
Why Do Employers Rarely Offer Explanations to Rejected Candidates? - kelukelugames
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do-employers-rarely-offer-explanations-rejected-ambra-benjamin?trk=hp-feed-article-title-comment
======
jzwinck
Not only does fear of lawsuits prevent companies from disclosing no-hire
reasons, it prevents them from even recording those reasons internally.

If you get rejected and don't know why, take heart: a year from now the
company also won't know why. You can apply again as if it were Groundhog Day.

~~~
wheaties
We keep a record of all coding exercises performed by people who want to come
in for an interview. We reference it for those who reapply to see if there has
been improvement. All of our interview questions are in a github repo and peer
reviewd so you don't get those brain teaser useless questions.

I wish we took notes during interviews. On well. We still remember candidates
who apply multiple times.

~~~
actsasbuffoon
If people are graded based on improvement, does that mean you could play the
long game and intentionally fail the first time, then win the award for "most
improved" next year?

To get this out of the way, here's my implementation for this year:

    
    
      int main() {
          return 1;
      }
    

Let me know when you're ready for next year's submission.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
If you know what you're doing, it's difficult to look like you're trying to
figure out what you're doing.

If you had the acting skills to convincingly give off the impression that
you're a novice programmer, you've also got the skills to convincingly give
off a more directly useful impression.

------
vonnik
Former technical recruiter, current CEO here.

The recruiting and hiring process as presently practiced by most firms is an
enormous waste of everyone's time. We are inefficient in how we gather
information from applicants and how we communicate it to them.

This is partially because it's hard to standardize the information needed for
each job and available from each candidate. By the time you meet the minimum
requirements of gathering information about an applicant, sharing it with your
team and getting them to make a decision, much time has passed. Time when you
should have been doing other things.

Then you face the question: How much more time can I spare sharing with the
candidate the reasons why they were rejected? A recruiter may get the decision
from the VP Engineering, but not know the reasons. If you do know the reasons,
some of them will make the candidate upset, and they aren't always fixable.
(What if all you can say is: The hiring manager didn't like you. Wasn't
impressed. You don't seem smart enough for this role...?) That is: sharing all
the reasons for rejection will lead to a huge waste of time and emotional
energy with someone who you may never speak with again. Except in the rare
cases where you see potential, there's almost no incentive to go into detail.

I've written more here, for those who are interested:

[https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/13992315?trk=prof-
sm](https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/13992315?trk=prof-sm)

~~~
xivzgrev
To your point of huge emotional drain, I was surprised at the behavior that
the article mentioned about rejected candidates reacting to feedback. It's
like they never felt failure before...

I like her saying - chew the meat, spit out the bones and thank them for the
feedback.

------
ry_ry
I always make a point of trying to give unsuccessful candidates feedback -
especially when it's "we love your enthusiasm, get some experience under your
belt and let's talk again".

A candidate who didn't get hired and came back stronger is EXACTLY who I want
working with me, and its shortsighted of companies to burn off a candidate as
soon as they stumble on fizzbuzz or something equally bullshitty.

------
doktrin
I once received feedback after being rejected for a position. In this
particular case I knew full well why I hadn't been given me the job, but
nonetheless their willingness to open up about their decision making process
made a big and lasting impression on me.

Of course, it was a startup. No company with more than 20 employees would
probably even consider doing something like this, and unfortunately I doubt
that will change anytime soon. However - if you're ever in a position to
safely communicate with a rejected candidate, I would suggest you at least
consider it. They may not be suitable now, but things do change.

At the other end of the spectrum are companies or teams that don't even bother
notifying candidates they've been rejected. I'm sure they have good reasons,
but to me that sends a negative signal.

~~~
Swizec
> At the other end of the spectrum are companies or teams that don't even
> bother notifying candidates they've been rejected. I'm sure they have good
> reasons, but to me that sends a negative signal.

As someone who's done that before, it's because my plate is too full (my own
fault), which is why I'm looking for candidates, and I'm busy dealing with
everybody who is still in the pipeline or getting used to working with the
person who got through the pipeline.

Then I tell myself "Fuck, I really should send those people an email
explaining my decision. But I don't know what to say or how to not sound like
a dick. Fuck it, I'll do it tomorrow".

