
I know why rejection emails suck – I write them - nosseo
https://triplebyte.com/blog/rejection-feedback
======
btilly
I believe that the article is fundamentally wrong.

The bulk of the article is true. But companies are not lying when they say
that legal risk is a reason not to send feedback.

Triplebyte is in the unusual position of being able to say, "Everyone who has
enough technical skill gets through the interview." And that fact is
sufficient to defuse their risk. But real companies don't have the luxury of
ignoring non-technical aspects of the job.

Here are real reasons why I've seen people denied a job. "Nobody could
understand his accent." "Accidental personal referenced summed him up as,
'Loves to make things crash and burn in production to see the pretty
fireworks.'" "Nobody could believe the argument he got into at lunch."

In my books those are all valid reasons to not want to work with someone.
However the first opens you up for an accusation of racism, the second would
break a personal confidence, and the third had demonstrated sufficient
irrationality that tiptoeing away was a great idea.

And you can't give feedback on technical issues, and not on the rest, because
that amounts to a tacit acknowledgement that there was something non-
technical. Leave the non-technical to your imagination and guess what happens?

~~~
jorblumesea
Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of
cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence. The
amount of people I've washed out of the interview process because they've gone
on some rant about windows vs linux, political ideology or just came off as
unable to communicate in general.

This is also the hardest to communicate as it is something inherent to the
candidate. It's not personal, but it gets personal at this point.

~~~
dunpeal
> Most engineering interviewees fail to advance because of
> cultural/personality/communication issues and not technical competence.

Not my experience. At least when hiring for programming positions, the typical
fatal issue is that the candidate's coding is weak.

In my first role as a hiring manager, I didn't stress coding tests for
candidates with long work history on their resume. Since then, I learned
better.

I've seen candidates with anything between 1 and 15 years of full time coding
work on their resumes fail to answer basic fizz-buzz level coding questions.

At least for the candidates I've seen, the biggest single reason why they get
rejected is failure to perform the one main function their job requires:
coding.

~~~
mixmastamyk
They can't code because you are looking figuratively over their shoulder---the
clock is ticking next to a hundred grand in a suitcase.

A single question is pulled from subjects vast enough to fill up years of
college and there is no time to research, as one would in the real world.
Binary pass/fail with your pride/livelyhood/family on the line.

Please state your last exam conducted under such conditions?

Oh and your questions probably stink. I've gotten plenty of them with
recursion that might take ten minutes in seclusion but simply not possible
under the gun.

~~~
taneq
We always get these kinds of responses when interview testing is mentioned.
This isn't some high-level algorithm analysis on a whiteboard with a panel of
examiners grilling you. This is a simple test of basic competence. It's like
interviewing a candidate Formula 1 driver and asking them "so which bit's the
brake pedal?" If they can't tell you that instantly then they shouldn't be
applying for the position in the first place.

> Please state your last exam conducted under such conditions?

University entrance exams.

University graduation exams.

Any other test that you do which you need to pass to enter or continue your
career.

~~~
mixmastamyk
> We always get these kinds of responses…

Perhaps you should start listening.

> This isn't some high-level algorithm analysis on a whiteboard with a panel
> of examiners grilling you.

Happened to me just three months ago. The req is still open, wonder why?

To reiterate:

\- Exams have a topic known in advance.

\- Exams never have a person sitting there waiting for the answer.

\- Exams are _never_ 1 or 2 questions binary pass/fail with incredibly high
stakes in unfamiliar territory.

Which is the brake pedal? If only.

~~~
taneq
We're talking about "basic fizz-buzz level coding questions". It sounds like
you had a bad experience with something else that we weren't talking about.

(As for 'topic known in advance', I'd suggest that if you don't know what
topics that you might be asked about in a job interview, maybe you shouldn't
be interviewing for that job.)

~~~
mixmastamyk
There’s very little correlation.

------
mikeleeorg
When I was a hiring manager, I used to always include a personal note that
included suggestions and constructive criticism for the candidate. In a couple
of cases, those people replied to me, demonstrated some actions towards those
goals, and I hired them later, when I had more available positions.

And those that I didn't hire, I encountered them at other companies. It was
flattering to hear them say they remembered me and had a positive impression
of our recruiting process, even though they were rejected.

I've always believed that the recruiting process is a great way to sell one's
company. Even if the candidate isn't a good match, that candidate may
recommend peers to the role if they have a positive experience with you.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
I interviewed for an internal position once and got similar feedback, by
phone, from the HR person. She was on the phone with me for about an hour and,
in all honesty, that rejection phone call made that one of the best interviews
I've ever had.

I didn't get that job, but it gave me a lot of constructive advice and I ended
up getting the next one I interviewed for.

~~~
duxup
You'd probabbly apply again sometime right?

