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Honesty.

Unfortunately, honesty is the last thing Silicon Valley's hiring system is set up for. Employers expect you to tell you what they want to hear, not the honest truth. This means that the people they tend to hire will either be someone who either is lucky enough to think just like them or is willing to tell them everything they want to hear. And God forbid you express any opinions that would make you a "bad cultural fit". Companies give people they don't hire polite platitudes to avoid hurt feelings and legal issues.

In short, if you expect honesty in a job search, you'll be disappointed.

Where I work, we put a lot of effort into giving honest, actionable feedback to anyone we interview or phone screen. (We don't do it if we choose not to phone screen someone, though.)

We tell you why we didn't proceed and what we think you could do to make a difference if you choose to try again in a few years.

This is for our own benefit as much as the job seeker's. We don't want to leave a sour or even neutral taste in someone's mouth just because it didn't work out. Someone who is a bad fit now might be a good fit in the future, as they change or as we change, or we might be wrong that they are a bad fit now.

My experience is that east coast companies are more upfront about all of this compared to west coast companies.

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