

What happened to common decency in the hiring process? - kjackson

I have applied to a few places in the Valley, as have many of my friends.  And I hear nothing but horror stories in terms of how rude recruiters and hiring managers are.<p>I'm not talking about simply not hiring me or my friends.  I'm happy with not getting a job I interviewed for, no one owes anyone a job.  And I'm not talking about getting template rejection letters, or "Thanks for contacting us, we'll keep your resume on file."  Those are great.<p>I'm talking about emailing candidates about scheduling phone interviews and then not responding back to emails.  Not calling them when they have a scheduled phone interview.  Bringing people to onsite interviews, and then not contacting people back to give them the results, or responding to emails asking about the results of the onsite interview.<p>I assume that no contact means a rejection, but what happened to common decency and not leaving people hanging?<p>I've found that the hiring process has gotten ruder and ruder over the course of time, where hiring managers feel no need to tell interviewees that they were rejected.  It's appalling.<p>I expect it from headhunters, but internal recruiters for the company are doing themselves no service.  And this pertains not just to startups, but big companies as well.  Startlingly, Google has improved drastically in this department, but all the other companies are simply terrible.<p>Have other people experienced this as well?
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ConceptJunkie
It has gotten a lot worse over the years. I think part of the problem has to
do with HR taking over the hiring process whereas traditionally the actual
managers that the candidate would work for would have a much more active role
in the process. The problem with HR departments is that they are, in my
experience, completely unqualified to do hiring and often act more effectively
to keep good candidates away rather than get them face time with prospective
employers. The whole hiring process has devolved in so many ways, but then
management in general is becoming a lost art. As a society, we are
collectively losing our ability to organize and manage ourselves.

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jarrettcoggin
That isn't just in the Valley. It's all over. I don't know if it is simply
more prevalent there versus other places, but when I was actively interviewing
just before I graduated from college, I could count on one hand the companies
that I had more than 1-2 technical interviews with and didn't take longer than
45 days from start to finish to give me a decision. It was very routine for
companies to wait a full month before supplying me with a final answer.

There were plenty of companies (I'm guessing around 50%) that simply never
responded back to me, even if I sent them an inquiry about where I stood in
the interview process.

I think the worst one was a company that: \- did an initial HR interview with
me, then asked to me come back 3 weeks later. \- sat me down for a 3 hour long
"Skills Examination and Aptitude Test" (think SATs mixed with the ASVAB, "If
you turn gear A, which direction will gear D turn" kind of stuff) \- never
called me in for an actual Technical Skills test \- gave me an offer for a
position that I didn't apply for, was not relevant to my skill set, was 15k
lower than I expected for the position offered, and that I wasn't interested
in.

Some of the companies I've talked to were dreadfully slow and got to the point
that I simply didn't even remember talking to them when they finally
responded. When they finally responded, I'd look up the last time they
contacted me in a spreadsheet I kept and ask them why it took them X months to
respond. The usual answers were, "we had so many applicants"/"The previous HR
employee left"/"That position is no longer open but we wanted to consider you
for another"/etc.

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MortenK
This is unfortunately very common! I experienced it quite recently, when I had
to make a decision between 2 jobs. A guy from a recruitment agency who I had
interviewed with, made me postpone deciding for the two jobs, as he was "dead-
sure" he could get me two interviews for consultancy assignments (which I was
more interested in), within "early next week".

The entire week came and went, and I didn't hear from him until a few weeks
later. It was a "Are you interested in position X? Oh sorry about not getting
back to you last week by the way".

To me this was the most rude treatment I have ever gotten in relation to a
hiring process. They persuaded me to akwardly stall the two other companies,
which I did (but really shouldn't have), and then never even bothered with a
phone call. I respect that people are busy, and normally I wouldn't really
mind - But actively making you postpone other plans, and then not get back to
you is quite over the top.

Such behaviour reflects extremely bad on the company / recruitment agency, and
they are doing themselves a major disservice. I'd never even consider getting
my next contract through those guys, I'm not going to recommend their
positions to my dev friends nor to any potential clients that could use their
services.