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
If my circumstances were the same I probably would, but circumstances have
changed enough that I wouldn't apply for that type of position.

------
werbel
If you/your company doesn't have a policy of sending personal feedback please
consider doing this at least for junior people. Volunteer your after work time
if needed.

Trying to find the first job is extremely stressful process. A junior person
has no notion of his worth on the market. Each rejection even if only by a
lack of any response ("I'm sorry, I'm afraid we are looking for a bit more
experienced person" would suffice) can be like a kick on the face when you're
just barely learning to walk and most likely is a burned bridge.

I've mentored my girlfriend for 3 years from almost 0 to getting her first job
in a company run by a React Native core developer. She had the skill, great
attitude, really solid work ethic and very analytical thinking. It'd trust her
more with any task than significant number of my past and current senior
coworkers. It's hard to prove and no one expects that so naturally her
applications had been ignored or rejected. With each one I saw her confidence,
self-esteem and enthusiasm crumb. With each positive reply/invitation she was
invigorated until the next step came. I'm pretty sure for some the roller-
coaster or even worse, being rejected over and over again can be a life
defining experience.

Any reply is great, personal is even better. If you spend time describing what
was missing from the expectations of your company (don't say "You don't know
enough", say "We need someone with more knowledge") and sincerely wish the
person well you can be sure they'll be grateful, remember you, work on the
gaps and who knows... maybe some day become part of your team.

Please feel free to reach out if you want some example for inspiration.

Edit: Please don't do that against the policy of your company. But if there
are no reasons against just ask if you could provide some feedback and
resources for the rejection letter.

~~~
lixtra
Our HR asked me to personally call people and thank them for their declined
application.

But at the same time requested to not give any feedback because of fear from
litigation. Sad world.

~~~
abakker
Managerial CYA, and fear of the potential for litigation are crippling
corporations more that I think we'd like to admit. Financial risk is something
people seem comfortable accepting, but the specter of unknowable legal risk
cause so many management anti patterns and so much passive aggressive behavior
is it incredible.

As a relatively junior person in management, it is amazing the kind of phantom
fears I've been cautioned against. Some of which don't even have any legal
precedent at all!

I think a lot of it is trotted out as managerial "emergency hypothesis" for
why someone doesn't want to do something, and so invents some plausible legal
risk to justify their decision. But, honestly, it can't be only that.

~~~
shimon
For a swath of business responsibilities, this "phantom legal risk" is the
Most Available Excuse (TM).

We see Most Available Excuses in product feedback ("it's too hard to use" is
easier to say than "I didn't see how this would help me accomplish anything I
actually care about"), in social engagements ("sorry, too busy this week"),
and many other areas.

I'm a natural skeptic so I maintain a mental set of Most Available Excuses,
and when I hear one I treat it as a dodge, not an answer. Why don't they want
to do it? How might I make them more comfortable with me so they can explain
how they really feel?

~~~
chongli
_Why don 't they want to do it? How might I make them more comfortable with me
so they can explain how they really feel?_

I'd be very cautious with this approach. Politeness is an extremely important
social defense mechanism for most people. By ignoring the standard polite
response and trying to get at the truth you're undermining a person's attempt
to save face. By doing so, you're attacking their autonomy and agency as a
human being.

~~~
shimon
I'm not suggesting directly asking these questions of the other person. I'm
suggesting these as topics for you to think about if you're getting the polite
excuse and want the actual reason. To get that you have to actually make them
more comfortable; calling them out on a polite lie obviously isn't going to do
that.

------
save_ferris
I once got a detailed, feedback-driven rejection email, stating very clearly
and professionally where I shined in my interview, and where I didn't. I was
so appreciative of the message that I made sure to follow up with the manager
working on my application and thanked them.

9 months later, I found myself in a bad management situation at another
company, thinking about looking for another gig when the company that rejected
me reached out asking if I'd be willing to come back and interview again. I
did and accepted the offer.

By giving good and candid feedback, they wound up saving months of searching
for a new dev when they reached back out knowing I was a good fit for what
they needed at that time. I was essentially a lead they'd already warmed
months prior. It made me wonder why more companies don't think of this.

------
tptacek
_When someone can’t answer an interview question about relational databases,
it might be that they don’t know anything about relational databases._

I thought you all were better than this. Why are you _asking questions_ about
relational databases? Why not just have candidates _accomplish the thing you
're assessing with an actual relational database_? I know you're work-sample-
literate! But if your feedback emphasizes _communication_ , doesn't that imply
a lot about your process is subjective? After all, and to extend an analysis
used in this blog post: it could be that the candidates couldn't effectively
communicate knowledge about RDMBS's. Or, it could be that the interviewer
_wasn 't effectively listening_ to what the candidate was saying.

