The candidate pool was much stronger than expected
This one can be sent to every applicant and still provides very useful information. It tells me that my expectations of the hiring bar might have been correct in the past. However, the market has changed and I should adjust my expectations.
For this one, concreteness is essential. One hiring manager phrased it like, “We had to reject many exceptional candidates that would have been instant hires a few years ago. Everyone did well on our take-home test that we thought impossible to complete within the 3 hours.”
Literally any feedback about final stage interviews.
I worry a ton about my final-stage interview performance. Partly this is a me-issue but I think there are structural reasons why final-stage interviews are so nerve-wracking.
They’re the most important to do well in. I can be a marginal candidate in every stage before that. The 20th best resume can still get a HR phone screen. The 10th best HR phone screen can still get a work trial. The 5th best work trial can still get a final interview. But only the top 1-3 candidates in a final interview can realistically expect an offer.
They’re the type of interview I have the least experience with. By definition, final stage interviews are at the end of the funnel so I’m going to have a lot less of them.
They’re oftentimes my first chance to interact with my potential coworkers and managers. And unless I already have contacts in that organization, I won’t know the professional norms or idiosyncratic expectations. This criteria is usually implicit and hard to figure out on my own.
One piece of feedback I really liked went like, “Your interview was very good and I have no doubt you could learn the skills very quickly. We just had someone else who had already done the work.”
The candidate pool was much stronger than expected
This one can be sent to every applicant and still provides very useful information. It tells me that my expectations of the hiring bar might have been correct in the past. However, the market has changed and I should adjust my expectations.
For this one, concreteness is essential. One hiring manager phrased it like, “We had to reject many exceptional candidates that would have been instant hires a few years ago. Everyone did well on our take-home test that we thought impossible to complete within the 3 hours.”
Literally any feedback about final stage interviews.
I worry a ton about my final-stage interview performance. Partly this is a me-issue but I think there are structural reasons why final-stage interviews are so nerve-wracking.
They’re the most important to do well in. I can be a marginal candidate in every stage before that. The 20th best resume can still get a HR phone screen. The 10th best HR phone screen can still get a work trial. The 5th best work trial can still get a final interview. But only the top 1-3 candidates in a final interview can realistically expect an offer.
They’re the type of interview I have the least experience with. By definition, final stage interviews are at the end of the funnel so I’m going to have a lot less of them.
They’re oftentimes my first chance to interact with my potential coworkers and managers. And unless I already have contacts in that organization, I won’t know the professional norms or idiosyncratic expectations. This criteria is usually implicit and hard to figure out on my own.
One piece of feedback I really liked went like, “Your interview was very good and I have no doubt you could learn the skills very quickly. We just had someone else who had already done the work.”
These are great concrete examples, thank you so much for adding them!