Then this repeats for a week. Then two weeks. Then three weeks.

Then I tell myself "Fuck, if I do it now, I'm just going to look like an even
bigger dick for not having done it yet. Best never contact this person ever
again and if they happen to bump into me in real life, pretend I didn't see
them and hope they don't recognise me."

That said, big companies have professionals whose job it is to make sure this
doesn't happen.

~~~
kafkaesq
_I don 't know what to say or how to not sound like a dick._

I'm sure you know the stock phrases. If you don't, "Thanks for taking the time
to speak with us, but we've decided to move on with another candidate. Good
luck with your job search" is perfectly adequate. If it's been a few weeks,
and you feel you need to apologize for the delay -- then of course do so.
Really, it does help.

About the only "dick move" is sending no response at all. People don't need
lengthy explanations and reinforcement of their positive traits. They just
need an _answer_ (yes or no) and, perchance, _some_ acknowledgement of the
fact that they're human beings, and have made a significant investment of
their time and energy in talking with you.

It still amazes me how many companies don't get this.

 _That said, big companies have professionals whose job it is to make sure
this doesn 't happen._

I think what happens in big companies is that everyone _assumes_ someone has
the responsibility to do this, but no one ever does.

~~~
Swizec
> I'm sure you know the stock phrases.

I think it has more to do with _feeling_ like a dick and not wanting to say No
explicitly because it causes emotional discomfort. So you procrastinate to
avoid that discomfort.

I'm sure you've heard of the concept of "fade out" in dating. Same thing.

I know on a logical level that this makes me a dick and that I shouldn't do
it. But on an emotional level, it's _so much easier_ to avoid making an
implicit decision explicit.

That said, I hold everyone who's ever followed up of their own accord in very
high regard. If I don't say anything for two weeks _send me an email_.

~~~
kafkaesq
Hmm -- sounds like you've fallen into a role (communicating yes/no status to
candidates) that you basically aren't comfortable with. Right?

------
res0nat0r
Quick answer from the article:

>In a litigious society, and particularly in the aftermath of many of the
class action and civil lawsuits of the late 90s and early 00s, companies
became hypersensitive in order to protect their interests. As such, many
companies adopted a blanket approach to dealing with things like interview
feedback for candidates by simply declining to give any details.

~~~
gozur88
Which makes perfect sense. The company doesn't derive any benefit from telling
you why they didn't hire you. There's no reason to do it if it involves risk.

------
nsedlet
At HireArt (W12) we've been working on a feedback feature for awhile and are
close to finally releasing it. We have a fairly rigorous screening process,
and every candidate is assessed by a grader according to a rubric. Our
thinking was that if we provide this assessment to employers, surely we could
provide it to candidates, too.

When we spoke to a labor attorney about this awhile back, their first reaction
was basically that we would be insane to do it, because of the legal
liability.

We got comfortable with the idea of feedback because we think that we have a
clear, documented process that stands up to scrutiny. However, I think for
many employers, recruiting decisions ARE arbitrary and unfair. Honest feedback
would merely expose the decisions for what they are - reliant on personal
affinity with candidates, vague notions of "culture fit", and gut decisions.
There's very little quality training for how to ask good questions, evaluate
those responses, and render a hiring decision. If candidates could actually
hear the hiring manager and recruiter's thoughts, they'd rightfully be pretty
angry.

~~~
basseq
You're dead right: hiring is hard. Hiring with quality training, repeatable
processes, feedback loops, etc. is _incredibly hard_. For most companies,
whether they like to admit it or not, a B-grade process is "good enough". And
the ROI to take it to A+ is either non-existent or hard to prove.

Here's the thing, though: that doesn't mean your labor attorney is wrong. One
employee says something to a rejected candidate _that could be interpreted as
labor discrimination_ , and it doesn't matter how rigorous your process is,
you're still in for the cost and time of a lawsuit to prove it.

How do you build the 0.1% risk of a company-ending lawsuit into your business
case?

~~~
dclowd9901
It is hard. The problem is that it's also hard to back out of a bad hire, so
the cost of making a mistake is tremendously high.