~~~
ransom1538
I have been doing mysql database type things for 15 years solid. Once during a
job interview at digg.com, someone [ok ok doxx removed] asked: "what is a
having statement in sql?". I jumped in explained how you can filter aggregated
sets performed by a 'group by' and rambled on and on. He stopped me and said,
"You can use a having statement without a group by, are you sure you know how
they work." I have never seen this or done this in practice, so I just stood
there stumped. He rolled his eyes and ended the interview. 4 hours of an
amazing interview going well: ruined. At least this guy went on to ruin
digg.com. "Let's just re-write everything over again better" kinda guy.

~~~
minimaxir
[No longer applicable]

~~~
pmiller2
Naming a company and recounting an interview experience is not doxxing.

~~~
minimaxir
He named a _specific person_ before the edit, which is a bit different.
Nothing wrong with naming/shaming digg.com, though.

~~~
icedchai
Naming a specific person is not nice, but still not "doxxing."

~~~
stone-monkey
That's exactly what doxxing is.(Paraphrasing here) "This guy was really shitty
in my job interview. Here's their LinkedIn page."

Seemed pretty cut and dry to me. What about it disqualified it as a not-
doxxing situation?

~~~
icedchai
"Doxxing", in the original sense, involves publishing more private info, info
like address, home phone, cell phone, SSN, etc. A link to someones _public_
LinkedIn page is not a "dox."

------
dep_b
Getting rejected at Triplebyte was actually a pretty good investment time
wise. Guess the whole thing costed me three hours in total and I got quite a
list of things to improve and how. It was clear it was tailored towards the
interview not just a larger generic mail.

There are tons of companies that give you a generic email after you completed
an IQ test, a questionary, open questions and of course the 8hours+ homework.
That's just perverse.

"Try again in three months"

Why? I wouldn't do anything different.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> "Try again in three months"

> Why? I wouldn't do anything different.

But they will. The interview process is stochastic; exactly the same
performance from you will lead to different results on different attempts.

> Getting rejected at Triplebyte was actually a pretty good investment time
> wise. Guess the whole thing costed me three hours in total and I got quite a
> list of things to improve and how. It was clear it was tailored towards the
> interview not just a larger generic mail.

For another perspective, here's the entire feedback I got when they rejected
my application:

> This was a tough decision and one that we were on the fence about. We really
> appreciate you taking the time to work on the take home project. We're aware
> this requires a substantial time commitment and we are really grateful that
> you invested the time in completing it. We thought you wrote a great, very
> full featured regular expression matcher. It was especially impressive how
> much you dug into the academics behind regular languages.

> However we made the decision because we felt that while going through the
> project together during the interview, we didn't see the fluency of
> programming when adding to it that we had hoped for. While we specifically
> designed the take home project track to help overcome the difficulties of
> coding under time pressure with someone watching, we do still need to see a
> certain level of programming during the interview. This didn't seem to be
> the case here, where making changes to the project seemed to be slower and
> more difficult than we'd have liked.

~~~
nosseo
That sounds like a feedback email from a couple years ago - am I right about
that? We've definitely gotten better at this over time.

~~~
pmiller2
How so?

~~~
nosseo
All the ways I discussed in the article - more nuanced, more thorough, more
detailed, more focused on constructive advice you can take to your next
interview. Plus, we've just improved our process in general so you aren't
tested on skills you don't need. It's easier to give constructive feedback
about an interview process you have a lot of confidence in, and much of the
work we've put in as a company over the last few years has been designing an
interview we think really works.

~~~
meggar
I'd try it again, what is the process to reapply?

~~~
nosseo
Shoot me an email (kelsey@triplebyte.com) and I'll reset your account.

------
rdl
I'd settle for "do you at least send a rejection email of any kind to the
candidate?" vs. the "dropping someone on the floor and not responding for
weeks/months/ever". Even without detailed or personalized feedback, it's a
huge improvement. Also if an internal person refers someone, you should let
the internal person know if you're passing, I think (depends on other factors,
though.)

~~~
Liron
"Ghosting" seems like a common phenomenon across different types of human
interaction. There's dating, interviewing, and even pitching investors.

This was a common experience for me pitching my company last year:

1\. Investor likes my co enough to schedule an in-person meeting

2\. I meet investor in person to pitch

3\. I send them a followup email

4\. Radio silence

I'd read that investors like to keep you in limbo instead of passing, I just
didn't realize these well-respected professionals would value someone highly
enough to give them an hour of their day, but low enough to neglect all
followup communication. In retrospect I don't think it's a big deal, but I
felt bad about it at the time.

