How *not* to respond to interview feedback
Posted: Thu, 10 October 2013 | permalink | 2 Comments
Seen at $DAYJOB, from a candidate we rejected due to a pretty poor
showing in a phone interview:
May I suggest that your company puts in place a more effective way of interviewing potential candidates. Please pass this to comment to your senior management so they may look at improving this process.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a clear confirmation that our interviewing process is working as intended. While we hire for smart people who don’t meekly accept the status quo, we’d prefer it if our staff don’t “mouth off” when things don’t go their way. Customers tend to frown on such outbursts.
2 Comments
From: Anon
2013-10-13 21:34
Outbursts? That was a very polite and respectful remark the candidate made. So much for “don’t meekly accept the status quo”.
From: Matt Palmer
2013-10-14 07:38
Anon, there’s a difference between “not meekly accept the status quo” and “rant and rave when things don’t go your way”. Is this the kind of thing that would carry over into dealings with customers? Perhaps I should have quoted more of the candidate’s response – it went on at some length. Also recall that this was sent after we’d already said “no thanks”, and provided detailed feedback about where we felt the candidate had not met our requirements.
Rest assured, I know the feelings that cause people to do this. I’ve been the candidate who let fly at what was truly a screwed-up interviewing process (the internal recruiter flat out lied to me), and rejected a job offer with some, shall we say, “choice words”. When my circumstances later changed, and I decided perhaps I’d be OK working for them, I found myself blacklisted. This wasn’t a company that anyone would consider “old school”, either – it’s one of the tech giants.
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