We put a lot of time and energy into interviewing, so giving feedback is the least an interviewer can do.
What is Feedback?
During my y...
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Hi Abbey,
I have learned not to trust technical interviews, and much less the feedback, but that is probably because I am a senior developer.
All too often, I am being interviewed by developers much younger than me, which is not a problem for me (however it might sound). Inevitably, the feedback I receive and the manner in which the interview is conducted betrays a hidden agenda.
"Bitter old man" you might be thinking, and you might be right, but you have to question how I can keep a senior position for 20 years yet fail a technical interview.
Staying technical after 50 is a challenge.
Interesting, can you elaborate on that ?
Feedback: "Candidate was not technically competent" - really! Just because I did not answer their questions in a manner that aligned to their check list or level of understanding.
Hidden agenda: "Not wanting to take on someone with more experience, who might usurp their position on the team".
That's ego-based recruiting.
There are two kind of this :
I had similar experience few years ago, the interviewer who just graduated from college asked me 'tell us about yourself'?
He cut me short like okay 'we hear you' ๐๐๐ He looked frightened or threatened. After that time, I would request for the interviewer's name/information and do some research on them ahead. I sometimes advise the recruiter to get someone at my level so that they will understand my responsibilities and experiences or I might just decline the interview, my time is precious!
"Tell us about yourself" is a bad question that reveals a lack of training...
I am really interested in the topic right now, I coach CTO to give better feedback when a good candidate isn't a goot fit for them right now.
Would you mind to describe what the best feedback you got looked like ?
I went into trying to get my first developer job with a mindset I don't think many people have. I saw so many excellent candidates rejected for trivial reasons while in staffing. I had an excellent mentor who stressed that getting the first job has a lot to do with luck. Her advice was to treat every interview as practice for the one that worked.
As a result, I never anticipated getting negative feedback that would help me fix anything about the way I interview. Every interview is different. What one interviewer wants may be the opposite of what another wants. I took negative feedback on my technical skills seriously at first and then only really paid attention if it was a whiteboard-style interview. I stopped doing leetcode-style interview steps and job board assessments by the end.
I focused mostly on the positive feedback and using the feedback process to network.
The positive feedback often just reinforced the timing wasn't right, which softened the rejection and gave me a little confidence. I had one hiring manager confirm I should hold out for a development role rather than try to leverage my customer service experience. One time I managed to get a mid-level interview. The hiring manager offered to be a reference in my interviews with other companies and shared that they took an extra week to try and find a way to support a junior dev. Both helped me keep chugging along in the job search marathon.
As for networking - After getting feedback like "there are more experienced candidates", I would often ask if there another role I would be a fit for (open now or opening soon). That sometimes turned into referrals. I found myself in more than one interview where we knew it wasn't a good fit before it was over. By the time those ended I had leads on other roles and the interviewer often had promised to pass my resume around.
That's a brillant way to put it.
I am doing career coaching for developers at the moment, and that the message I wanted to give but I couldn't explain it so well. I will steal the line :)
Thanks for your message
I'm a week late to the Comment party but as an engineer who crossed over to the dark side into leading all aspects of recruiting - especially technical, but here's the one question that everyone might want to ask at the beginning of the interview process:
Do you have an assessment rubric and has every interviewer been adequately trained on how to use it?
Okay there's another question if they answer yes:
Will you be sharing this with me?
.
I know, I know - no rubric is perfect but it's still far better than "feelings"...
If you're feeling extra bold โ and as engineers, I know you are โ also ask for the 3-5 most important criteria that go into the final hire/don't hire decision.
Steve
linkedin.com/in/levyrecruits
Spot on.
I frequently tell people to remember it's just another human on the other side of the table and they probably weren't trained to interview. ๐คฃ
Hi Abbey, thank you for sharing, this is really nice and I can relate to every single word you said. The job market is scary these days
Very nice post. You have mostly good advice in here. One of your suggestions is not likely to have any positive impact though. Specifically, you indicated:
When a candidate tells me how many other interviews they have, I ignore it. It is meaningless to me. It might be a real number. It might be fake and just a ploy to try to speed things up. I have no way to know the difference.
Your post then continued with:
That may or may not be true. And regardless of whether or not it is true for a particular organization, you risk annoying them. Trying to rush a hiring decision can potentially backfire.
It had positive impact for hundreds of candidates when I was their point of contact pushing to get them to the next interview step. This is how it works in the staffing industry. Every point of contact who was good at their job asked me this question when I was an interviewee. Same goes for the advice about multiple offers. It helped me, several of my tech mentees, and many of my candidates get better compensation.
Assuming the interviewee is lying about interview processes is an interesting stance to take. A lot of candidates don't even know they can do this. If I, as an interviewee, was treated like I was lying for stating the truth, I would decline to continue in the process.
Yes - in the offer section I mention they may choose to cancel the interview over speeding the process up.
We are literally not allowed to ask candidates about this. And also not allowed to consider it if a candidate offers such information without being asked.
Ignoring unverifiable statements is not the same as assuming someone is lying.
Wait, so your whole point is it's irrelevant, but just talking about it may be annoying, and that's enough to negatively affect their application?
If telling the truth about interview processes reflects negatively on the candidate, I'd say a rejection is a company culture bullet dodged. I've seen companies rescind offers for asking questions before accepting. I'm not going to say don't ask questions before accepting an offer. I'm going to say anything you do in an interview process could backfire and that reflects more on the company/hiring manager than it does the candidate.
I said that "I ignore it" and that it is "meaningless" to me. And that I'm not allowed to ask about it, or to consider it if they offer the info. I did not say that it affects them negatively.
Whether or not someone has other offers or where they are in interview process for other organizations is irrelevant to their qualifications for the position. And irrelevant to the qualifications of other candidates being considered for the position.
interesting
Thank you for sharing some helpful tips on how to get feedback.
Here in India most of the times the recruiters dont even reply to the mails.