- 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.)
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.
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.