------
nosseo
Article author - I'm on the writing team at Triplebyte. Most of what we do is
summarize candidates' technical performance for their introduction to
companies, but we also send feedback to everyone who takes our two-hour
interview. I took this responsibility over from our first engineer, who built
a bunch of software to make the process faster - it lets me quickly
autogenerate emails by clicking all the resources I want to include, and then
highlights the things that require more careful review. (So the people who
accuse me of being a robot are half-right, I guess.)

~~~
mikepurvis
Isn't giving detailed feedback a liability nightmare? Everything I've ever
heard on this is to say as little as possible.

It's certainly great as a candidate to get detailed feedback (would have
really appreciated it back in the day as a co-op student), but I just wonder
if the concerns over it have any merit or are overblown.

~~~
nosseo
My understanding is that as long as you're not discriminating against
candidates on the basis of race, gender or some other protected category
membership, and as long as your feedback reflects that by being focused on the
technical abilities the candidate demonstrated during the interview, you're
not actually at all that much risk. Of course, if you are illegally
discriminating, or if your feedback suggests that you are by giving feedback
on candidate appearance or something (never do that), then you're absolutely
better off not sending it.

~~~
mehrdadn
How do you imagine they would give feedback on something that's neither
technical nor illegal? I'm imagining everything from "we found you too
arrogant" to "you smelled awful when you came in"...

~~~
nosseo
For arrogant, I'd try to make the feedback as concrete and specific as
possible - "sometimes you gave confidently wrong answers. If you're guessing,
it's better to tell your interviewer that. Interviewers typically won't hold
it against you if you guess and guess rightly, but if you don't acknowledge
you're guessing and get things wrong, it raises questions about whether you
know what you don't know." or "sometimes it's great to ignore the spec because
you have something better in mind, but on an interview it's typically better
to demonstrate your creativity and knowledge while still building to the spec
- it makes it easier for us to evaluate you" or "when talking about your last
company, you said some things that came across as disdainful about your
coworkers. It'd be better to highlight your achievements."

All of those are ways being arrogant can manifest, but they're much more
actionable than 'you were arrogant' and unsurprisingly get received a lot
better.

I wouldn't comment on smell - yes, that's valuable feedback a candidate really
ought to hear from someone, but the risk of really angering them is too high
for me to feel comfortable with it.

~~~
mehrdadn
The thing is you still reduced arrogance to technical correctness. However,
what I was trying to get at was, what about cases where the technical
correctness is just fine? If it's their attitude or hygiene or something else
that you don't like, how do you tell them that?

I was trying to get at the same thing you just said, which is that, like you,
most people would become uncomfortable providing feedback on at least some of
these. Meaning that you would have to turn away these candidates without any
concrete feedback. Now how do you imagine they'll react when they realize most
people do get feedback but they didn't? Is their reaction (which might result
in bad publicity) a risk you and your company really want to take? For what
gain?

~~~
nosseo
So the thing is, I think arrogance is typically reflected in actual
deficiencies in interview performance. If it isn't - if it's just a vibe that
the interviewer got with no concrete implications for how they work with
others, solve problems, or communicate - then I worry taking it into account
is introducing bias. If I can't think of a concrete implication that the
arrogance had, then I don't think I want to take it into account. (You almost
always can identify concrete effects, though.)

------
Insanity
At least you get a response even if it is a rejection letter. I have heard -
not experienced - that sometimes you just don't hear back from the company at
all, which seems worse to me.

~~~
hunterjrj
This happened to me. Several rounds of interviews with a well known colored-
hat company, then... nothing. No response to follow-ups either.

What was especially frustrating to me was that up to that point, the tone of
both the conversations and email exchanges was very positive and cordial. I
would have expected a "Thanks, but no thanks" follow-up at least, especially
considering I was an internal referral from a Sr. Mgr. But... nothing. Made my
reconsider my view of that particular company.

~~~
jopsen
Lots of companies are a mess internally.

If in 2-3 weeks you haven't heard from the recruiter, you should ping them
back, if no response don't was further time and move along.

Interviews often seem like hit and miss. I would recommend training at
geeksforgeeks.org just to refresh dynamic programming, etc. But beyond that
you're better off applying multiple places.

------
Harj
I used to write rejection emails for companies at the end of YC interview
days. It always sucked, especially when it was borderline decision (which it
often was) but PG made doing these well an important part of internal YC
culture. We couldn't leave until they were finished and each one was reviewed
by another partner before sending.

In hindsight I'm glad we did this. In the years since I've had multiple people
tell me the rejection was a positive turning point and the only honest
feedback they'd received.

------
joeax
I'm going to go against the grain and say that interview feedback is overrated
(at least for senior people). If you got offered the job, then there's your
feedback. If not, the interviewing company isn't going to tell you any more
than you could already discern yourself by playing back your answers and
conversations with the interviewers. If you honestly feel you aced the
interview, then other factors are in play - perhaps they realized they are
overstaffed, layoffs are imminent/hiring freezes, or just a slightly better
and more personable candidate came along.

