, 5%, 35% or 99%?
IMHO it would be much simpler to directly write in your handbook something like:
"No decline feedback will be provided. No exceptions."
This way the candidate won't be expecting it.
[0] Examples:
my dog ate the feedback
the feedback was stored in a cabinet that got flooded
the hard disk where the feedback was stored failed before a backup was made
Simple laziness and wanting minimize reputational risk from feedback on the feedback seems a more plausible as a reason why.
There are ~8 billion people on the planet
Even if you want to cut that number down to the 100s or 1000s that apply for a given role, only 1 will be chosen for a given position
No one is entitled to be told why they weren't picked
Often as not, it's not a "weakness" so much as they just plain liked someone else more
> Even if you want to cut that number down to the 100s or 1000s
Well that made me laugh. Have you considered sending emails to the 7.99999 billion people who didn’t apply?
I’ve been accepted and rejected at FAANGs / startups / top schools. I’ve succeeded wildly at each one. I’ve had the same academic paper accepted and rejected from top conferences. The papers have all gotten cited more than the vast majority of research papers accepted.
The ones who rejected me could probably come up with a list of flaws but they would have probably not been that useful. If they were being honest with themselves, they would probably admit they have no insight into how to judge something or someone comprehensively based on the limited time and information they had.
You may be rejected because an interviewer thinks you’re weak at something you’re actually not, based on your response during the interview.
The truth is that it is impossible determine what a candidate is truly strong or weak at based on a 1hr interview.
The best you can do is test someone a number of times and if they succeed a greater number of times than the average strong candidate, conclude that they’re a strong candidate too. There is no objective measurement of one’s strengths and weaknesses here.
Some candidates were outraged — they thought they did fine. Some would fight back and start clarifying stuff and then you’d have to start clarifying stuff and so on. Some would be very grateful.
On the balance I believe it to be the ethical option since you’ve just wasted an hour or 10 of someone’s time, and if they want to improve outcomes you’ve made available the information to take or leave.
I also kept artefacts documenting the hiring process for every candidate — both for future managers (who invariably didn’t care) but also for FOI requests or complications.
Personally I think hiding information and being guarded for fear of legal troubles is a slippery slope to less trust and more legal trouble.
https://www.opslevel.com/blog/why-opslevel-offers-interview-...
Feedback is a big part of our culture, so we extend that towards interview candidates.
It does take more time, but it's also good forcing function for us to ensure we're intellectually honest about why we're not moving forwards with a person.
There is legal risk, but it stems from the fact that it's illegal to discriminate in the US and Canada based on protected traits. To combat that, we strive to ensure that our feedback is situational and objective. This also helps prevent a lot of back-and-forth.
Keep applying and don't wait for any one company to give any feedback.
First, even if you perfectly know your suitability for the job, it's (perhaps unfortunately) true that interviewing itself is a skill you can improve at. Feedback is in general a great way to improve faster at things, so I think it's natural to want to know why you were rejected.
Second, if you were rejected for a reason out of your control that would inform what types of jobs you apply for in the future, so also useful knowledge.
I agree in the end that you should accept that you're not going to get much feedback, but it's totally reasonable to want it.
i would say in tech its fairly easy to establish hard skill competence during the interview. the remaining portion of why person gets hired is more fuzzy and is much like dating. they like you or they don't. asking why not rarely leads to any response or a meaningful response, because a lot of times they don't even know why, it might just be a gut feeling thing.
i wouldn't obsess about the outcome, as long as person is working on themselves in all areas and keeps trying, success will come.
Liability: If they disclose something that can be construed as discriminatory within current or future cultural norms.
Spending (even more time) on a rejected candidate gives them nothing but costs them time.
If I hadn't pressed the issue with two companies about a year ago I would have never found out that me being kind of cheerful in interviews came across as being overconfident to one team.
(And btw I did solve their homework with something like 95% grade so me saying "heh, how hard can it be" was in fact completely representative of my knowledge and abilities -- there was no actual overconfidence.)
Another team told me that they liked me but they were still concerned that I switched jobs several times the two years before the interview. I told them that having such a bias but still wasting the time of the candidate is not cool. They begrudgingly acknowledged and said sorry and we went our own merry ways.
In both of these cases I passed all oral interviews, people liked me, and the CTO was impressed by the quality of the homework's solution. Yet -- a rejection. Sure, there are other reasons, I understand that. But have I not asked and promised not to pursue further discussion of their negative feedback, I would have never found out.
And I want to find out. I want to know.
So honestly, I don't care if it's "harder" for you or "it takes time". You used the time of the candidate and they have nothing to show for it after. You owe them a feedback at least.
Think about online dating. You chat with someone, they seem interesting, but you notice something you hadn't paid enough attention to when you were too caught up in your earthly desires. Maybe they live 40 miles away from you, maybe they have bad teeth, maybe they could lose a few pounds. You, an outspoken and, in your mind, generous person, decide to tell them that they are perfectly fine, but that you prefer someone a little taller than they are, or someone of lighter build, because you have always been active and you are not sure you can share your lifestyle with them.
You expect them to appreciate your candor and helpful cooking tips, but instead they tell you that you are a loser and don't know what you are missing out.
What happens then is that whenever you next feel you are losing interest in the person you are chatting with, you simply delete their profile: "Oh, well."
For what it's worth, it can be worse, from an emotional point of view, when you do get feedback. I recently spent two full days working on a take-home assignment. I carefully addressed all of the requirements and spent the extra time adding in features that I know from experience would be useful in a real-world application.
