

Ask HN: Why isn't there any feedback for job finders? - newgrad

I have been interviewing with some software companies including startups and they do not wish to give any feedback to me about what I can improve after they rejected me.<p>Why are companies reluctant to give feedbacks for interviewees?<p>It is so important for us.<p>[ EDIT ] Second question: Does location of the interviewee really matters when you are hiring?
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mgkimsal
I've considered this an issue for a long time. What's even more annoying is
when you apply and don't even get the courtesy of an acknowledgement. I've
thought for a while that some enterprising job application software startup
could add a 'be polite' function which would automatically reply back to
someone after X days if the employer decided not to follow up.

But as someone else mentioned, we're (in the US) such a 'lawsuit happy' place
that many companies are likely fearful of committing anything in writing which
would come back to haunt them. Even truthful, as in "based on your
application, you're not qualified to work here", might offend someone.

Personally, I think that excuse is a bit overblown, and I suspect it's more a
factor of people being lazy or overworked when they don't reply.

What does a company get out of spending time replying to applicants they've
turned down? A reputation of being professional, perhaps even 'outstanding'.
When getting totally ignored becomes the norm, even getting a polite 'no
thanks' acknowledgement might be something to make you think twice about that
company and how you refer to them in the future.

Also, many companies could do well to post on a blog the types of candidates
they're looking for, explain the process, and perhaps even give genericized
examples of things to avoid in an application, based on the previous
applicants. This would help get them a better prepared applicant, making the
process a bit easier for them.

~~~
slantyyz
If I reject someone who has made the interview stage, I always make sure to
contact those candidates by phone/mail (for people who made it to the in-
person interview) and e-mail (for those who made it to a phone interview).

For simple applicants, however, I always make sure the ad says ' _only those
qualified for interviews will be contacted_ '. Applicants should know from
that sentence that "no news is bad news", shouldn't they?

When you're hiring these days, you get a gigantic stack of resumes for each
posting. The bigger the pile, the more arbitrary the reason a resume or
application is trashed.

Not to sound cold, but people who are hiring try to spend the most time on
finding and interviewing the best candidates instead of appeasing the ones
that didn't meet their requirements.

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slantyyz
In the end, you're most likely going to get rejected for a bunch of common
reasons:

1 - Someone else appeared to be clearly better than you (see 2,3,4,5)

2 - You didn't have good enough communications skills

3 - You didn't have enough 'perceived experience' or the right set of skills

4 - You don't appear to be a good fit, personality-wise

5 - You priced yourself over what they thought you were worth

#2 and #3 are what most candidates need to work on. Communicating that
whatever skills they have are more than satisfactory, preventing #1. On the
other hand, if your personality rubs the interviewer the wrong way (#4),
there's usually possibility to recover.

In the end, most people don't need explicit feedback. They just need to pay
attention to the verbal and non-verbal cues given off by the interviewer.
Unless the interviewer is negotiating compensation, there's usually no need
for him/her to have a poker face. 9 times out of 10, you'll get clues as to
what the interviewer isn't liking about you.

~~~
realitygrill
What do you mean by 'recover' here?

~~~
slantyyz
Oops, I meant "no possibility to recover" by adjusting your interview
technique.

------
photon_off
From HR's perspective, why spend time writing about why you didn't hire
somebody? There is nothing positive that can come out of it, it takes time and
effort, and it's possible that it will create a whole prolonged dialogue about
something that is done and done.

However, there's no downside for you politely asking for a reason why. On one
occasion when I thought the interview went great but wasn't hired, I sent a
polite and well-phrased e-mail to the HR department. It stated that I
understand they didn't feel I was suited for the job, and that I was perfectly
OK with that, but if they could provide me with a reason why it would aide me
a lot in my job search. I got an excellent response back citing reasons why
they didn't think I was a good fit, and it was actually quite helpful.

So, try asking in a respectful manner that shows you are not resentful and are
truly seeking to better your future prospects, and see what happens.

------
maxdemarzi
"Why are companies reluctant to give feedbacks for interviewees?"

What's in it for the company other than a potential lawsuit if they say
something inappropriate?

