
How to reject a job candidate without being an asshole - nathanmarz
http://nathanmarz.com/blog/how-to-reject-a-job-candidate-without-being-an-asshole.html
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ams6110
The reason many places don't do this is not so much to avoid feeling like an
a-hole but to avoid accidental liability.

There are so many things you can't say or ask in an interview, that a lot of
companies that are big enough to have an HR person or department will require
a very generic rejection letter just to be sure they don't provide grounds for
a lawsuit.

~~~
mcritz
Avoiding a lawsuit is as easy as not citing illegal reasons for not hiring
someone. E.g. “You’re a woman,” “you’re Indian,” “we’re uncertain how your
disability will effect our workplace,” or “you’re too old.” (Or their codeword
equivalents.) I think the author is just being civil and I commend him for it.

~~~
tptacek
No. All you have to do is interview someone in a protected hiring class, and
then say something in the rejection that contradicts or is in any way
inconsistent with anything you have said or the candidate can claim you have
said. Litigious candidates don't have to play to win the lawsuit, either; they
can play to settle.

~~~
ahi
Litigious candidates can sue regardless of what you do. I refuse to let
shysters, either opposing or my own counsel, determine how I interact with
people.

~~~
tptacek
You're a braver man than I!

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tjr
One time I got a rejection letter from a company that included a list of
reasons that people are usually rejected. One of the reasons was spelling or
grammar errors in their cover letter or resume.

As it happened, this letter that they sent out contained both a spelling error
and a grammatical error. In retrospect, this was perhaps a little too snarky,
but I wrote back to them and pointed this out. They contacted me again, asking
if I would be interested in another position they had available.

~~~
shasta
Did they happen to mention that the position had become available as a result
of your email?

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oiuytgyuio
You don't have any company lawyers do you?

Most companies in the land of the lawyer don't even send rejection letters,
just in case the candidate decides that it contains some grounds to sue you
over.

It doesn't even have to be good grounds - they just need a sleazy enough
lawyer. The more info you give them the more ammo they have.

Yes it sucks to simply not hear from a company, and it leads to negative
recomendations about them to friends /colleagues /potential other recruits.
You can still be friendly in the letter but I would be careful about telling
someone why they aren't hired.

~~~
crocowhile
>Most companies in the land of the lawyer don't even send rejection letters,
just in case the candidate decides that it contains some grounds to sue you
over.

There are so many reasons I am glad I don't live in the usa anymore.

~~~
hga
Still, our labor market is fantastically liquid compared to a whole bunch of
other nations.

It's easy to not get hired, it's easy to get fired ... which also means it's
easy to get hired.

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alexgartrell
I interviewed at a bunch of places and only got two offers. One of the places
I interviewed and failed was Microsoft. They had the interviews throughout the
day (about 4 of them), and then after that they had an HR person give you the
good or bad news.

(It's worth saying that the developers I interviewed with were really
outstanding. They were in the Dev Tools group (CLR, Visual Studio, etc.) and
were really sharp).

Anyway, I got pulled out, and the woman gave me "the bad news," and the
typical HR lines about "not a good fit at this time," and, "we encourage you
to apply again later." And then, out of nowhere, she throws out "And you
should definitely take a close look at yourself to figure out how you could be
better."

The reason I tell this story is to point out that "helpful feedback" is
absolutely useless when not actually helpful. Having an HR person (who had, up
to that point, been totally disconnected from the whole process), come and
give me some "helpful tips" wasted her time and mine.

I also interviewed with Meebo (which was actually a pretty interesting
interview, and the people there were pretty cool). I met with the HR guy at
the end of the day, and he tried to talk me into doing an internship instead,
because I'd be competing with people with "years of experience." I told him I
already had some offers and I wasn't interested in an internship. Later, when
he emailed to "give me the bad news," he said "we're going with another
candidate, but enjoy your summer at Company X!" I'd say this loosely qualifies
as rejecting me like an asshole.

I ended up with offers from Facebook and Google though, so life goes on :)

~~~
follower
> he emailed to "give me the bad news," he said "we're going with another
> candidate, but enjoy your summer at Company X!" I'd say this loosely
> qualifies as rejecting me like an asshole.

Really? Wow. I'd have interpreted that as an attempt at being "friendly",
showing at least some personal interest and wishing you well.

