The hidden beauty of recruiting
blog.thinkful.com
blog.thinkful.com
No, million times no. Providing feedback to a rejected applicant may open a huge can of worms. If these hiring managers really exist they are putting their employers in a very risky situation.
Hiring managers work in a very human field. They often run into the same issues with candidates, and wish that they could just give a bit of human input, to help someone else. The candidate might not be a good fit for that job, but if he/she is unknowingly self-sabotaging in interviews, it would be great to be able to point that out. Since the potential trouble outweighs the benefits, they're left only wishing.
The manager should have the incentive to provide great feedback to the recruiter, as the recruiter will hopefully hit the target better on future candidates if they are aware why their candidates are being rejected. The recruiter has little incentive to share that feedback with candidates other than goodwill and keeping the relationship strong with the candidate. I always try to get feedback from managers for my own purposes and for helping my candidates improve, but it isn't always as easy as you'd think.
I continue to find that employers want a way to provide more feedback, though are currently prevented from doing so.
Someone with more insight into being a successful recruiter surely has a deeper understanding than mine, on this and other issues like the "numbers game" element.
I find it interesting that you find employers want to provide more feedback. A mere 30 seconds before writing this reply to your comment, I received an email from a client saying "We looked at the resume and don't think he is a fit for our team". That's it. If this manager wanted to help the candidate, he could mention what skills are missing. If the manager felt there was a problem with the resume, he could have mentioned that. If the manager wanted to help me hit the target better next time, he could have mentioned what was missing.
I think what you are referring to is feedback after interviews mainly, but this very bland, 'not a fit' feedback is exactly what is most commonly provided to recruiters. If given ample free time, managers will provide more detailed feedback, but that usually isn't the case (particularly in the start-up world). I do have clients that are more willing to write a few sentences, but I can tell you that the norm is 'not a fit'.
I don't find managers are in any hurry to help candidates do better next time, which does little to improve the overall ecosystem. If a candidate missed questions on a specific area in programming or a concept, that would be helpful for the candidate to know. I wish more managers wanted to provide more feedback, but for now it is a minority.
Hirers want nothing more than increase the quality of candidates they interview, which is why providing a safe way to gather this feedback is so valuable.
Not giving feedback when people fail is a sure-fire way to make the whole ecosystem worse. In any situation.
The feedback you don't get, is almost always about personality. There's no litigation-safe way of saying "Man, you come across as a total douche, I'll pass"
Want to know more? No, because then you will threaten to sue us. The legal action is frivolous and will lose in the end but it will cost money time and attention to deal with.
But forget all that, seriously now, what's the real reason, the applicant asks? For us, if we didn't make an offer it's either because the applicant is a jerk, a liar, or incompetent. One or more of these covers the situation with the majority of applicants. Salary is not an issue, we pay what it takes for the right people. I can't say the same for other companies, they often want to find someone cheap. Jerks don't change, the incompetent can't improve, and liars only use feedback to make their lies harder to detect. This means all feedback is either useless or counterproductive. There is one exception. The rare case they are a sweet genius with severe BO. In this case little can be gained from feedback since there's little chance one is not aware of it. If one suspects BO might be the reason, then it is and it should be fixed before the interview.
What an incredibly cocky and pretentious view of the world.
And what about "incompetent can't improve"? This is plainly wrong. We all were incompetent at some point.
1. Stop lying on the CV, about past experience, and about skills.
2. Stop being a jerk, learn some social skills.
3. Stop being incompetent, learn to actually build quality products.
No one that has a problem with any of those is interested in fixing it though, and in general being a liar, a jerk and incompetent isn't something that can be fixed anyway, so feedback won't do any good.
If you are competent, truthful and not a jerk, you'll be getting job offers. If you aren't, you know what the problem is and how to fix it.
Often this happens because I'm in the wrong stack and they didn't specify. Other times ... shrug
What am I doing wrong on those occasions? I don't know. And never will.
Although once, just once, I managed to figure it out after a few months. That was with Google. But they gave me specific technical feedback on waht I did wrong. Eventually I was able to realise what I was saying wrong that made them think I didn't know those technical things (it was an extremely consistent brain fart that lasted all day, through all 6 interviews, but they can't know that, they just know I was saying the wrong things)
Your phrasing implies that you get a job offer after 80% of interviews. That seems a perfectly fine record and it seems there is no need to know what was going on in the other 20% of interviews, so things are good.
Ummm, I don't think so. Many if not most companies suck at hiring. If you get hiring right, you just nailed the most important factor* to building a great company, and great companies are the exception, not the rule.
*arguably, the only factor. The rest is what the people you hired do.
What's important is that when it comes to knowing what hiring managers do and do not like to see in an applicant, they're it. And that's exactly what someone who's job hunting wants to know. They're not out to meet some Platonic ideal for the best possible candidate for XYZ position. They're just looking to get a job.