I recently did not get a job I was a really good fit for and they were kind enough to send me some feedback as part of the rejection letter.
Reading them made me realise that if they just asked to clarify some of those points I would’ve easily explained them, which is something that still stings when I think about it.
Having interviewed people in the past I really feel like this is an amazing tool: not only is a great way to see how people react to feedback but also a way to understand more about a candidate especially if they are anxious or shy. Thanks for sharing
Wow, this post makes me anxious about getting a job. This whole process is so blatantly terrible... Not OP's fault, to be clear. Though asking a rhetorical "is that ok?" isn't exactly nice!
Both are reasons I treat a confirmed concern as a flag to check against the earlier stages, not a verdict.
As much as I've enjoyed the article so far, little LLM-isms like this turn me off just a little bit. It's not egregious but it's somewhat distracting.
(There were some earlier that I glossed over because the article's good enough. Good job to the author for making it relatively painless, but still.)
It gets slightly more LLM-ish towards the end, not to an unacceptable level but still noticeably so. Maybe the article could've been a bit shorter, as most of the best information is earlier.
In Summary
I also think this entire section is unnecessary, and that it would've been perfectly complete to simply end after "This type of negative response is very rare." Just personal preference though.
I've interviewed hundreds (maybe thousands at this point?) of candidates in the course of my career, and as much as I think giving feedback at the end of the call is a great idea, I personally would struggle with doing it in a way that was actually useful to the interviewee. Because unless it's a hard "no" (e.g. someone is obviously lying about their experience), I almost always need to ruminate on the interview afterwards before I can write up useful feedback. Sometimes it's the act of writing itself that helps me form a coherent recommendation.
This is also why I hate interview processes where my co-interviewers want to debrief immediately, or when I have a recruiter breathing down my neck as soon as the call ends.
Interviews are highly subjective when interviewers want answers to questions that they don't even explicitly ask. I have on occasion received terrible quality feedback telling me that I didn't tell them something in sufficient detail. Well, they never asked, and I don't read minds. I don't want to put people to sleep.
It's best for probing to be explicit and for feedback to be immediate after each question, not after the interview.
instead of "i'd like to give some feedback, may I?" at the end, the interviewer should just ask the damn question in real time. "that description is very high level. that is great for an external summary, when the decision is already made and you want to communicate, not discuss. so i appreciate that. can you go into more detail and justify your choices, as if for an audience of peers and for discussion?"
a good interview should be an interactive exercise, not a one way explanation from the candidate. even LC/DSA type rounds should always find the candidate asking for clarifications, asking if they are on the right track is this what you are looking for, should i be attacking this a different way, etc.
and i would never give unsolicited positive feedback. even when you are the final decision maker, other rounds may uncover weak spots and there may not be a consensus to hire. by giving the positive feedback you confuse the candidate and make a no-hire result even worse. leave it to the recuiter/HR to do that.
as an interviewer i always mention whether i will recommend them for hire (if it's a yes) and that's it. iff asked i provide critical feedback. as a candidate i always ask for critical feedback, which gives me the chance to sharpen any answer when the interviewer doesn't do a good job on asking for what they really wanted.
Even for candidates for whom my feedback was scathing, they are still generally positive about the experience
If you have scathing feedback for someone you are interviewing, you should probably just shut up. Or at least deliver it in a different context where they aren't being held hostage and having their every reaction scrutinized. Sounds miserable, I seriously doubt they were actually "generally positive"
By the time an interview ends, a candidate usually has a good sense of whether it went well or not. I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and I would never jump into this feedback mode OP describes. There's not much point in giving positive feedback if they're already feeling good about the interview. If you give someone negative feedback (no matter how constructive) they're going to get defensive and want to plead their case; but it's the end of the interview and there's no time for that. OP says people express gratitude for the feedback, but what does he expect them to do? Anyone who doesn't appreciate it still doesn't want to tank the interview by appearing ungrateful. Never play psychological games in interviews.