I guess that goes to show it's difficult to predict how other people will
interpret things. :)

~~~
barrkel
The implication is either that the candidate is actually going to end up as an
intern (rather than full-time position) at Company X, or is only going to last
a few months at Company X, or possibly that only Company X would accept such a
candidate (depending on whether or not the candidate told him which companies
had offered).

All the implications seem insulting to me, based on the story as told (that
the guy wasn't interested in an internship).

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v21
I've got rejected a couple of times with good, useful feedback, and a couple
of times with "We can't afford to hire anyone else for a while". In both
cases, I end up happy for the feedback, not pissed I didn't get the position.
I want to work for the company more than I did before. I follow the companies
with interest, and feel a vague sense of attachment to them. If I saw the
people who rejected me at some kind of conference, I would go up and say hi. I
would recommend them to my friends.

So - please do this. Unless you don't care about my opinion of you. You may
not.

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desigooner
I think the most frequent complaint of mine is unprofessionalism on the end of
the company in getting back to the candidates. It's pretty much being an
asshole to not get back to the candidate who takes the time to come and
interview with them. I understand that they may have many a people applying
for positions and this and that but there are some common courtesies. And I'm
not even talking about a hyper competitive job where hundreds apply for a few
positions. This has happened when I was one of the 2 people considered for the
position and what not. This one time I got an email from HR after a couple of
months of interviewing asking me if I was still interested in the position
etc.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Completely agree - take the time, even if it's a standard no thank you email,
to get back to the candidate. There are plenty of companies that do this, and
while I can take the rejection without any hard feelings if that is the
outcome, I will lose respect for the company when no response is given.

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samd
For all the people claiming that this is likely to end in a lawsuit where is
your evidence? Do you have any actual cases where a company was sued because
they gave legitimate feedback? How much money did the company lose because of
this suit? How many lawsuits are there per rejected candidate? Do you know the
text of the laws that specifically address this?

~~~
aplusbi
I get the feeling that the "avoiding a lawsuit" justification for not
supplying feedback is a result of cargo cult thinking, not actual evidence.

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fizx
If 1 in 1000 candidates would sue you, causing $100k in costs for a drawn-out
legal battle, then your practice has a very expensive expected value, but in a
way you won't notice until shit hits the proverbial fan.

~~~
oiuytgyuio
Of course there is a flip side, if you interview 100 programmers in a small
high tech town and piss off 99 of them by not even sending a 'no thanks'
letter.

And each of them tell all their friends that you are an a-hole, then when
every potential hire in Cambridge/ NYC/ Stanford etc has heard that XYZ
software are a-holes you are going to have one hell of a job hiring.

~~~
catshirt
fwiw, and this is certainly not my forte, i'd rather be an asshole than a
defendant in a lawsuit like that

~~~
oiuytgyuio
Depends who you are. If you're MSFT, IBM, etc then you don't even send a no
thanks letter, you have nobody who isn't a certified HR person talk to a
candidate and you don't allow any off the cuff remarks. The lawyer target
cross section is too high.

If you are a small startup in a high tech hub trying to attract people, and
especially if you are in a market where the programers you reject might be
future customers then you're risk is different.

Companies often forget that the people they reject don't disappear. It used to
be a big thing in merchant banks in the last boom to really grind and
humiliate candidates - you aren't smart enough to work here etc. What they
forgot is that those people went to work for companies that might need a
merchant bank and that the victim is suddenly the customer.

~~~
philwelch
MSFT will actually send a rejection letter. It's predictably dull.

------
JimboOmega
Legal problems aside, I love this philosophy.

One of the things I hate most about the current interview process is that I
take time off from work to do phone screens, maybe a whole day to do an
onsite, and in the end I get these empty letters.

I'm always trying to improve myself, so having no feedback leaves me feeling
bewildered. To be honest I don't know if I bombed the coding question. I came
to an answer, maybe I had a couple hints - but was that it?

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ctkrohn
Many of the comments below talk about potential legal liability from rejecting
a candidate in an inappropriate way. Would someone care to clarify the sort of
problems that can arise?

~~~
btilly
There are a lot of problems that can happen.

For instance if you complain about hygiene and the person has a medical
condition that causes them to stink (don't laugh, this happens), you can be
sued for discrimination. If the person had a thick accent and you didn't want
to hire because of the communication issue (I've seen candidates rejected for
this reason), they could decide that you're racist and sue you. If the
candidate is older and you say a wide variety of things (that they are over-
qualified, their skillset is dated, poor cultural fit, etc), you can be sued
for ageism.

The upshot is that it is virtually impossible to figure out what comment will
hit a hot button. And there are a lot of legitimate reasons to reject someone,
which aren't illegal, that they can take as evidence of discrimination.

Even if it is an open and shut case that you're going to win, they can still
make it cost a substantial amount of lawyer's fees. And you, personally, don't
benefit from telling them this, so there is no percentage in going there.

Or so every HR department in the USA will tell you. And every lawyer they get
advice from.

~~~
patio11
The other problem is that, if you tell Candidate X that you are not hiring her
because of e.g. insufficiently experience with SQL, and it develops that you
have previously hired a non-Q developer who didn't do SQL either, you now get
to answer a lawsuit alleging discrimination against Q candidates. (We all know
people are package deals, but if you put in writing that you hung your hat on
a particular detail, then you're going to look like you're lying to cover your
antiQist biases.)