One time I interviewed for a position that I wanted badly. I studied and
prepped for the interview, then during the interview I nailed every question.
I waited a week but never heard back. After a few weeks of silence and giving
up hope, I searched the company on LinkedIn, and found the person they hired
for the position. It turns out he had more backend experience, which is what
they were looking for. It was a painful truth, but them sending me a rejection
email telling me this wouldn't have helped me at all.

~~~
herodotus
I agree with you, except that the company should send out a rejection letter
as soon as they can. If I were hiring, I would only send a non-generic
response if the rejected candidate specifically asked me if I would be willing
to give her or him constructive feedback, or otherwise indicate why they did
not get the position.

~~~
joeax
What if they are not rejecting you? What if they like you as a candidate but
decided to move forward with someone else (and it was a tough decision), and
want to wait to see if that person will work out. It sucks, but it happens.

------
gwbas1c
> When someone can’t answer an interview question about relational databases,
> it might be that ... they know them inside-and-out but aren’t used to
> answering questions on the fly, or that our question didn’t use the
> vocabulary they’re familiar with, or that they misheard the question and
> answered a different one.

Ultimately, that means your interviews have bias. (Even though it appears you
try very, very, very hard to avoid bias.)

Honestly, I don't think interview feedback is a good idea. It just encourages
gaming the system. I'd rather that feedback come through a neutral 3rd party.
We just haven't set our field up to do that.

Why neutral 3rd party? Because of the above situation! The 3rd party could
just say things like, "looks like this was just a bad interview. Don't read
too deep into it, and keep trying." The 3rd party could also push back on the
employer if the interview ran poorly.

And no, recruiters are not neutral 3rd parties.

------
sixstringtheory
> giving feedback effectively is an enormous amount of work

I take a lot of issue with this. Interviewing and doing code projects is also
an enormous amount of work. If a company sends an 8 hour exercise to each
candidate, then in aggregate the candidates are probably expending way more
person hours than the total expended by the hiring company to settle on a new
hire.

I no longer do unpaid work. Of course I’ll interview, but to show them how I
code on their product and work in their processes, I will only accept a
contract-to-hire offer. If more people did this I believe it would exert
pressure on companies to not be so wanton with what they ask of candidates,
and how expendably they treat them.

------
eat_veggies
my triplebyte rejection was surprisingly insightful. I don't know whether it's
cookie-cutter, entirely handwritten, or a combination of a few macros, but it
makes sense to me.

[https://pastebin.com/AGPyzmgU](https://pastebin.com/AGPyzmgU)

------
Dwolb
>I heard back from many of the engineers I write to, and often, they were
furious

Bingo. I've opted to share specific team feedback via phone and although
candidate feedback was generally positive and thankful, once in awhile the
reaction would be extremely negative. I now opt for the much more
(emotionally) safe route.