Another agency always got back to me, phoned or mailed with good news or bad,
always accessible and courteous. They've since gotten tons of referrals from
me, because they are worth it.

It's so easy to shine as a company in this particular area, since a lot of HR
and recruitment people have a tendency of treating people like a disposable
commodity.

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inmyhead
Unfortunately, yes. I'm not sure if it's directly related to the fact that HR
is a high volume function and there aren't any objective metrics that track
how gracefully non-selected candidates are degraded or if legally, it's better
to say nothing at all. I also have some suspicions that many posted jobs are
posted on spec, which is to say that they are 'in the pipeline', but not
authorized to actually hire.

In the current job market, it's easy to get sloppy with practices like these.
It is rude, but such is life.

Personally, I've had endless reschedules, interviewer no shows, long dark
periods (even when the outcome has been positive) and no response (after being
flown for on-site interviews). It's not specific to company size, stage,
industry, location, etc. As I mentioned above, it probably has to do with a
lack of managing the feedback loop of non-selected candidate satisfaction.

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sdfadfs
Interesting. I'm curious what types of technology the jobs you are applying
for are using. Being a ruby developer in London is much the opposite
experience. People bending over backwards to contact you and more job offers
than candidates. I've never had anything other than very quick feedback, and
feedback 100% of the time. The worst was around a 1 month delay.

It seems as though people's courtesy levels are proportional to the demand for
skills. I guess more people want to work in the Valley than in London. You
also hear horror stories about the video games industry.

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steve8918
One time this girl I was dating interviewed at the company I worked for. Even
though I kept asking the hiring manager to let us know how she did, he would
always say "oh yeah, let me get the feedback" and he never did. After a couple
of weeks I gave up, because either he was too lazy to bother responding, or he
was too afraid to break bad news, both which aren't admirable qualities.

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AngeloAnolin
Lots of companies think that a human/humane reply to the outcome of the hiring
process is another additional cost which simply needs to be automated as much
as possible. The thinking borders on "if this person is not going to be hired
anyway, why spend time and cost informing him/her. Probably best to just let
him/her take the cue that no reply means rejection."

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brudgers
The other piece of the puzzle is that companies often interview based on
projected or possible needs, e.g. next quarter's potential staff increase or
in preparation for the acceptance of a proposal. Therefore, an actual decision
about "the position" may be months off when the project is a go or may never
occur should the project be cancelled.

I will add that companies also will interview people simply out of a general
interest in the candidate, a relationship with the recruiter, or because they
are someone's girlfriend even when there is no intent of hiring the person
anytime soon.

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latch
Interviewing is a skill. Like any other skill, it takes time to develop and
practice. You can just look at some of the ridiculous job postings on HN to
realize that a lot of companies, in particular startups, are letting anyone
participate in the interview process.

What you are experiencing is a mix of amateur hour and hubris.

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henry501
Honestly, it's just another symptom of the depersonalization in the employment
market. As long as there is a surplus of qualified* workers, then there is
little reason to treat people humanely.

*for values of qualified from "keyword-rich resume" and up.

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the_cat_kittles
wait... you mean they aren't actually going to get back to me?

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d3fun
Yes! the last interview I had with a very well known company lasted 3 months
from the first mail from recruiter to his last email. It went weeks in between
phone interviews to schedule the next one and often involving me to send few
mails to ask for feedback. And for onsite he forgot about sending a
confirmation mail and it took several mails to arrange a onsite interview
which took 3-4 weeks of delay . And its not that I did poorly in interviews
and they have to think twice for next interview and often my interviewers gave
me their email to contact incase of any delay. And this is not one off
experience there are few more companies and recruiters who doesn't respond for
days until I send a mail. I do interview candidates for my team we often try
to get feedback on the same day or next day so we can decide upon to hire or
at least update candidate on the status.

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stray
Same as it ever was.

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shoham
This is true with Rite Aids in Pittsburgh as well!