I'm a very "right to work" (bullshit term I know) oriented person, in that I
think neither companies nor their employees should be obligated to each other
at all. Firing/quitting should be frictionless and easy. Instead, firing is
wraught with legal problems such that you can't even fire an employee unless
you can monetarily justify the cost of a lawsuit against their impact of being
a negative influence, or they're part of some indiscriminate layoff procedure.

If I'm quitting or changing jobs, I'm harangued about it left and right by
managers as to why or how this could happen.

Let's not pretend we owe each other anything and just move on like any other
business transaction.

------
jstelly
I try to do this whenever I am the one talking through the results of the
interview with a candidate but only if the candidate seems open to it. It
seems like a valuable thing to do even from the company's perspective. If you
are considering doing this: It isn't always received positively so you have to
be prepared for that. You and your company will be judged in this conversation
and it's likely that the candidate will not agree with you. Also, if the
decision is final (for now or forever) make that very clear right away so no
one wastes their time arguing their case. It seems best to approach it with
the mindset that no interview process is perfect and your conclusion is based
on your side of the exchange you had (which may just be a few hours with the
person); it's possible your company's assessment is wrong for some reason but
you've made your best effort to make the correct decision. It's easy to come
off as arrogant when you're the side doing the rejecting. I have successfully
offered feedback and later hired a candidate (more than once!) when they
returned after taking on a new project that helped them grow in a way that
addressed the feedback. Our company has also changed its collective mind about
some people when we have had success with another candidate or found a
particular project or situation that minimizes the risk of whatever we were
concerned about (for near-hires). An interview that results in a rejection
isn't necessarily a permanent dead end.

------
blubb-fish
I am currently in the situation of playing the HR role for hiring a developer
in our start-up - for which I am actually working as a Data Scientist.

I not just almost always give a reason for why we decided against a candidate
- I even often give advice which might be relevant for future applications.

Why am I not afraid of a law suit? B/c the hiring process I designed is based
on a couple of quick tests directly relevant to the position - so it's pretty
clear and objective why we decide how we decide.

Most companies though actually base those decision on unsound and subjective
information ... of course, those are worried about being blamed for that.

~~~
sreenadh
You are a rare breed. I wish it was standard practices everywhere. People
really need feedback to correct something they are doing wrong. I would love
to be interviewed by you just for the feedback.

~~~
jrochkind1
The internal recruiter at GitHub gave me a couple sentences of feedback passed
on from the interviewers when I was turned down after the final interview
round. I appreciated it, it was helpful, and I saw how I could have done
better at the interview, although I still thought they were making a mistake.
:)

------
praneshp
Oddly, Facebook(where the author works) is the _only_ tech company that has
given me actionable feedback.

~~~
kldavenport
This was my experience as well. It was refreshing.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
So, does that mean they're not afraid of lawsuits because they are the 800lb
gorilla with a huge war chest?

~~~
praneshp
Or it could mean they are determined to change status quo. Take your pick

------
tristor
My experience has been the reason that I (and my peers) say nothing is because
of a disconnect between knowledge and authority. I've interviewed thousands of
candidates in my career and I almost always know before I finish up the
interview whether or not we are going to bring that person in for another
interview (at which point the team votes if we offer).

More than anything else, the number one reason that an otherwise good
candidate doesn't get to continue is because of a disconnect around what the
word "Senior" means. Every company has a different bar set for what qualifies
as "Senior", but in most places I've been that bar is relatively high, so if
we advertise for that position externally it means we don't have someone
internal who's met the bar for promotion yet. We can't in good conscious hire
someone in as a "Senior" that is not at least as qualified as the people we
already have who didn't make the cut for promotion. Title inflation hurts
because what happens is you might have been "Senior" at your last three
employers but you don't make the bar for "Senior" or sometimes even "Mid"
where you're applying.

As the interviewer there's very little I can actionably provide you that
addresses the above without getting into a conversation about the possibility
of hire at a lower level, which I don't have the authority to offer since I'm
not the hiring manager. Additionally, I try to do everything I can to respect
the candidate and preserve their dignity during the interview process. If
they're bombing it, I don't want them to feel like they're bombing it. It's
not possible to both do that and tell them at the end that they aren't good
enough to cross the threshold for the role. This is especially difficult for
me and many of my peers because we're engineers and not really "people
persons", so we err on the side of saying nothing vs risk saying something
that crushes someone.

~~~
tomp
Wouldn't that suggest that your job specs are rather lacking? I mean, instead
of saying "Senior", you could just describe exactly what you expect and
require in the candidate.

