
Ask HN: Is this normal practice from Facebook? - lemure
I&#x27;ve been contacted from fb for a position in London with the excuse that they&#x27;re hiring 1k+ people [1].<p>Everything seemed legit from internal recruiter contact details and procedure: I&#x27;ve got a lot of reading material from them, set online meetings, etc...<p>I did the first coding interview and the interviewer has been overly positive throughout the 40 minutes we talked. One day later the former recruiter told me I didn&#x27;t pass and now he&#x27;s refusing to give me a more detailed feedback claiming that &quot;due to compliance policy we are not able to provide you with the detailed feedback on your interview&quot;<p>So...it&#x27;s this for real or this is some sort of very refined scam (no idea what may be the end goal tho)?<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-facebook-europe-business-idUSKBN1ZK0G4
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Bucephalus355
The nicer they are in the interview the more that tends to indicate you will
not receive an offer.

I used to wonder why this was, but kept seeing these types of anecdotes pop up
again and again.

The best conclusion I have come to, which makes some sense, is that when you
do well in an interview yet also some factor means you won't be moving
on...the interviewer out of guilt feels compelled to be extra nice to you.

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julius_set
It could be a multitude of reasons. Try not to think of it as a robotic
pipeline even though it appears that way. The interviewer could have been
sincere but there are a lot of hard decisions / politics / etc. behind the
scenes:

• The hiring manager for the team(s) could have been mandated to put in a
hiring freeze

• You may have provided an optimal solution but the interviewer couldn’t see
himself working with you everyday — at the end of the day this is what it’s
all about you want to hire someone you are able to work well with everyday.
Not likely the case here though something to consider

• Budget could have gone down

• Headcount reductions

• They night have found a better fit candidate

• Things might be chaotic as even if you do hired your can’t come into HQ
until the virus passes

• [Insert any other reason here]

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lonbigtech
Yes, it’s normal to interview people and it’s normal for some subset of those
people to fail. It’s standard practice not to provide specific feedback.

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lemure
(I'm not being sarcastic, just want to understand) what's the point in saying
"OK perfect interview" and then discarding without giving feedback? why would
I risk applying again if I do not know where I failed?

~~~
dchyrdvh
To avoid an emotional confrontation with the candidate. 95% don't meet the
bar, but they would be offended if they were told how they really perform.
Some may even sue back if they happen to be in some minority group. Companies
like FB don't have a shortage of very qualified candidates, so you not
applying again is just irrelevant to them. The sign of a perfect interview is
when the interviewer realizes that you know more than him.

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n_t
"overly positive throughout" means thats how you felt but not necessarily how
interviewer felt. Usually, FB's phone screen expectation is to do 2 coding
questions (yes in 35-40 mins!), written as close to compiler ready as
possible.

~~~
lemure
by "positive" I meant that the interviewer was actually saying "good job",
"optimal solution", "you're doing great", "the recruitment team will get in
touch with you about next steps"

indeed there were two questions that they asked me to code, even though they
didn't want to actually compile/run the code

~~~
heavenlyblue
“The recruitment team will get in touch..”

Everybody says that all the time.

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bor100003
I'm guessing here but it many cases the interviewers(not only recruiters) are
taught to act positively. Also if they are choosing between you and someone
else they don't what to discourage you from applying.

Someone said that the company doesn't care about you in particular, but they
do care about more people applying. It's just larger pool to choose from.

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Orlean
Legal concerns and limited time are among the top reasons you might not get
feedback if rejected for a job. They are concerned it can be used or
misconstrued by the applicant to demonstrate discrimination in the hiring
process. Many employers follow this advice and consider it safest to avoid
providing any feedback

~~~
lemure
I see, that would make sense, thanks for replying

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gonchalibro
What was the coding question?

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adchari
This might be due to a potential looming recession from the pandemic.

~~~
tmpz22
Ugh I hate to agree but it does seem like they're stuffing their pipeline just
to have extra cattle at the gate in case the gates open up...