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candre717
I like this philosophy. In general, people should learn how to give and take
feedback. I've been in the position where I wish I had known why I didn't get
a certain job or opportunity. Knowing the reason not only softens the
disappointment but lets one learn and improve for next time.

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FiddlerClamp
On the flip side, is it considered okay to simply stop contacting a candidate
after three or four interviews, never send a rejection notice, and refuse to
answer an email or phone call about the situation?

I've had this happen to me three times in the last five years -- mostly for
positions within a marketing department, where you would think communication
would matter.

Unfortunately, fear of retaliation or blacklisting keeps applicants like
myself from disclosing specific company or hiring manager names...I feel it's
disrespectful to not at least send an FOD note of 10 words or less if you've
spent hours with them.

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thingie
The only time when I had a bad feeling about such an email was when I felt
that I got positive feedback during the interview, got no "warning" signs
during it and so on, yet on the other day, I was told almost exactly this.

Otherwise, it's quite ok. Make it short, who wants to read ton of shit just to
hear no? If you can list one (or more) serious reason (lack of experience,
education, whatever, once, I was told that I was simply too pesimistic, but
that was on phone), fine, but still, keep it short. And well, don't expect
much feedback.

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kgo
For an all day interview, sure some feedback would be nice.

For a phone interview, I'd probably think you're a bigger asshole if you went
into details about how I failed the interview, what's wrong with me, why I'm
unqualified, and how I can go about improving myself. Imagine someone going
into the details about why we won't be going out on a second date.

~~~
iron_ball
In my less socially adept days, I would have _loved_ that. A sort of dating
exit interview? Yes please.

~~~
cousin_it
You'd have heard a lot of incorrect information. People have no idea what
attracts them.

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Stop_Lurker
At the end of interviews when they ask "Do you have any questions for me" I
make a point of asking what they felt was good about my interview and how they
think I could have improved it. Most of the time, they refuse to answer that
question. I think it's probably a bad idea for me to do this.

~~~
crocowhile
Yes that is a bad idea because you are moving the focus from the job to the
interview

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ig1
A lot of big companies do give feedback on request though especially for
developer roles where you can give specific factual feedback (candidate was
weak in multi-threading, etc.)

It's one of the big advantages of technical interviews. You don't have to rely
purely on subjective human judgement.

~~~
variety
_You don't have to rely purely on subjective human judgement._

And yet (aside from mega deal-breakers, like clearly overstating competence in
some category) that's pretty much what hiring decisions come down to: "Are
they for real? Can I rely on them? Will I get along with them?" -- the battery
of contrived, essentially "objective" assessment that get thrown at candidates
notwithstanding.

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bgruber
Frankly, just doing the actual rejection makes you less of an asshole than
pretty much everyone else. I've applied for a handful of positions over the
last few years, and the fraction of people who actually bothered to tell me I
was rejected is 0. The only exception was the supreme asshole who hired me one
day, then called me the next day to tell me that I wasn't hired after all. He
didn't really have a choice.

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jerdfelt
How about the opposite?

A company I turned down a job offer for has been contacting me every about
every three months asking if I had changed my mind.

I just recently told them to please stop contacting me and I'll contact them
if I change my mind in the future.

It felt a bit assholish asking them to stop contacting me like that, but I
can't decide if that's just my personality having difficulty with it or if
there was a better of way of telling them "No".

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andrewljohnson
This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen to me.

~~~
rhizome
Only in the United States.

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mattchew
I'd love to get rejected by somebody in this way. :)

Really, you're above average if you bother to contact the person at all once
you've decided not to hire.

A lot of people are pointing out liability issues with this approach, and
sadly, they're probably right. But I bet there are constructive things you
could tell rejected applicants that would be still be safe from lawsuit.

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merubin75
Reality check -- sometimes you reject a candidate for less than scientific
reasons. Either you didn't "click" with them, or there was something that you
just didn't like. Shallow? Maybe. But when I've hired people in the past, I've
made the mistake of overlooking someone's personality in favor of what looked
like a superior skillset. Several magnificent failures later, I won't do that
again.

The reality is that you have to look at someone's personality and whether
they'll mesh with your team as much as their skills. That's a fact, and nobody
-- repeat NOBODY -- wants to hear that they come off arrogant, ageist,
misogynist, etc.

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grails4life
If the reason your not offering someone a job is because they messed up
technical questions, I think its a good idea to give them candid feedback on
the spot. Its objective. If you are having to choose among several qualified
candidates, then I think this is asking for trouble, since there isnt an
objective clear reason for the person not getting the job.

