In his On Writing Book, Stephen King has a section or maybe even a chapter on this rejection stuff. I think he said that there was one rejection in particular that made all the difference for him because it came back with ideas and encouragement.I think he also did something where he kept all his rejections as well. It's always interesting to see how famous authors handled being rejected way back when they were getting started.
If only job interviews would also result in real feedback. These days, probably due to anti-discrimination laws, you never get a reason. It's always just "thanks for your time". That's all. You're left guessing what went wrong and likely end up not focusing on what was the real cause which you do realize and want to self-improve.
In the old days, you often got a letter of rejection after an interview, and I started collecting them. That turned it around into a fun game. And after a while, I realized that several of them were based on a common template.
There must be some old HR book out there with an example rejection letter that many corporate HR departments used. It was calculated to let you down easy, to avoid making you mad and miserable.
Point being, it was always rare that you would get actionable feedback from an interview, because it was always risky. Now it is just rare to the point of non-existent.
- you're generally qualified, but we need a Foo Expert today
The common letter one gets is "we chose somebody else who is a better fit". Sure, but what exactly fit better?
I don't think this is too much to ask for. Even that kind of feedback is non-existent, and I'm off wondering whether it's one of those or some remark I made or something else.
The most honest feedback I got was in small shops which didn't put an HR department between me and the CTO/CEO.
That said, I have to learn to read people's questions better. In hindsight I believe some of the "let's go lunch with the CTO and these three people" setups are using a semi-informal chit-chat to fish for character incompatibilities with the rest of the team.
This would be nice, but thinking about the interview process as it currently stands, I'm not sure if it would end up being that helpful. As an industry we're really pretty terrible at interviewing and identifying talent so maybe not getting any feedback is just as useful.
Having realized some discrepancies in my skillset, I would actually prefer honest but temporarily-demotivating feedback. If not, I'll start questioning more stuff than actually has been a deal breaker. Yes, it will be painful for a while to hear "you cannot sing", but I'd prefer it. The more specific the better. After all, we're adults and I have to deal with my personal bugs daily anyway. Of course, this assumes the feedback is qualified, but that's up to my impression of how much I value their feedback. If I have the impression they're totally unqualified, I might not spend a second thought on their judgement.
I couldn't agree more. I'd kill for some useful, thoughtful feedback. That said, I'd kill for even a form rejection most of the time; nowadays, it seems never letting you know is the new form rejection.
If after an interview somebody asks for feedback, I'll generally give it to them. The details are fresh in our heads, I can carefully calibrate my answer to the person's mood, and we can discuss anything that is confusing or upsetting.
Once we've filled the positions, though, it's much harder to give feedback. I've got a number of people I'm turning down, so it'd be a lot of work. Details are fuzzier. And often the real reason is something unsatisfying, like, "this person was marginally better in a few key areas; that added up". (If we've done our pre-screening well, almost everybody we interview is hireable, so often the true advice is something depressingly anodyne, like, "keep trying" or "more experience would have helped".)
But really, if you want feedback, I'd find some way to set up mock interviews with people you trust. There's a lot of feedback I won't give because I don't think the person is ready to hear it. E.g., I once interviewed a person who was a bluffer. They failed the pair programming portion of the interview spectacularly, to the extent that I ended it early. When they asked for feedback, I told them that they should definitely work on their TDD skills. But the honest answer would have been, "Go get a therapist and start working on your personal issues, because you have a pervasive character problem."
That's an extreme case, but hopefully you can see the problem. As John Scalzi says [1], "There are a lot of people who, when they say, 'I’d love feedback,' actually mean 'I want a hug.'" Those people can be very unpleasant when you give them actual feedback.
It's not that simple though. I occasionally give as constructive feedback as I can when asked. (And I sometimes cut interviews short explaining why, to avoid wasting my time and the candidate's.) But honestly, giving feedback can backlash. As in, the candidate will reply back two or three times by email, trying to argue their case. "We liked you a lot but we preferred another candidate" is about as neutral as it is uninformative, but has the merit of cutting a conversation short.
Only happened to me once, but zero response is bad, yes. However, it's not much worse than the neutral "thanks, bye" you get all the time. It's hard to stay motivated when all the interviews go well, or so you think, until the final thank-you email.
"Thanks, bye" frees your mind from having to wonder about that position. It's closure. If you don't get feedback, you can still do a bit of post mortem; you may not come to the same conclusion that the hiring org would have, but you will gain some insight into yourself.
Because the occasions where I didn't get any closing responses have been with places that seemed to be unprofessional in the hiring process, I actually had an easier time dismissing those, especially after learning more about some of the from ex-employees.
You cannot trust any feedback you get from a company, because more than likely they have no idea what they're doing, and the reason they rejected you is something close to: "Candidate rejected for random, irrelevant reason."
That was a great story. King slapped the rejections on a nail on his wall until the stack was thicker than the nail was tall and overflowed. The author of this article mentions that as an inspiration.