~~~
tristor
The issue there is because of the variability of meaning in the English
language and the way job ads are written in general. Obviously my employer
puts more than just "Senior" in a job ad, but it doesn't change the fact that
companies everywhere put a laundry list of expected skills in their ads, so us
doing the same doesn't provide any real filter mechanism. That's why we do
technical phone screens.

------
beachstartup
because the one doing the rejecting doesn't have to, so they don't. there's
absolutely no upside unless you want to spite someone intentionally.

see also: friendship, dating, sales, party invitations

~~~
mturmon
Your "see-also's" provide good perspective. It's not just legal.

Some of the situations you identify (dating, friendship, sales, as well as
interviews) have the attribute of "found nothing compelling". There was no
single problem, but nothing emerged in the package or the interview that stood
out.

In this case, the lack-of-match is not obviously the candidate's fault, and
trying to provide feedback is forcing a conclusion ("that's your problem right
there") that isn't justified by the information gathered.

And the best thing in such a case may be to say nothing, because you know
nothing. ("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.")

------
dms105
Ive always offered to give detailed feedback to my candidates that didn't pass
a technical screen. I'd say about 80% of them were eager to hear it, and were
grateful to get information that could help them get better at coding, or at
least interviewing. It leaves people with a good impression of the company,
and you get the satisfaction of knowing you helped someone. You aren't going
to get sued for telling someone which type of sorting algorithm is most
efficient for x sized data set.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Wait a minute, 1 candidate out of 5 _wasn 't_ eager to hear about the
technical feedback? Any idea why?

~~~
dms105
Those have usually been ones that did very poorly, so they probably already
have some idea of what they were missing.

Some candidates have other offers to fall back on and just don't care that
much, and some just don't want to discuss technical details with someone in a
non technical role, which is understandable.

------
mapt
Because they can. Because job openings are scarce enough that people are
applying anyway, regardless of being treated like shit. That's why we tolerate
"but we're scared of lawsuits" as a legitimate excuse.

This sort of thing (and hundreds of other similar phenomena) doesn't show up
in unemployment metrics, but in a healthier economy, it doesn't happen as
much, because people dislike working for assholes.

It's a bit like how an Australian 5% unemployment (at $12.30 minimum wage) is
very different from an American 5% unemployment (at $7.25 minimum wage) or a
North Korean 5% unemployment (making $0.40 at Kaesong); The supply demand
curve on employment is real, but it extends beyond tangible quantities like
wages and into ways the employer behaves towards its employees & potential
employees, because for workers, civil treatment is to some extent fungible
with wages. In the US, we have much less labor regulation and more lawsuits,
and this is the equilibrium we have arrived at in the current economic
climate; In a different economic climate, we would arrive at a different
equilibrium.

The official understanding of the problem is plagued by Goodhart's Law - you
can measure wages, but not being an asshole, so we will favor policies which
push on one but ignore the other, and we can expect assinine behavior wherever
there is even a little bit of profit to be gained; We sample and optimize
"Unemployment", "Inflation", and corporate revenue growth as indicators of the
economy's health, and a lot of other things have fallen by the wayside as we
have reassured ourselves or worried ourselves with those numbers.

------
lazyant
I get it that giving feedback can expose a company to lawsuits and takes a lot
of time, now, what's the excuse for not even informing the candidate of the
rejection? many companies simply stop communicating.

~~~
gozur88
I think it's because they don't want to be in the position of making an offer
to someone they explicitly rejected when the preferred candidate didn't work
out.

