The legal risks consist almost entirely of situations where there is reasonable cause to suspect that the applicant has been discriminated due to some protected characteristic. In these situations the hiring party is incentivized to maximally control information in order to minimize potential evidence. Feedback could act as legal ammunition for the benefit of the discriminated candidate.
Because hiring organisations gain very little from giving feedback and instead lose time, effort, and assume more risk when doing it; it’s very common to forbid recruiters and interviewers from giving feedback entirely. Exaggerating the legal risks provides an effective explanation for doing this. The rule is typically absolute because otherwise recruiters may be tempted to give feedback out of niceness or a desire to help rejected candidates.
Also, Google’s interpretation of the law is almost certainly made from Google’s perspective and for Google’s benefit — not from the perspective of what is the desired outcome of the law; or even more importantly, what is the underlying issue and how should we be trying to solve it to make the world better.
The legal risks consist almost entirely of situations where there is reasonable cause to suspect that the applicant has been discriminated due to some protected characteristic. In these situations the hiring party is incentivized to maximally control information in order to minimize potential evidence. Feedback could act as legal ammunition for the benefit of the discriminated candidate.
Because hiring organisations gain very little from giving feedback and instead lose time, effort, and assume more risk when doing it; it’s very common to forbid recruiters and interviewers from giving feedback entirely. Exaggerating the legal risks provides an effective explanation for doing this. The rule is typically absolute because otherwise recruiters may be tempted to give feedback out of niceness or a desire to help rejected candidates.
Also, Google’s interpretation of the law is almost certainly made from Google’s perspective and for Google’s benefit — not from the perspective of what is the desired outcome of the law; or even more importantly, what is the underlying issue and how should we be trying to solve it to make the world better.