There's no upside for the company in giving any substantial answer to questions like this, and significant potential downside.
Among other things it's generally not going to be that you were rejected for the position, it's that someone else was chosen over you. "Rejected" would be "we'd rather leave the position vacant than hire you" and if that's the case there's even more reason to not tell you unless it was for purely technical reasons.
However, if the company is dealing with a recruitment agency it might be useful for the company to let the agency know why a candidate was not suitable, so that they get better candidates in future, and the recruitment agent (who is a "double agent" really) might pass the information on to the candidate (probably not in writing). I've heard of that happening.
Also, in cases where there isn't a position to be filled, but the interviewee is trying to persuade the company to create the position, in those cases the company can be a bit more open in saying why they have decided not to proceed. I've heard of that happening, too.
Your best bet might be to ask about how you did at the end of the interview. I had some luck with interviewers explaining me a solution to an interview problem that they would consider perfect.
when i conduct interviews, i have not once had anyone ask for feedback. however, i offer it unsolicited and candidates seem to appreciate it.
I wouldn't be surprised if deciding not to worry about details with unknowable significance and inconsistent response allowed you to relax a bit more in future interviews.
Oh, for sure.
I hadn't interviewed for over a decade, and was super keyed up for the first few this time around. After my attitude changed to more of a "meh, I can take this or leave it" they got a whole lot easier.
They'd rather be safe.
It may be theoretically possible to say that not forewarning a person about certain requirements may put some people in disadvantaged position.
Mostly likely it will be thrown away in the court, but why would you risk?
If you added this line to every follow up email, that would at least remove the uncertainty about whether or not you would get the offer.
Such and such corporation is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate the candidates based on their race, age, gender, veteran status or smell.
Regards, A poor HR guy who now has to send these emails to all candidates.
Surprisingly (to me), I was able to get permission to share feedback with candidates we reject. I only do this when people ask, but I take the time to summarize & sanitize the feedback from our internal reviewers and try to phrase everything very neutrally ("we thought that your decision to do X was not the best way to approach this" as opposed to "X was a terrible idea").
That said, I don't think I'd be able to get permission to give feedback on the interview parts of the process. That's a bit more subjective and it's _really_ easy for any sort of feedback there to become lawsuit fodder.
The problem I have is that a lot of these rejection letters are worded in a very touchy-feely way where they actually write some version of, "if you have any questions don't hesitate to message back!"
That is what bothers me.
Like, if you're not going to answer my questions, just say so upfront.
(side note: I don't just say "why didn't I get the job" - I follow the advice of the countless "how to ask why you didn't get the job" articles out there that tell you to frame it in terms of questions they can safely answer like, "was someone more qualified than me" or "would it have helped if I had more experience with...", etc.)
I've tried it both ways. Not giving feedback works much, much better.
I recently went through a short job search for programming work in Austin. I made it all the way to the final, on-site interview at three places before landing an offer.
Every time I did not get an offer, I would get an email saying "thank you so much for your time, please reply with your concerns or questions!"
And so, each time, I sent and email asking "what did I do wrong, and what could I improve?" making it very clear I was just looking for a quick, single sentence answer like "more github projects" or "you smell."
I didn't get a single reply. Not one.
After that, I quit playing the ultra polite send-a-thank-you for every single phone call or meeting I was graced with, and sure enough, I got a couple job offers after that.
If anything, the whole experience convinced me that no one maybe outside of sales or filling an executive position really cares about this kind of business etiquette - either in giving it or receiving it.