Ask HN: Technical interviews went amazing but HR is not answering my emails now?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10408538

29 45 11 years ago

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3 months ago I sent my resume to company X for the position of software engineer. (Company X is a very well known company that makes GPUs) It seemed like the perfect position for me given that they were looking for someone with good C/C++, Java, Perl skills (those are my strongest languages), knowledge of OO design patterns and machine learning was a bonus (I have talked about deep learning in many big ml groups).

I got contacted within a couple of days and went through 3 technical interviews, which went amazing! the interviewers pretty much welcomed me to the team and one of them even said: "wow you really know your sh*t so I will stop asking now"

The whole process was poorly organized and the interviewers all though they were the first person talking to me.

Nevertheless I felt pretty confident that I was getting the position (specially because the position was very Perl-centric and I happen to be very involved in the Perl community) but the HR lady who was helping me only contacted me to ask me if I would consider relocation (I said yes), then she said the HR manager was away, then she said the same thing and now she is not answering any of my emails.

I could just apply to another company, but I was really excited about that position and I have a lot admiration for the company.

A friend suggested me to email the head of HR, what does HN think I should do.

ddorian43• 11 years ago

How much time when you contacted for the last time ? If more than 1 week, contact the head-hr.

latenightcoding2• 11 years ago

Last email I sent her was September 15th.

dacompton2• 11 years ago

You should definitely give up on the position. Do you honestly want to work for a company who doesn't even respect candidates enough to give them an eval?

mh-• 11 years ago

that's far (far) more than long enough to warrant following up.

ju-st• 11 years ago

Do you have a possibility to contact the technical interviewers? Did you get business cards for example?

mrits• 11 years ago

This is not a unique situation. Many things could have happened.

There could have been a better candidate that popped up.

There could no longer be no longer a budget for the job or the team decided to make a change that made this hire no longer needed.

People that interviewed you could have left the company.

A more senior person could have felt threatened by you and actually wanted someone less talented.

Those are things off the top of my head that I've been a part of in my career.

latenightcoding2• 11 years ago

That is understandable, but after making me go through 3 technical interviews they could at least have contacted me to let me know they are not interested in hiring me, especially after I contacted her later on.

dandare• 11 years ago

Well, yes. But it is not uncommon behaviour, unfortunately.

I was once hired for on a position related to newly created product, I negotiated with my current employer to shorten my leave period, started the new job - only to be told week later that the new product idea was not so well researched and that they will not open my position. Sorry. I was in probation period and there was nothing I could really do. That's life.

The moral of the story: Never try to be loyal to your company - employment is different kind of relationship. Yes, you can be loyal to your boss if he deserves it - or other individual - but never to a juridical person.

whateverd00d• 11 years ago

You mentioned that none of the three interviewers were aware that the other had interviewed you.

If HR cannot properly communicate with existing hires, what faith do you have in them communicating with you?

Move on.

raincom• 11 years ago

Think of it as a dating; ignoring = denial. And move on.

gnoway2• 11 years ago

My recollection is that no company has ever contacted me to tell me they decided not to hire me. Not one time.

I've had a similar experience with a company I tried to go back to after leaving a few years prior. I had a couple of interviews, it was great, other people at the company were reaching out to welcome me back, etc. but after my interview nothing happened.

It is frustrating, but if it's really been 3 months since your interview, and you're not getting a response from HR anymore, then you're probably not getting the position. You should move on.

dacompton2• 11 years ago

So, you went on a few dates and now you want a relationship? In life that might be reasonable, but companies (as a general rule) have no sense of loyalty. They don't owe you anything. You should have no expectations until you start the job. You can up your expectations (of stability) every 6 months thereafter.

So, I'd suggest applying for more jobs. Try not to fall in love with a position before you get it. Instead, fall in love with what you're doing in Software Engineering. There will be a number of positions that will give you work that you find interesting. If you like the work and like the people, then fall in love with the position.

Edit: Also, you should be looking for bad smells (this isn't necessarily one) when you're interviewing. A better example would be: "Send us your resume in .doc format. .doc only"

awinder• 11 years ago

I don't know if he wants a relationship as much as he wants a call back. Do they owe you anything, maybe not, but giving candidates a "thanks but no thanks" call after the candidate devoted some time to going through the process just seems like the classier thing to do.

Brajeshwar2• 11 years ago

Well, there are lots to hiring someone other than just the technical skills of a candidate. The technical interviewer, sometimes misses a lot on the human element part of it which the HR are more apt in pointing out pretty quickly and accurately.

It has been a year every since I joined a friend's company which was acquired by Razorfish sometime back. I've been building and training a creative design and development (front-end) team. I might have interviewed north of 400 people so far in the last one year and I've so far built a strong team of 40+ people, missing my personal target of 50 by a few.

In that journey, there have been few instances where I really liked the person and would love to have them in the team. HR team rejected them and some of the interesting reasons I found were -- they won't fit in a team setting, they are likely to change really soon and won't stick, and other reasons which I totally overlooked.

