Provide feedback whenever possible, particularly if a candidate has gone through multiple interviews and/or work tests.
I expect that a major reason employers don’t like doing this is because hiring is a very imperfect science. Even the best hiring processes regularly result in rejecting qualified applicants for pretty stupid reasons.
I’m curious if you had any interviewees who received feedback that they thought was dumb and how it influenced their perception of the employer? I have a vague sense that people do actually feel better after having been informed that they were rejected for an arbitrary/ stupid reason, but I’m not sure if this is actually true.
You’re absolutely right. And not even for “stupid” reasons per se. As an employer I’ve found myself considering several finalists for a job and all 3 are great and can do the work...but at the end of the day, there can be only one hire and I just have to pick. It’s nothing personal. Where I think people are getting hung up is not necessarily feedback on why they didn’t get hired for a specific role, but not knowing what will help them improve their success rate in the job search overall. Because we all want to improve.
Looking back at my notes, I think what I observed across the interviews was that being ignored or getting a formulaic email reply was associated with feeling slightly antagonistic toward the employer (from what I can gather). Getting any kind of personalized feedback was appreciated, even if it wasn’t ultimately that useful. So I guess that kind of supports your theory that giving a stupid reason is better than no reason.
Personally, I’ll share that the most helpful feedback I got was from Charity Entrepreneurship (now called something else), after I explicitly asked for it. They said I wasn’t creative enough in my final interview and that was a core skill required for incubating a charity. I consequently stopped considering entrepreneurship as a pathway and refocused my energies toward finding a job, which was a big relief and (I think) helped me get hired faster.
Thanks for doing this research!
I expect that a major reason employers don’t like doing this is because hiring is a very imperfect science. Even the best hiring processes regularly result in rejecting qualified applicants for pretty stupid reasons.
I’m curious if you had any interviewees who received feedback that they thought was dumb and how it influenced their perception of the employer? I have a vague sense that people do actually feel better after having been informed that they were rejected for an arbitrary/ stupid reason, but I’m not sure if this is actually true.
You’re absolutely right. And not even for “stupid” reasons per se. As an employer I’ve found myself considering several finalists for a job and all 3 are great and can do the work...but at the end of the day, there can be only one hire and I just have to pick. It’s nothing personal. Where I think people are getting hung up is not necessarily feedback on why they didn’t get hired for a specific role, but not knowing what will help them improve their success rate in the job search overall. Because we all want to improve.
Looking back at my notes, I think what I observed across the interviews was that being ignored or getting a formulaic email reply was associated with feeling slightly antagonistic toward the employer (from what I can gather). Getting any kind of personalized feedback was appreciated, even if it wasn’t ultimately that useful. So I guess that kind of supports your theory that giving a stupid reason is better than no reason.
Personally, I’ll share that the most helpful feedback I got was from Charity Entrepreneurship (now called something else), after I explicitly asked for it. They said I wasn’t creative enough in my final interview and that was a core skill required for incubating a charity. I consequently stopped considering entrepreneurship as a pathway and refocused my energies toward finding a job, which was a big relief and (I think) helped me get hired faster.