Error

I applied to OpenPhil in early 2019, but was rejected after multiple trial tasks. I asked for feedback and got a short feedback statement in response (1-2 short paragraphs). While I was a little frustrated at the minimal feedback, the work trials were very well-compensated, and I didn’t ultimately feel like I was being hard-done-by by not getting detailed feedback.

In the end, if the trial task is paid at a reasonable rate, I don’t think it is or should be a requirement for organisations to offer detailed feedback to candidates. “We buy your time for a trial task” seems like a fair deal to me, and in-depth feedback should be considered a nice extra. If costly feedback obligations caused orgs to make changes to their hiring process (e.g. trialling fewer candidates, putting less emphasis on trial tasks, or paying candidates less for their time) I expect I would usually think those changes weren’t worth it.

When I ran two recruiting rounds for Open Philanthropy in ~2018, IIRC our policy was to offer feedback to those who requested it and made it past a certain late stage of the process, but not to everyone, because we had >1000 applicants and couldn’t afford the time to write custom feedback for anywhere near that many people. Not sure what our current practice is.

In 2020, I got to the interview stage of FHI’s research scholar selection and did not get in. They offered me a feedback call. I took up their offer and spoke with Max Daniel for ~40 min. He not only gave me insightful feedback about my performance in the process—to the best of his knowledge—but also gave me some career advice, which ended up taking up most of the 40 min. I’m not sure if this was done with everyone who got to the stage I did, but it left me with a great feeling (for a rejection) and boosted my motivation.

In 2022 I applied to the marketing department of 80000 Hours. After a compensated ²⁄₃ day (I can’t remember) work test, which ultimately did not get me the job, I was offered a feedback call. I instead requested the feedback in an email and received detailed feedback.

Animal Advocacy Careers: with each of our hiring rounds so far (three), when we send emails to people who were invited to submit test tasks or interviews but who we’re not moving forward with their applications, we say that we can provide personalised feedback if they’d like.

A surprisingly low proportion of people seem to ask for it. (Maybe half?)

When we send out these emails, we also try to give a quick sense of the common strengths of our top candidates, plus the number of people who applied or made it to the stage they made it to, in case that context helps.

Thanks for doing this work. I think for hiring being important, we don’t talk about the actual process enough. Great article!

N=1, but when I applied to Longview Philanthropy, I received some feedback upon request after my work trial.

Applied for OPP strategy role during Sumer 2021 and received no feedback in first and second test task round. Wasn’t disapointed, because it was well-compensated.

On a different note however: this is one of the largest advantages I see coming from an EA recruitment agency that would be able to give feedback to EA candidates. It feels like quite a miss I didn’t get it, since I have to do very similar work for my own organisation Training For Good. Maybe there is something really obvious I can improve on, but due to the lack of feedback I don’t know what.

As someone who just went through a bunch of these, this list sounds like it could be really useful!

Giving What We Can recently did some hiring, and we gave the option for applicants who reached the work trial stage to receive unedited, anonymously graded reviewer feedback. We also look to work with people who scored well in the work trials on a contract basis.

For Longview, we provide feedback after work tasks on request.