Triplebyte is more incented to provide candidate feedback because if the
candidate improves, Triplebye may be more likely to place them in the future.
With companies, this incentive is less apparent.

~~~
smelendez
Yeah, this sounds like as much of an issue as the legal risk to me. Imagine if
you reject someone and they blog about the letter you sent them and the
interview process, and the post makes Hacker News or Reddit.

Now you have to decide whether to fight in public with someone you didn't
hire, normally bad form, or say nothing.

------
RoryRecruiter
Interesting read/points about risk and candidates not being receptive to
feedback. I've worked for companies that reason like this but personally, I
believe the biggest challenge to overcome is for the person declining the
candidate to articulate clear/concise constructive feedback over the PHONE vs
sending an EMAIL.

My current firm (McKinsey & Company) expects every candidate in round 1 or
final round interviews (either from the recruiter or hiring manager) to
receive a call same day or within a day of interviewing with their interview
results. If the results are a decline, feedback as to how and why we came to
that decision is provided. It's painful for sure and no one likes to give bad
news but the firm has been operating this way for years and I’ve found
candidates appreciate knowing sooner rather then later.

Let's face it, there are a lot of bad hiring processes out there and not
hearing back is the WORST when on the job hunt. At my firm, we rigorously
evaluate candidates based on performance and will always do our best to ensure
they are provided with feedback in a timely manner (note: I'm sure there have
been slip ups in the past RE: same day/1 day after interviewing feedback but
the firm expects every recruiters/interviewer to follow this process).

------
Johnny555
_If they send feedback which tells candidates, truthfully, that they were
rejected because they didn’t get very far on the coding project, then if
anything a company reduces their legal risk: they have a transparent track
record of evaluating candidates based only on their skills_

I think the problem comes when he talks to his friend of another race/gender
and that friend said "Yeah, I couldn't finish that either, but they still
hired me". The company may have had a legit reason to overlook the coding
project (like the second candidate had experience in some other technology),
but when you tell candidate X that they didn't get the job because they didn't
complete the coding exercise, but then you hire candidate Y despite him not
completing it, it provides candidate X with some concrete evidence of
discrimination.

------
kevindong
I've applied to hundreds of internship positions by this point (I'm a senior
looking for a full-time job starting this upcoming summer). During those
hundreds of applications, I've only received explicit feedback (aside from
getting offers, since getting an offer means I did good enough; I never got
explicit feedback from any of those offers) a total of twice.

One was for a marketing company that's already gone public because I made it
to the final round and really fell apart during the coding portion. I knew I
screwed up and the recruiter confirmed that (without me asking) during the
"thanks for applying, but no thanks" phone call.

The other time was for a medium-size startup. I had to ask the recruiter via
email after I got the "no thanks" email, but she provided the info within
minutes.

------
stone-monkey
Solid content marketing - I just spent the last 30 minutes taking the coding
test because of this post.

------
rossdavidh
So, good article, but another point occurred to me while reading it that
wasn't covered. I think that writing a good email explaining the rejection,
might be a good exercise for the company doing the rejecting. "Well, why are
we rejecting this person, exactly?" Of course, this will only be true if the
email is honest (if diplomatic). It could serve as an institutionalized review
of whether candidates are getting rejected for the right reason. Building
feedback loops into a company's internal process can be a very powerful thing,
even when there's no bonus or penalty involved for the person doing the
writing.

I wonder, does Triplebyte have any kind of annual summary of why candidates
are getting rejected?

------
brendonjohn
I don't think a company should offer an interview if they're not willing to
give proper feedback at the end of it.

When interviewing candidates, I have been more than happy to give detailed
feedback if they've asked me to give it. I realise it's unconventional, so I
get the feedback peer reviewed before sending it away. I'm pleased to see that
there are other companies learning how to give better feedback.

Giving feedback is a small token of respect that a company can give in return
for a candidates time.

In my experience, interviewees have been thankful and shared how hard it is to
get feedback from their interviewers.

------
paulsutter
Companies hire the candidate they like best, they don't even spend mental
energy 'rejecting' the other candidates. If you don't get hired, it says more
about the candidate they chose and little about you.

------
AngeloAnolin
I would really rate a company that provides honest and truthful feedback a
notch on top of the others as this shows some form of the culture that they
have in their organization.

You can do an automated response to 95% of the rejected ones, and for the rest
which made the cut past the initial stage of applying, having a more human-
centric approach on providing response is the way to go.

The good words that would come out vouching for the company I think is enough
reason that hiring organizations should take the effort to provide a
meaningful response to some applicants.

------
pmiller2
Here's one thing that stuck out to me:

> Even Triplebyte only sends individualized feedback to candidates who've done
> a two-hour interview with us - we simply don't have the resources to do it
> for everyone who takes our online quiz.

Unless there's something interesting going on, it seems like it would be easy
to give some kind of feedback based on the online quiz, even if it's only "You
answered X out of Y questions correct on $TOPIC", repeated for however many
topics were covered.

------
dunpeal
> The number one reason companies cite for not sending feedback is legal risk.
> Interestingly, I don’t think this is true. Companies put themselves at legal
> risk if they are rejecting candidates for illegitimate reasons, like race,
> gender, or a disability. If they send feedback which tells candidates,