Note: It is perfectly OK to get back to them and ask for the reason. Sometimes, things slips through the crack and candidates getting back to us really helped kicking back things into gear.

DanBC• 11 years ago

HR team rejected them and some of the interesting reasons I found were -- they won't fit in a team setting, they are likely to change really soon and won't stick, and other reasons which I totally overlooked.

We don't know if HR was right or just guessing. Maybe you hadn't missed anything and those people would have been great hires?

Brajeshwar2• 11 years ago

May be. However, I've learnt to rather not hire and missed the opportunity than to hire and pray that it works out.

It is way harder to fire once hired, than spending a bit more time and hire someone else.

dennyabraham• 11 years ago

A lot of the trouble in interview processes is communication or an overflow of work that causes seemingly "closed" interviews to fall off people's priority lists.

For you, specifically, I'd recommend preferring the future regret of having contacted the head of hr later than is advisable than the regret of never knowing. After all, the worst thing that could happen is they say no, whereas all slightly less bad consequences are pretty rad.

andhofmt• 11 years ago

Microsoft did the same thing to me. The recruiter told me I aced the technical interview, and they really liked talking to me. Said they will email me back with next steps.

Never heard from them again.

thrway2busy• 11 years ago

You should definitely move on. The problem is that the person who was away won't contact you and the person under her ("HR lady") won't take your application seriously anymore. These people don't know how valuable you are as an engineer who's a good technical fit. Their loss! Just give up and move on.

dustingetz• 11 years ago

I always get the email address of the interviewer I bonded with the most and ask a follow up question over email; that way you have a direct line to a human who likes you, for use in situations like this.

thaumaturgy• 11 years ago

Have you tried calling them? Email isn't all that reliable, your messages might not be making it into her inbox for any number of reasons. We see a lot of accidental/misconfigured Outlook message rules for example.

kelukelugames• 11 years ago

Do email the head of HR. Write a very polite email.

What do you have to lose?

1) You didn't get the job. 2) They forgot and are glad to fix it. 3) They forgot and are too embarrassed to fix it. You avoid working with tacky people.

cvs268• 11 years ago

First of all i must applaud you on your level-headedness and self-restraint. It is so common to see people exaggerate and rant on public forums / blogs when confronted with such frustrating situations.

Maybe the HR got laid-off?

Maybe the 3 people who interviewed you are from multiple teams within the organisation and they are now fighting over which team gets to hire you?

Its good that you did NOT name names. So in case this turns out to be a long list of co-incidences that lined-up to create this weird "no-response" situation, you are still on track to get hired and work in a job that you find fulfilling.

Company X is a very well known company that makes GPUs

If Company X is a 3 letter acronym, their recent quarterly finances might have prompted them to re-evaluate all their future hires.

yuhong2• 11 years ago

To be honest, there is only two major PCIe GPU makers now.

bostik• 11 years ago

That's assuming your world revolves around PC and x86.

There are a couple more in embedded and ARM spaces, and as far as I know, they are also all hiring all the time.

yuhong2• 11 years ago

And of course, I do dislike this and think that the problems really should be fixed properly.

omarish• 11 years ago

The HR person might have changed jobs / companies. It sounds like this is more an internal screw-up on their part, and that they would be lucky to have you. Definitely email the head of HR. In the email, try and go with "really enjoyed interviewing, but why haven't I heard back, as it's been 4 weeks?" instead of an angry message. I doubt they turned you down; rather, they aren't very well coordinated.

blt• 11 years ago

If the HR person was fired non-amicably, its possible that your application got lost. There's no harm in emailing someone else. It's unlikely, because if you already met with engineers then they'd probably remind the new HR person about you, but it can't hurt to try.

pandaman• 11 years ago

Did you have three on-site interviews or were these just on the phone? From your description it sounds like all were on the phone since the interviewers did not know you had already been interviewed.

Phone screen people are just checking if you are worth bringing for on-site. They cannot possibly make a "hire" decision as their output is either "no" or "maybe". So, most likely, you had been rejected either by one of the screeners or for some random reason. But it won't hurt asking somebody higher up if you really want to work there.

huhtenberg• 11 years ago

I had similar experience 15 years ago interviewing for IBM Canada - got a good tech interview, followed by a complete radio silence. Crossed it off the list and moved on. The best part was that the HR did eventually surface, not 5 months after, and the lady seemed genuinely puzzled, almost offended, that I had no interest in pursuing position.

So, yeah, tech interviews and the HR are two separate cans of worms, especially in larger companies. I wouldn't bother with reaching out to the HR, you are clearly not a priority to them. Your best bet would probably be to try and speak with your tech interviewers. However, I think they aren't interested in your either, because otherwise they would've pushed the hiring through the HR and/or contacted you directly already.

talaketu• 11 years ago

"the HR lady" - you mean the recruiter.

chrisbennet2• 11 years ago

As others have said, call HR or the hiring manager and ask. Mostly likely there is no job but it won't hurt to ask.

