Andreessen Horowitz is relatively cool

Re:Andreessen Horowitz is relatively cool by amorphid on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @12:51AM (#7736617)

Recruiter turned developer here.

Here's a few reasons it's difficult to give rejected candidates feedback:

* the application isn't competitive, and there's no good way to say "you're in the bottom half of the applicant pool"

* the reason for rejection is personal in nature, and there's no great way to say "we didn't like the Facebook photos of you launching bottle rockets from your backside"

* the candidate clearly isn't a fit, but it's hard to describe why

* many unqualified candidates try to overcome rejection, and it just gets awkward

* communicating reasons of rejection to some candidates and not others feels unfair

* there are simply too many applicants to reject, so a personal reason for each one simply isn't practical

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Re:Andreessen Horowitz is relatively cool by bjourne on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @08:59AM (#7737880)

> * the application isn't competitive, and there's no good way to say "you're in the bottom half of the applicant pool"

What's so bad about saying "there are several other applicants with much stronger qualifications than you"?

> * the reason for rejection is personal in nature, and there's no great way to say "we didn't like the Facebook photos of you launching bottle rockets from your backside"

Pretty please tell me you are only using looking at Facebook photos when hiring PR managers and other public facing positions. Otherwise why on earth would how someone wants to spend their free time have anything to do with their job performance?

> * there are simply too many applicants to reject, so a personal reason for each one simply isn't practical

An interview with a candidate takes one to two hours. Evaluating the applicant with colleagues maybe 30 minutes more. Formulating a written rejection takes at most 10 minutes. That's not a lot of overhead.

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Re:Andreessen Horowitz is relatively cool by danielweber on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @10:16AM (#7738226)

Otherwise why on earth would how someone wants to spend their free time have anything to do with their job performance?

This is exactly the conversation they don't want to get into.

Coming off another job hunting cycle, I think it completely and totally sucks how little feedback candidates get. But this attempt to argue that the company's reasons for not hiring you are wrong is exactly what the companies want to avoid. Even though the benefit to you is probably greater than the cost to them (which means there must be some Coasian solution), it's still something that can only have downside for the company. And people are very risk-averse to lawsuits.

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Re:Andreessen Horowitz is relatively cool by bjourne on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @03:02PM (#7739963)

If recruiters at companies are afraid to have to defend their decisions on whether to hire someone or not based on their personal facebook account, then they shouldn't snoop on applicants facebook accounts.

It's just so moronic that I hope GP is an exception and that most recruiters doesn't give a shit about facebook.

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Re:Andreessen Horowitz is relatively cool by danielweber on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @03:16PM (#7740046)

You know your list of "good reasons" that companies should have for turning someone down? There is someone willing to argue with the employer that that's a dumb reason when they get told why it was why they weren't hired.

And the candidate often has this idea of "if I prove to the employer that their reason for not hiring me was dumb, then I win the argument, and then I get the job!"

Really, the best a candidate can hope for is to get the reason, and then walk away without talking about it. But because candidates want to make the company "defend their decisions" the employer won't even bother starting a conversation that will have no good outcome for the company.

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