> truthfully, that they were rejected because they didn’t get very far on the
> coding project, then if anything a company reduces their legal risk: they
> have a transparent track record of evaluating candidates based only on their
> skills.

Ah, but have you considered what would happen when you give this "transparent
skills-based feedback" to 90% of your rejected candidates, but then a couple
of them get rejected for reasons you don't want to specify, or could
potentially be interpreted (by an aggressive litigation attorney) as illegal
discrimination?

Some candidates get rejected because "nobody enjoyed talking to him", "he
seemed weird", "alienated the interviewers", etc.

Are you going to write any of that in your transparent rejection letter?

------
bitwize
I've occasionally had a moment of schadenfreude where, after interviewing at a
place I hated, I could write something like this:

Dear <So-and-so>,

Thank you for considering me for <position>. I certainly enjoyed talking to
you in person. Unfortunately, I feel that <company> is not a fit for my needs
at this time. I wish you the very best of luck in your candidate search.

Sincerely, etc.

------
sixdimensional
Perhaps I'm being too broad but I think that rejection emails suck because
generally, as a society, we aren't valuing communication or we don't think we
can afford the time for actual feedback.

It triggers one of those "how much better would the world be" feelings, if
more people took more time to give each other genuine feedback. I mean, maybe
giving good feedback (for candidates that took time to apply and clearly made
effort) could help people learn, it might even ultimately address
unemployment, homelessness, or other root cause problems.

I understand the legal concerns - and there would be candidates who would
exploit the process of genuine feedback as well - but I think it would serve
to help people more than it would hurt. It does require time and resources, so
organizations / institutions would have to look at it as a sort of a social
benefit cost or something. But I do wonder how much good it might really do.

------
whydoineedthis
you could also just give feedback in the cases where it is requested. As a
fresh-faced out of college coder I was rejected from ThoughtWorks after
spending 3 days on a coding question. Yes, I sucked - all I wanted to hear
though was "we really wanted to see TDD, even though it was optional" or
whatever. I asked for feedback, they didn't give it, I now and forever will
have a negative impression of their company and will avoid them - and often
people whom have worked for them - technicality be damned. You don't always
need to give feedback, but a little compassion for those that are new would be
nice.

------
s0uthPaw88
I found the feedback from my Triplebyte rejection to be very helpful in
directing my preparation for other interviews. It helped me get a job offer 3
days later from just the type of company and role that they screen for.

------
kaizendad
When I was getting my MBA, about <many> years ago, I suggested to our career
placement folks that they work up a legal agreement with the companies who
recruited with us, indemnifying them against any EEOC suits if they shared
detailed feedback with us (most large companies go directly to business
schools to hire on a yearly basis). They asked a half-dozen companies, and no
company's legal team thought they could be confident such a document would
stick. Pity, as, at that stage, we all had a lot of interviews to take, and a
lot of support in getting new interviews.

------
desireco42
I was lead dev in a company, I felt strongly that I don't want to reject
people without providing them with clear feedback what they did well and
didn't do well.

VP hated the idea and very quickly was abandoned. We got a lot of bad
candidates tbh, so it was hard to tell them what they did wrong (they bombed
pretty much).

I still think, done well, it provides great benefit to candidates being
considered.

Thing that worked well for me, I had elaborate set of topics/knowledge I want
my developers to know and be rated on, it wasn't arbitrary selection. Still,
when someone bombs, it is hard to relay they did bad.

------
rezashirazian
TripleBye articles are generally bad. They're a mishmash of random ideas that
feel A/B tested for the highest possible SEO return. I still remember reading
through this: [https://triplebyte.com/blog/a-taxonomy-of-
programmers](https://triplebyte.com/blog/a-taxonomy-of-programmers) when it
was first published trying to make sense of it.

------
segmondy
Seriously, we need something written on why rejection sucks?

Rejection sucks because we all like to imagine that we are good enough and the
only reason we applied is because we believed we are good enough so it stinks
to be told that we are not good enough.

Doesn't matter how you phrase the email, might be nice to give a feedback, but
for anyone who receives it, it stings. The only difference is that some folks
have a positive mindset, they get over the sting and work towards getting
better. Feedback or not.

------
sunstone
Hmmm, so on standardised tests I typically score in the top two percentile.
(yes I'm fabulous). But the best developer I ever worked with was a Russian
guy who interviewed terribly. He was great at code, he was even great as a
team lead. But he sucked at interviews. I never interviewed him so I can't say
why that is but...if there's more than a few of these guys out there, there's
room for (major) improvement in the interview business.

------
paulie_a
Id rather get a rejection email than just not hear back. If you dont bother
responding with a rejection after an interview you are a coward. And shouldnt
be interviewing people.

------
kenjackson
The other reason specificity is a legal issue is that it provides data that
can be disputed. For example, if you reject someone black and say the reason
they were rejected because hey didn’t get far enough in the coding test —
you’d better not hire the white guy who only got just as far (which might
happen for a variety of reasons).

It’s almost the same reason you stay quiet when held by police. Even something
seemingly innocuous may end being used against you in the future.

------
duxup
I WISH I could get rejection emails. I'll talk to a recruiter at a company,
exchange emails, even meet them .... 99.9% of the time if they're not offering
I get NOTHING. They just don't respond.

I don't care that they're not hiring me, I'd just like some feedback. FEEDBACK
PLEASE, anything that really matters that I can improve on or such.

It is to the point that even automated rejection letters seem nicer than the
usual "ghosting".