~~~
lazyant
Hmm, in my case at least with a bunch of companies, they had laid out the
interview process (say, 3 or 4 steps) and they stopped communicating after the
2nd or 3rd step (with more to come) so I don't think they had me as a
secondary alternative, I don't know why they can't just say "Sorry, you are
not the right fit for us" and _then_ stop communicating for the legal / time
waste reasons the article gives.

~~~
gozur88
That does seem a bit rude.

------
Spooky23
The lawsuit explanation is only half the answer.

The reason that companies need to worry about lawsuits is that the hiring
process is usually not very strenuous. When people make arbitrary and
capricious decisions, bias tends to be a thing.

------
SixSigma
Relying on interviews is not a great hiring strategy [1]

Better to use testing, either by psychometrics or assessment days (group
tasks, short notice presentations etc.). [2]

[1] [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140606071003-7589947-no-
cor...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140606071003-7589947-no-correlation-
between-interviewing-and-on-the-job-performance)

[2]
[http://www.inc.com/articles/2002/01/23815.html](http://www.inc.com/articles/2002/01/23815.html)

------
cortesoft
The reason is almost always "There was a better candidate"

~~~
thaumasiotes
This doesn't really describe large companies, which often aren't hiring to
fill specific roles. If that was the only thing stopping them from hiring you,
they'd just hire the both of you.

~~~
cortesoft
We had X number of openings, and there were X people who were better than you.

------
bane
The notion about lawsuits is basically the answer.

I've interviewed and hired hundreds of people and the real reasons are usually
pretty banal, e.g. not a good match between skills and requirements, wants too
much money, etc. so in cases where somebody _does_ hear something and they
hear "not a good fit" that honestly is usually the case. It's hard to provide
more specifics because interviews don't really uncover deep specifics about
candidates.

On occasion I've rejected people for less common reasons also, e.g. behavior
problems during the interview, poor attitude, etc. and we have to keep those
things pretty confidential from the candidate because it _would_ be used in a
lawsuit even if it's not an example of discrimination. All the "culture fit"
notions in startup-land would be other examples of this kind of rejection.

There's of course all kinds of discrimination in hiring and companies hide
behind these practices all too often. I've never been part of this kind of
thing thankfully, but I can imagine.

tptacek's old company has more rigid hiring practices that produce what I
would guess are strong metrics that help them find good candidates but _also_
might protect them in the case of a lawsuit.

I've _also_ been on the receiving end of rejections of course. Before the
second dot-com boom/bust companies used to actually contact you back with a
"not a good fit". After that you usually just don't hear anything unless you
really press the recruiters.

On occasion, when the recruiting department isn't as well put together as
might be expected, real reasons will leak out and those are also surprisingly
interesting:

\- salary demands are too high and exceed even senior execs. I don't make all
that much out of the ordinary for my experience level and position, so that
brought a lot of insight into how they function as a company

\- bad culture fit - depending on the company I actually felt relieved by some
of these rejections and perturbed by others.

\- the weirdest one was where the company's internal hr processes were so
broken, and they had some sort of internal clock on candidates, that they were
not able to process me through the interview rounds in a timely fashion, so
they rejected me because it was taking too long to process me. I can say that
the interview and hiring process was a real shit show so it didn't surprise me
at all, but I found it impressively annoying. I _did_ think about suing them,
but then I thought about what I wanted out of the lawsuit and decided not to
bother.

~~~
foobarqux
What type of "behavior problems" have you seen?

~~~
bane
People showing up to interviews drunk or high, clear untreated mental health
problems, etc.

One guy showed up hung over after walking a few miles to the interview after
he wrecked his car the night before while out binge drinking and drunk
driving.

I had one large guy block the exit from the interview room and demand that we
hire him to do GPU programming, even though he clearly knew nothing about the
subject. We said "sure" and then once he got out of the way had security come
and remove him.

You really never know what you'll encounter when you call people in for a
chat.

~~~
foobarqux
Wow. Can you elaborate on the mental health cases? Are we talking about mood
disorders like depression or detachment from reality like schizophrenia or
something else?

~~~
bane
I probably can't diagnose correctly, but the ones I dealt with personally
reminded me very strongly of some schizophrenic family members I have when
they've stopped taking their medication.

One guy had to ask to leave the interview multiple times to go wash his hands.

That sort of thing.

------
paulsutter
Turn it around. Imagine that you have several offers from different companies.

After you choose one (and you can choose only one), do the other companies
have reason to get all mopey and feel offended to hear no reason for the
rejection?

Of course they don't. Why should candidates feel any differently when a
company chooses someone else?

~~~
ennuihenry
How does a candidate improve on himself/herself if a company gives a stock
phrase? Maybe doing a mock interview, but it's difficult to replicate the
stressors associated with an interview.

