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

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1552474

by newgrad • 16 years ago

12 17 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

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.

Why are companies reluctant to give feedbacks for interviewees?

It is so important for us.

[ EDIT ] Second question: Does location of the interviewee really matters when you are hiring?

maxdemarzi• 16 years ago

"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• 16 years ago

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.

newgrad4• 16 years ago

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.

photon_off• 16 years ago

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.

mgkimsal• 16 years ago

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.

slantyyz4• 16 years ago

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.

slantyyz4• 16 years ago

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.

newgrad4• 16 years ago

Thanks, they are great things I might need to work on.

realitygrill• 16 years ago

What do you mean by 'recover' here?

slantyyz4• 16 years ago

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

newgrad4• 16 years ago

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 :(.

slantyyz4• 16 years ago

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.

newgrad4• 16 years ago

Thank you slantyyz for the excellent feedback.

Honestly during my last three years of college I made a huge wrong journey. I spent all my free time by solving general algorithm puzzles posted in the web such as top coder practice, Facebook coding challenge, RapLeaf coding challenge and their nature. I thought that was the best way to score an interview.

Now that I am interested in applying for a startup, I realized that real projects that involve a diversity of technologies actually gives you more credential rather than technical knowledges. But it is a bit too late.

I better start grabbing some of my small algorithm codes and put it online now.

TheSmoke• 16 years ago

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.

amk• 16 years ago

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..

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

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