~~~
HillaryBriss
I was once told by a recruiter that she absolutely guaran-damn-teed that she
would call me after the interview process and let me know the employer's
decision. Guaran-damn-teed.

After my in-person interview, about a month passed with no contact from her. I
figured I didn't get the job. But I wanted to call her anyway, just because.
She said, "Oh, I thought I sent you an email about it. Yeah, they don't want
you."

~~~
duxup
Same, it's a pretty terrible system.

------
thidr0
I will often tell candidates on the phone screen that I don't want to go
forward for XYZ reasons (always technical). At one point one of the guys I
gave feedback to like this turned the call into an occupational therapy
session whining about the chicken/egg experience problem, how all these
companies want him to know the "trivia" of CS fundamentals, etc.

Believe me, it's a lot easier to just send a form rejection.

------
starpilot
Hard to care about the specific content of rejection emails when the average
applicant will get _hundreds_ of them before landing a position. It's like
getting mad at the rain in Seattle winter. Though I do admit, the more
effusive they seem to be about turning me down, the more offended I am as a
professional. Then I forget about it 5 seconds later and move on to my next
applications.

------
apetresc
> I work at Triplebyte, and over the last year I’ve written over 3,000
> detailed, individual rejection emails.

Wait, what? That means you're interviewing on average 12 people every single
working day of the year. Even for someone who's job title was "Technical
Recruiter" that would be a TON, let alone for someone who is a Team Lead and
presumably has other duties. How is that possible?

~~~
nosseo
I don't conduct the interviews, you're right that that'd be impossible. I take
the notes from our interviewers and turn them into feedback emails.

------
andrewprock
In my experience, most of the feedback I've gotten has been trite and
superficial. It's not surprising, since most interview processes are not
designed to measure quality but rather to measure interest.

I once got feedback that I wasn't technically qualified, and when I asked how
they knew that, they said that I hadn't spent enough time on leetcode studying
the answers.

------
HillaryBriss
> _Even Triplebyte only sends individualized feedback to candidates who 've
> done a two-hour interview with us - we simply don't have the resources to do
> it for everyone who takes our online quiz._

I'm surprised by this. I would think that Triplebyte could automate the
feedback for applicants who took the online quiz but didn't make the cut.

------
mbesto
> _I recently talked with an employment lawyer about this, and he didn’t think
> that specific feedback on technical performance put companies at risk. So
> legal risk, despite being frequently cited, seems unlikely to be the real
> driver of policies here._

This was either written very poorly or lacks serious basis to conclude
thoughts about employee feedback (of which drives the thesis of the whole
article).

First - "I talked to a lawyer and he didn't think it was a risk", does not
sound very much like legal advice. Is there precedence for civil cases that
were thrown out due to the basis of "just giving technical feedback"? How
often do firms that provide "just technical feedback" get sued and how often
do they settle those suits?

Second - I think most people want feedback on "how they interviewed" and not
"were they the right fit for the job". This is where you get into a gray area
of legality, because anything you might say may get misconstrued as
discrimination. "Oh you think I was too nervous during my interview...well I
have X condition that makes me like that and you can't reject me for that"

Third - feedback on technical skills? To what avail does this hold for the
candidate? Example:

Potential Employer: "You couldn't reverse a string, so work on string
reversals."

Potential Candidate: "Ok, I'll go learn a string reversal so I can ace my next
interview"

Feedback on interviews is imperfect because the hiring process is imperfect.

------
cm2187
Actually this is in my opinion the main advantage of headhunters. They will
typically call the recruiter after the interview and seek feedback. And it is
easier to provide feedback to the headhunter than to the interviewee directly.

------
industriousthou
I recently bombed a Triplebyte interview. I didn't realize how badly until I
got the feedback email. It honestly hurt, but it was really useful. I
definitely respect their approach.

------
bbq42
Often time, it's just that after interviewing 20 candidates, we realize that
this candidate is amongst the worst and telling him/her that isn't helpful.

------
insiderinsider
Triple byte interviewers don’t know what they were interviewing all they have
is bunch of questions they keep on asking without any opportunity to answer

------
arunmp
On a side note, this also reads as an interesting insight into human behavior
and how to communicate in general. A wonderful article.

------
jiveturkey
I read the title as, you suck at your job therefore the emails suck. :)

Reminds of a recent prudential billboard. "We spend more time reading
billboards than planning for retirement." Great, if you aren't doing your job
of planning then I'll use someone else!

------
Markoff
again decent article (though stating obvious) until last bracket which was
whole point of posting it

------
microcolonel
> _The number one reason companies cite for not sending feedback is legal
> risk. Interestingly, I don’t think this is true. Companies put themselves at
> legal risk if they are rejecting candidates for illegitimate reasons, like
> race, gender, or a disability. If they send feedback which tells candidates,
> truthfully, that they were rejected because they didn’t get very far on the
> coding project, then if anything a company reduces their legal risk: they
> have a transparent track record of evaluating candidates based only on their
> skills. I recently talked with an employment lawyer about this, and he
> didn’t think that specific feedback on technical performance put companies
> at risk. So legal risk, despite being frequently cited, seems unlikely to be
> the real driver of policies here._

I think the problem here is that it exposes you legally even if you're not
discriminating. If your explanation can in any way be argued as euphemism, or
analogous to discrimination against a protected class, then you could face
trouble. Maybe the risk is overblown, but the form of exposure you're talking
about may not be the main one, far as I reckon.