------
MillerMichael
I once applied for company X back in 2014. I spend about 2 months on the
application, conducting research, getting advice from friends, and doing my
utter best to come up with a resume/motivation letter that would stand out. I
didn't receive any feedback. What's more... when I called to asked about my
application they pretty much got angry and sad: ''well, we receive a lot of
application and don't have the time to respond to each application''. Till
this day, I still can't get over it!

------
bobinator606
most companies don't even bother calling or writing you to tell you 'no'. or
they string you along endlessly until you get tired of asking, or you feel
like you're becoming a pain.

------
Nursie
Because I don't care.

If you don't think I'm a good fit then it's fine, let's just move on with
life. We in tech are lucky enough that there is always another job around the
corner.

------
petercooper
I've just hired several new employees and at the risk of sounding all
"firstworldproblems" it's a more draining and tricky process than I expected
(not too dissimilar to being the interviewee, to be fair).

This article nails it by saying judgments are often subjective or open to
argument - in my case, it was always either down to experience or personality,
and with the latter one, you're not going anywhere good by telling a candidate
they weren't proactive enough, keen enough, friendly enough, or whatever.

~~~
beachstartup
as the old adage goes, finding a job is a full time job.

and so is finding the right candidate. if you rush, it can lead to a huge,
costly mistake.

------
StanAngeloff
I used to offer feedback to rejected candidates... until a person felt that
was unwelcome and left us an extremely angered review on a trusted website. I
have been careful with words and have tried to avoid confrontational or
subjective topics. That didn't seem to matter much to them.

All in all be thoughtful of the person in front of you and try not to be a
jerk. Be prepared despite that some people will not want to hear what you have
to say.

------
BuckRogers
I think the biggest reason is the generic self serving reason. They simply
aren't going to waste time on you unless you can help them. Something to keep
in mind.

------
yason
I just assume the simplest explanation: there were at least a few good
candidates and they had to pick one so obviously the rest got rejected by the
very decision to hire one. Companies hiring employees don't explicitly spend
time thinking about the reasons why they might reject someone: they spend all
their time trying to think which candidate stands out the best and could be
that best choice for hiring.

------
cm2187
Headhunters are a pain in the ass but they are useful in that respect. You can
provide feedback to the candidate indirectly without the feedback starting to
be a negociation or pissing off the candidate. Internal candidates aren't that
lucky.

Usually recruiters made their decision when walking out of the room on whether
the candidate is suitable or not. This timeout process is a bit wasteful.

------
sp527
My last employer didn't offer reasons quite simply because that would have
been intractable with our candidate flow (legal issues aside).

------
rbritton
The timing on this posting is somewhat darkly amusing for me -- I was just
rejected by Stripe on Wednesday. I fit the job posting perfectly, so I asked
why, and the answers I received were almost identical to those highlighted in
the posting. It's unfortunate what the bad eggs in the hiring process have
done to make it effectively useless for everyone else.

~~~
dragandj
Maybe the reason is just that they have found the candidate that fits the job
even more perfectly.

~~~
rbritton
In my experience I have usually been told if someone else beat me out (usually
phrased as "We're moving forward with another candidate who is a better fit").
While it's possible, I don't think it was the case here.

I think it came down to the interview. I went into it expecting the questions
to focus around one thing and ran into another, so I wasn't as smooth with the
answers as I think was necessary. That was ultimately my fault, but I'd have
felt more comfortable with some confirmation of it so I knew where to focus my
improvement efforts.

------
raverbashing
I wonder if having a mostly objective criteria would facilitate hiring and
reduce frustrations

For example, give them a coding test (not fizzbuzz bs mind you), it might be
just a multiple choice test, hence if they don't get approved this is an
objective criteria used to turn them down

------
blammail
It's rude for sure, but from what I've seen (And I don't necessarily agree),
the company feels there's no upside. The relationship is already in a negative
space and it's unlikely an explanation will make things better.

------
JamesBarney
I think asking a less litigious and confrontational question might be more
productive such as "What do you think I could do/change/improve to make my
next interview more successful?"