I recently did not get a job I was a really good fit for and they were kind enough to send me some feedback as part of the rejection letter.
Reading them made me realise that if they just asked to clarify some of those points I would’ve easily explained them, which is something that still stings when I think about it.
Having interviewed people in the past I really feel like this is an amazing tool: not only is a great way to see how people react to feedback but also a way to understand more about a candidate especially if they are anxious or shy. Thanks for sharing
If they asked about it and you answered, they would no longer have a good excuse to not hire you.
Wow, this post makes me anxious about getting a job. This whole process is so blatantly terrible... Not OP's fault, to be clear. Though asking a rhetorical "is that ok?" isn't exactly nice!
As much as I've enjoyed the article so far, little LLM-isms like this turn me off just a little bit. It's not egregious but it's somewhat distracting.
(There were some earlier that I glossed over because the article's good enough. Good job to the author for making it relatively painless, but still.)
It gets slightly more LLM-ish towards the end, not to an unacceptable level but still noticeably so. Maybe the article could've been a bit shorter, as most of the best information is earlier.
I also think this entire section is unnecessary, and that it would've been perfectly complete to simply end after "This type of negative response is very rare." Just personal preference though.
I've interviewed hundreds (maybe thousands at this point?) of candidates in the course of my career, and as much as I think giving feedback at the end of the call is a great idea, I personally would struggle with doing it in a way that was actually useful to the interviewee. Because unless it's a hard "no" (e.g. someone is obviously lying about their experience), I almost always need to ruminate on the interview afterwards before I can write up useful feedback. Sometimes it's the act of writing itself that helps me form a coherent recommendation.
This is also why I hate interview processes where my co-interviewers want to debrief immediately, or when I have a recruiter breathing down my neck as soon as the call ends.
Interviews are highly subjective when interviewers want answers to questions that they don't even explicitly ask. I have on occasion received terrible quality feedback telling me that I didn't tell them something in sufficient detail. Well, they never asked, and I don't read minds. I don't want to put people to sleep.
It's best for probing to be explicit and for feedback to be immediate after each question, not after the interview.
seems quite stilted.
instead of "i'd like to give some feedback, may I?" at the end, the interviewer should just ask the damn question in real time. "that description is very high level. that is great for an external summary, when the decision is already made and you want to communicate, not discuss. so i appreciate that. can you go into more detail and justify your choices, as if for an audience of peers and for discussion?"
a good interview should be an interactive exercise, not a one way explanation from the candidate. even LC/DSA type rounds should always find the candidate asking for clarifications, asking if they are on the right track is this what you are looking for, should i be attacking this a different way, etc.
and i would never give unsolicited positive feedback. even when you are the final decision maker, other rounds may uncover weak spots and there may not be a consensus to hire. by giving the positive feedback you confuse the candidate and make a no-hire result even worse. leave it to the recuiter/HR to do that.
as an interviewer i always mention whether i will recommend them for hire (if it's a yes) and that's it. iff asked i provide critical feedback. as a candidate i always ask for critical feedback, which gives me the chance to sharpen any answer when the interviewer doesn't do a good job on asking for what they really wanted.
If you have scathing feedback for someone you are interviewing, you should probably just shut up. Or at least deliver it in a different context where they aren't being held hostage and having their every reaction scrutinized. Sounds miserable, I seriously doubt they were actually "generally positive"
“How’s life in the gulag?”
“Can’t complain!”
By the time an interview ends, a candidate usually has a good sense of whether it went well or not. I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and I would never jump into this feedback mode OP describes. There's not much point in giving positive feedback if they're already feeling good about the interview. If you give someone negative feedback (no matter how constructive) they're going to get defensive and want to plead their case; but it's the end of the interview and there's no time for that. OP says people express gratitude for the feedback, but what does he expect them to do? Anyone who doesn't appreciate it still doesn't want to tank the interview by appearing ungrateful. Never play psychological games in interviews.