Attached to the rejection email was a code review from the CTO which contained not a word of approval in respect of any of my ideas, but simply methodically picked holes in my entire approach.
This is my third rejection over the last year from roles that I had believed myself perfectly suited for. In the previous instances, I was ghosted after third-round interviews - that's a terrible feeling too, but at least I could persuade myself that an intangible personality issue had been the cause. But now, I have written evidence that I'm a moron. My self-confidence is completely shattered. Be careful what you wish for!
Unless it was a very small company, be thankful you escaped the hell hole it would be :)
There is also often a very high volume of candidates for particular positions, and it is a challenge to offer feedback, especially when they're not brought in for a live interview.
In my own process, interesting positions result in me searching for hiring managers at the company, sending a cover letter+resume that includes a table of their needs listed in the JD alongside my skills. This tends to get me closer to the interview table and provides an opportunity to exchange enough information for feedback purposes. It's also a bit of a differentiator in terms of resume structure (more than one interviewer has commented on it).
In short, privacy and internal preference is what they hide for not giving a reason for rejection
Then you can take their feedback into consideration for your next application. Sometimes it'll be something you can't do much about quickly (e.g. if there was a candidate with more experience than you). Other times though you'll discover a quick win (e.g. your application didn't clearly state your relative skills or experience).
You are not taking a pass/fail test, you are in a marathon and the first person who crosses the finish line gets an offer. Your weakness is they got to the finish line before you did.
I actually do write feedback because of the golden rule. And not one person has thanked me for it, so it feels like it's unwelcome. These emails are also emotionally draining to type.
You can actually ask them for feedback after the rejection, or when they give you the pre-rejection feedback form. Many are happy to respond in detail.
One time I tried telling someone that I wanted to interview them but also point out that they had a typo in their resume and they responded something like “I’m a bad ass mother fucker with experiences both military and civilian. Good luck finding a worker with your attitude.”
Another time I just got a multi paragraph email back arguing with my points.
Lots of people respond favorably to feedback, some don’t. Those who don’t can be draining and I just don’t care to deal with it anymore. The decisions are hard enough already
Pointing out weaknesses also invites argument, and possibly even public goading, since these days so many people seem to enjoy airing grievances to "get back" at the company as if not hiring them was somehow (usually treated as obviously) inappropriate.
- reached out to me through a recruiter
- had me go through multiple interview rounds and a take home
only to ghost me afterwards entirely (even after my asking for feedback). Once a candidate has invested time, you would think common decency dictates keeping them in the loop properly. But even that appears to much to ask in the current climate.
It's a disgusting practice tbh and should be dealt with properly by things like regulation but why bother I guess.
I think if you were interviewed and even made it past a round or two, you should be entitled to some deliberate feedback.
They avoid doing so because of legal liability and other repercussions. I have always emailed them constantly until they get annoyed enough to reply with "something".
- They reject many times more than they accept. - They've already decided and its done. They don't want to debate and discuss it with you. - It avoids potential legal liability to just give everyone the same response.
Especially companies located in places where phone call recording isn't legal.
It's all about not leaving a liability paper trail.
no one can give you a better answer about yourself than you.
they usually dont even know why they rejected you. its not a logical thing. its mostly emotional.
1st level is HR. They don’t understand the job and are just matching key words to the posting. Sometimes we can get the HR person to just give us all the applicants, but often that list is so huge it’s not worth it. They’re basically clicking an auto rejection.
Hiring managers are then not permitted to say “why.” They send the rejection to HR, who hits the button.
There is 0 win for the company to say why, and it opens up a ton of legal risk. It doesn’t even matter if it’s valid or not, legal doesn’t want to spend time/money on defending a frivolous law suit.
Now, the what to do if applying to a non-FAANG megacorp.
My company is so concerned with bias, we can’t do technical interviews and are limited to a list of canned behavioral questions. Some do ask for technical stories. We can request additional ones, but the process is too onerous. The same questions have to be asked to every candidate, although prompting for more details is allowed. Have to have multiple managers who are the only ones allowed to ask. We can have technical folks sit in and feedback into manager scoring and help prompt, but cannot ask questions or score results.
Make sure to cater your resume to the actual posting. Repeat the key words, not just related stuff obvious to technical people. You have to get through HR. It’s not common anymore, but I think it’s a good idea to say why you want THAT job. It stands out, especially for folks with little/no/different experience. We see too many spammed resumes.
To prep for these interviews, read up on “STAR” and typical behavioral questions. Have a library of situations in your mind. Multiple conflict situations. Admitting failure is fine, don’t worry about sounding perfect. Don’t focus on blame. Focus on a positive outcome. You can say you f’d up, but then how you changed your behavior. And then make sure you say how that made things better. The “results” are the most commonly ignored part and they’re the most important to the nontechnical managers scoring. Technical folks sitting in are mostly there to call BS.
Show leadership. You don’t have to “I” everything, but show your influence.
If you have no experience, talk about times you volunteered, had a random job, worked on a group project, did some extracurricular. Non-tech is fine for behavioral questions regarding conflict, etc.
Show in your skills section weird non applicable stuff you taught yourself. It shows interest beyond “I went to class.” Weird programming languages or projects always are cool to me.
As people mentioned, companies have no incentive of putting the extra effort just to get more liability, and lots of candidates that would contest that.