~~~
corysama
Unfortunately, this is a situation that requires zero-tolerance. The cost of a
single candidate reinterpreting what you say and dragging you into court is
too high to risk. Even if the case is complete BS, the cost of arguing over BS
will make you regret every reasonable candidate that you tried to help.

------
desireco42
I tried to implement at one place I was a Lead Dev. We wanted to let
candidates allow to ask when we reject them why.

We got a string of really bad candidates, it really didn't make sense as a
policy and was shot down.

------
PhasmaFelis
We don't accept "paranoid about litigation" as an excuse when, say, a kid gets
expelled for bringing a butter knife to school.

~~~
PeterisP
Don't we? If a kid gets expelled for bringing a butter knife to school and the
given excuse is "paranoid about the litigation", then the general result after
all the uproar is that the kid is still expelled and the policies stay in
place, so de facto we _do_ accept it and _do_ keep doing things because of it.

------
geebee
I get it, lawsuits. There's very little upside for the employer, the benefit
would go to the candidate, and the liability is on the employer. I suppose one
benefit for the employer might be that the candidate could improve, should
there be an opportunity to interview again later.

It's a problem, though. I once did a 7 hour take home exam, didn't hear back
for a month, and finally got the one line rejection listed in this article
"we've decided not to move forward…" A month is too long to make someone wait
regardless, but I really would have appreciated some technical feedback,
because all I could do is wonder. The test was in Java, and I did use what I
believe is a somewhat outdated way of using threads, but that's just a guess…
I also interviewed at Google, and I understand that this "exam" (I think we
should start calling it an entrance exam rather than an interviews) does
result in actual, numerical scores that are currently sitting in a database
somewhere at google, but I'm not allowed to know what they are. Again, I'd
really like to know. Was I way off, or close? No idea.

I think this becomes especially toxic in the context of tech interviews,
because they really do often amount to exams. I've spent some time reflecting
on this, and I believe that exams usually come with a bill of rights for the
examinee (or student). It's very unusual to take an entrance exam with no idea
who will evaluate it, how it will evaluated, how you did, and why you did (or
didn't) pass.

This "bill or rights" isn't an accident, it evolved, I believe, to counter
balance what we demand of a student, and to provide safeguards against abusive
and capricious behavior from institutions that act as gatekeepers, whether
it's the bar, the medical or nursing boards, a committee deciding whether to
award a masters degree, and so forth.

I understand why liability terrifies employers, and that there is no real
benefit for them. But unfortunately, you do need to look at this from the
perspective of the people who take the exam. We get all the negatives of high
stakes and stressful exams, but without the considerations that offset the
stress and safeguard against abuse. There may be reasons for it, but
developers are the ones who don't really know why their performance at the
whiteboard wasn't acceptable enough for a job offer, or what happened after
they sent their take home exam to a recruiter where supposedly it was
evaluated by a tech team.

In short, just because there are good reasons an employer wouldn't want to do
this doesn't make it acceptable from the perspective of an applicant who has
to essentially sit for these exams.

I consider this a very serious problem in the high tech industry, and is
certainly something that deters talented people from entering or remaining in
the field.

~~~
dominotw
I did a phone screen, coding exercises, took two days off and flew into sfo
for 2 days of interview at airbnb.

All I got was a 2 line email with "not a good fit" in it.

~~~
ennuihenry
That would infuriate me.

~~~
dominotw
I was humiliated by interviewers for not having a ivy league degree. I was
really angry but I could do nothing but suck it up and move on.

------
Hoasi
Lawsuits. They ruin everything.

------
jecjec
because there is literally no marginal benefit?

~~~
Afton
Maybe not 'literally', but the point is well taken. I got actionable feedback
when I was applying as an intern at Microsoft, and I ended up working there a
few years later. The feedback I got was crucial to my getting the job at MSFT
(as well as to getting a different job before going to MSFT)

------
known
Quiz != Interview

Interviewer might have quizzed the candidate.

------
bkovacev
Nothing unknown was said in this article.

~~~
mdturnerphys
[http://xkcd.com/1053/](http://xkcd.com/1053/)

~~~
bkovacev
While I agree about this - I never made fun out of anyone. I'm just saying
it's common sense in corporate world not to reveal the info behind the
rejection. It _should_ be common sense for others. But I'm in no way making
fun out of anyone.

