Hearing nothing back from interviews

Myranda

Companies the size of a Google might have thousands of applicants per job, so I understand that the CV to Employer stage it's too early in the process to devote more than a very short time to...

But by final interviews will they have narrowed the field massively.

So, for a university based job, open only to current students - and not open to first years, or the third years who did the job last year; not open to anyone out side of the computing faculty students, meaning for the 11 positions only about 30 people got interviews. 

Hearing nothing back in this situation is REALLY shitty - the purpose of the uni course is preparation for jobs, so finding out we need to work on interview skills would be damned useful.

But I just don't get why this is a thing. You spend somewhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours interview a person, can't you take 5 minutes to write up a reason that they weren't chosen - then some HR system could generate an automated polite email to send out... 

When did rudeness become the defacto standard for interview practices? Just a couple of minutes after an interview could mean that people actually have some idea what's going on

chrispy108

The last place I worked we weren't allowed to give feedback because HR worried it would lead to lawsuits.

Myranda

chrispy108 said:

The last place I worked we weren't allowed to give feedback because HR worried it would lead to lawsuits.

So, HR were worried their interviewers were breaking the law and rather than fire them and hire staff capable of adhering to the laws governing the country they thought it better to cover it up?

If you're worried about law suites stop breaking the law. If you're not in breach then law suites wont happen

monquixote

chrispy108 said:

The last place I worked we weren't allowed to give feedback because HR worried it would lead to lawsuits.

That kind of thing really pisses me off. 

Making the world a worse place for the sake of being a bunch of cowards.

Even if you don't give feedback there is no excuse for not letting someone know they were unsuccessful. 

Jalapeno

It's normal, two alternatives, both based on the premise that HR depts are totally crap.

1. They aren't going to call as they're negotiating with someone else, so you're plan B, but they'll then won't be arsed once plan A is concluded.  VERY occasionally this might fail and they call you back as 2nd choice.

2. They can't be arsed.

Either way HR are crap - all too common I fear.  It's almost the norm for CV submission, but inexcusable for interviews.

I always give feedback when recruiting because:

a. It's the civilised thing to do
b. You might be working for THEM one day
c. No response reflects badly on the company

Chalky

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

Paul_C

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

Wow, aren't you a ray of sunshine.

chrispy108

Myranda said:

chrispy108 said:

The last place I worked we weren't allowed to give feedback because HR worried it would lead to lawsuits.

So, HR were worried their interviewers were breaking the law and rather than fire them and hire staff capable of adhering to the laws governing the country they thought it better to cover it up?

If you're worried about law suites stop breaking the law. If you're not in breach then law suites wont happen

I'm not saying I agree with the viewpoint.

They weren't worried about breaking the law, they were worried about proving they hadn't taking up lots of time and money.

axisus

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

Bit of a lousy attitude there ....


Last time I employed someone at my work, I whittled the 90 applicants down to 5 to interview. We finally picked the best one, and I offered the other four the option to call me if they wanted a chat about the interview and why they didn't get the job. Two of them took me up on it.

TheBigDipper

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

Job candidates have a right to expect the courtesy of a reply of some sort - even if it's "Sorry, but you weren't successful". 

It doesn't hurt to ask for specific feedback, either, as it might help for next time. That doesn't mean they will be able to give any - possibly because their companies policy means they aren't allowed to share it, possibly because they don't have a specific reason they can give which makes sense (a bit like the one above) and it makes them look like lousy recruiters without a recruitment plan. 

The OP isn't complaining that he didn't get the job, is he? He's just complaining there's been no feedback of any sort since the interview. 

DLM

@TheBigDipper I know it's hard to believe on here, but the OP isn't a he!  

monquixote

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

I suspect you didn't receive enough affection as a child.

Heartfeltdawn

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

Which Myranda isn't doing at all. That's the truth, right there.

thermionic

I can sympathise. Asking for feedback is good advice but people reluctantly fob you off with bland, meaningless nonsense, if at all. I had several interviews that lasted hours, interviewed by 5 people one after the other, going back at a day's notice for a 2nd interview with the guy's boss who was over from the States etc, and some bizarre requests (I needed a job, so show me the hoops, I'll jump through them). 

The best I got was "you were good but we offered the job to someone better". Yeah, thanks for that, helps a lot. The worst was "your CV didn't have the right experience". So, you only read my CV after interviewing me?

No wonder HR departments and employment agencies are universally despised.

chrispy108

The reason you get vague feedback is because there is only a vague answer.

The truth is, alot of the time, when you interview people it's just gut feeling that makes you agree on one candidate over the other, and that's not feedback anyone wants is it? So easier to say nothing.

"you were good but we offered the job to someone better" What else do you want them to say @thermionic ? That's the truth, you'd have been fine, but someone they felt was better showed up.

EricTheWeary

When I interviewed people I always offered feedback ( even to successful candidates). Very hard to make it useful though as either they were fine but the person who got it was just a bit better or they were completely shit and you didn't always want to get into that ( especially with internal candidates). Depending on how many people you'd interviewed it also became a bit of a blur as to what anyone said. However, on a good day I'd try to include something specific such that if they were interviewed again for the same post if they did what I said they would be appoint-able ( although this was nearly always 'answer all the questions fully and think about what the post involves beforehand'). 

Drew_TNBD

monquixote said:

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

I suspect you didn't receive enough affection as a child.

That is a pretty gross comment to make Nick.

monquixote

Drew_TNBD said:

monquixote said:

Chalky said:

Which part of "You weren't the best candidate" is the hard bit? Seriously. You didn't impress them enough with your experience, skills and character. That's the truth, right there. Deal with it and stop blaming other people for your failure.

I suspect you didn't receive enough affection as a child.

That is a pretty gross comment to make Nick.

Guilty as charged

Sporky

chrispy108 said:

The truth is, alot of the time, when you interview people it's just gut feeling that makes you agree on one candidate over the other, and that's not feedback anyone wants is it? So easier to say nothing.

Gut feelings are not an appropriate (or even legal) way to choose applicants.

chrispy108

Indeed, and perhaps gut feeling isn't quite the correct phrase, but when you're interviewing three graduates with identical CVs you're choosing based on the feeling you get in the interview, which is hard to explain.

The HR system had a score you gave each question, which then got added up across the interviewers, and the highest scorer got the job.

WezV

chrispy108 said:

The reason you get vague feedback is because there is only a vague answer.

The truth is, alot of the time, when you interview people it's just gut feeling that makes you agree on one candidate over the other, and that's not feedback anyone wants is it? So easier to say nothing.

"you were good but we offered the job to someone better" What else do you want them to say @thermionic ? That's the truth, you'd have been fine, but someone they felt was better showed up.

I had two equally good candidates for a job recently.  There was literally nothing to seperate them so we tossed a coin.


i wouldn't want to tell the candidate that.


thankfully I had a second position a few months later so managed to get both of them in the end