Big company's HR departments seem to drop the ball a lot. Here is the thing though: You Won't Be Working For HR.

Would you recommend against the college you went to because of the admissions departments poor performance?

Would you turn down a 2nd date because the restaurant you met at had poor service?

[start rant] People (in general) need to decouple the interview process from the act of working at the company. The interview process is broken. It doesn't mean the company is. Sure they ask stupid or even insulting questions. Get over it and "study for the test" if that is what it takes.

If your find a company you want to work at, you may have to jump through their little hoops. Remember: the interview is a 2 way street - you need to interview the company to see if you want to work there. If you don't pass their insulting "linked list" test you're sunk before you start.

Recognize that not every company is going to be optimized to immediately see how "special" you are. You may have to "hack" around, or work though, their broken system to get where you want to go. [end rant]

greenyoda2• 11 years ago

"Would you turn down a 2nd date because the restaurant you met at had poor service? ... People (in general) need to decouple the interview process from the act of working at the company."

I'm not sure I agree with your analogy that HR and the rest of the company (as opposed to the small group of people you'd be working closely with) is analogous to the restaurant. You're actually going to have a relationship with the entire company while you're working there - in other words, I think it's more like you're dating the company.

That rude HR person who couldn't be bothered to answer a simple question? They're the one you'll be going to when you have problems with your health insurance or direct deposit.

And that arrogant manager from another group who interviewed you? They might end up being promoted to being your boss's boss in a couple of months.

HR and the rest of the company report to the same CEO as developers do. If the CEO doesn't care about making HR treat job candidates respectfully, it could be an indication that they don't spend a lot of time caring about how employees are treated either.

So if you reject the company because you were treated badly during an interview, it would be more like turning down a second date because your date, while very attractive, was an hour late, made insulting remarks about your choice of clothes and spent all of dinner playing with their phone instead of talking with you.

chrisbennet2• 11 years ago

More like your date's Dad was unpleasant when you picked her up. If you want the job or the girl, sometimes you need to deal with the gatekeepers. But then again, if you don't want her Dad to be your father in-law someday, you might have a point. :-)

throw721• 11 years ago

I'm in a similar situation, but instead of not replying to me, it's consistently "Sorry, promise I will schedule your next interview by the end of day today" - it's been over 2 weeks and 3 emails with the recruiter. Do I worry? How do I politely move this forward?

(hope I'm not hijacking)

chrismcb• 11 years ago

One of the things that amazed me, the last time I interviewed is the number of companies and recruiters who just stop communicating. Is it too much to ask to send a "no?" Shoot, tell me to go jump in the lake, tell me something, don't give me the silent treatment. I can understand if it is a small start-up, but I can believe that recruiters (head hunters) do this as well. I wouldn't be bothered so much if the communication was just email. But once it gets to phone calls or even face to face meetings, then give the person the common courtesy of some closure.

pasbesoin• 11 years ago

From my own experience: You need the hiring manager to push HR along.

I recall one position that was stalled until I followed up with the hiring manager, who was early into the organization and had long tenure and a lot of influence.

I reached them directly. They said they'd put the request in to HR. We hung up after the hiring manager said they would give HR a follow-up call. Within 24 hours, HR was calling me, asking how soon I could come in.

Most hiring managers don't have that much influence with HR (instant turnaround). But if they hare a good reputation internally, and HR is good at their job, then HR knows that such strong interest is reason to proceed expeditiously.

If HR is unresponsive to them, a hiring manager with budget -- an internal client of HR -- then maybe that is a place you don't want to work. Disfunctional HR tends to become a burden, over time. (Perhaps I should say, abnormally disfunctional HR; some would argue that HR is inherently at least somewhat disfunctional, from the perspective of those outside of HR and Legal.)

MalcolmDiggs• 11 years ago

It seems like something happened, and they're not telling you what.

If I were you, I would touch-base with my references and ask them if they're received any calls or emails about me lately. If so, ask them exactly how the conversation went, word for word. You might get some clues there.

janbernhart• 11 years ago

A lot of good answers below already so I won't state the same things again. I do want give a different insight though. 9 out of 10 times, HR is waiting for an answer from the Hiring Manager/ interviewing team/ department head/ etc. Just because HR (or; recruitment) is your main contact point (or; messenger), this doesn't mean they are the cause of the delay.

(there is no excuse for not communicating that there is a delay, or nor answering your call of course).

In your case; contact a different person from HR/recruitmment or the interviewers, just to make sure your contact person isn't on holiday/sick leave/ fired/whatever. I'm afraid that's the only thing you can do. If your contact person is still working there but not responding, odds are high you didn't get the job. (still push for receiving feedback though).

gadders• 11 years ago

Most Likely: Either they don't want to hire you at all, or they are waiting for their first choice candidate to reply before contacting you if they say no

Alternative theory: They are really, really disorganised and the hiring manager went on holiday before telling everyone who he wanted to hire.

Ask HN: Technical interviews went amazing but HR is not answering my emails now?

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