~~~
luu
_What's in it for the company other than a potential lawsuit if they say
something inappropriate?_

Isn’t having a reputation of providing good feedback useful? I interviewed for
Intel’s rotation program and got rejected. When I asked why, they told me that
my circuit knowledge was weak. This was back before logical effort was
standard material in VLSI classes; I hadn’t seen it before, and ended up
deriving an overly complicated and slightly wrong version to solve the
question I got asked in the interview. After getting the feedback, I opened up
the VLSI text the interviewer suggested and worked through the problems. From
that point on, I aced all my circuit design interviews and even got circuit
design job offers, even though my specialization was in a different area. Had
I not gotten that feedback, I would have had no idea that the reason I was
failing my VLSI interviews was because my course didn’t cover logical effort,
and I wouldn’t have been able to find out by asking my classmates, because
they were all in the same boat as I was.

Why was that useful for Intel? I told my friends about it; some of them, who
were on the fence about interviewing at Intel, took an interview they might
have otherwise turned down because they knew that, if nothing else, they would
get useful feedback from the interview.

~~~
newgrad
I agree with your opinion. I would say if the company can make an effective
way to give feedbacks and to filter candidates, they would bring a good thing
somewhere in life. After all, we are all connected.

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newgrad
If you guys can give a general advice to start for a fresh bachelor graduate
who doesn't have enough experiences but really want to join a startup in as an
entry-level position or as an intern, what would it be?

I need to get a job in a period at most two months :(.

~~~
slantyyz
If you're a coder, get as much of your code out there. Contribute to open
source projects. Put stuff in Github, Bitbucket or whatever. Put links to your
code in your resume.

The good recruiters will look at the quality of your code (and the complexity
of the problem you're trying to solve) if you give them the chance.

You basically want to show that you have good coding technique, habits, etc.
The smarter recruiters out there may use this info to balance out any
deficiencies in your work experience.

Keep in mind that this advice is probably useless if you're applying to a
larger company that uses HRBots and/or pure checklists as hiring criteria. For
those companies you should read some of those self-help "ace the (technical)
interview" types of books to help you out. HRBots tend to ask textbook
questions looking for textbook answers. On a side note, you'd be surprised how
many people out there don't know how to answer even the simplest textbook
interview questions.

~~~
TheSmoke
I hope this works for other countries as putting my code out there didn't help
me, in Turkey, for over 10 companies I have applied but I should note that
this is the reason why I have a job now.

If you are interviewing with the start-up founders, the #1 reason you are not
hired is the salary you request. If you are interviewing with the lead
developers, #1 reason you are not hired is that they felt you are better than
themselves and you could replace them so don't make them feel that any way.

Do not put hope in any of the interviews. If you are told that they will get
back to you, expect nothing and if you are told that they will get back to
you, for say, in 2 weeks, either negative or positive, again, expect nothing.
Just apply as many jobs you can and go to interviews if you are called and
then wait. Eventually, if you are a good developer, you will get a job.

Another thing is experience. If you don't have any working experience, be
patient for a little while and work less than a salary you'd request normally
and after a long time such as a year passes, start looking for a new job when
you are still working. Then you'll get a better job.

~~~
Avenger42
"If you are interviewing with the lead developers, #1 reason you are not hired
is that they felt you are better than themselves and you could replace them so
don't make them feel that any way."

I can't imagine that this would be true. If I were the lead developer at a
startup (disclaimer: a position I've never been in), then I'd be looking for
the absolute best developers the company could afford. The goal is to reach
the exit, and hiring average or mediocre developers doesn't get the company
there as quickly as hiring superstars does. In fact, I think that hiring the
wrong people could potentially prevent you from making it to the exit at all.

A startup, to me, doesn't seem like the place to be building an empire. By
definition, you're working with fewer resources and you're likely answerable
to too many masters.

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amk
There is no harm in asking. I have been conducting interviews for developers
in the past couple of days, and I have given honest feedback to everyone who
came by. Although HR is not my full time job or specialization..

