Who says that an "enlightened manager" is one who opens his company up to potential litigation by providing honest feedback to any rejected job applicant that wants it?
There's not a whole lot of people who are going to like what a potential employer has to say about them if they have been rejected. They have no way of gauging how someone will react and there is virtually zero benefit to providing any feedback whatsoever. This has nothing to do with management style; it's just common sense.
Who says that an "enlightened manager" is one who opens his company up to potential litigation by providing honest feedback to any rejected job applicant that wants it?
Potential litigation? Given that (1) I would have absolutely no legal leg to stand on, and (2) I'd rather get another job and advance my career than spend a year suing someone, blackballing myself in the process: why would I possibly do that? If that thought even went through anyone's mind, I'm insulted, because I'd have to be an idiot to try to pull that off.
If your legal strategy, regarding someone who has absolutely no incentive (and plenty of counterincentives) to sue you, comes before your humanity, there's something wrong.
They have no way of gauging how someone will react and there is virtually zero benefit to providing any feedback whatsoever.
There's no benefit to helping out someone who applied to work at your company and might be doing something of interest to you in the future? Really?
Potential litigation? Given that (1) I would have absolutely no legal leg to stand on, and (2) I'd rather get another job and advance my career than spend a year suing someone, blackballing myself in the process: why would I possibly do that? If that thought even went through anyone's mind, I'm insulted, because I'd have to be an idiot to try to pull that off.
All of your suppositions assume that the potential employer knows and understands all of your motivations! They don't. Maybe you're a wonderful, stand-up guy. But maybe you're not. They have no way of knowing for sure. So it's only natural for them to assume that some applicants may give them grief if they provide an "honest answer" as to why that particular applicant was not hired. Whether or not you, specifically would cause them grief is totally and completely irrelevant unless, perhaps, they have an explicit reason to believe that you, specifically wouldn't cause them grief. Can you provide any reason that you, specifically should be treated differently than all other applicants who they interview, including the ones who would cause them grief if they were told exactly why they were not hired?
On the topic of litigation, even if you didn't have a leg to stand on legally (which may or may not be true), even launching a frivolous legal claim against them can be annoying and costly to them. They still have to grab a lawyer to advise them on the matter and they still have to defend themselves against anything you may or may not bring forward, frivolous or not.
There's no benefit to helping out someone who applied to work at your company and might be doing something of interest to you in the future? Really?
Really! Fog Creek undoubtedly receives a veritable plethora of job applications. The chances that you specifically will be of great interest to them in the future outside the scope of being employed with their company is slim as a matter of probability, assuming that you don't already have some kind of working relationship with their company. If you do already have a working relationship with Fog Creek, you should take this issue up with them directly instead of on Hacker News.
There's not a whole lot of people who are going to like what a potential employer has to say about them if they have been rejected. They have no way of gauging how someone will react and there is virtually zero benefit to providing any feedback whatsoever. This has nothing to do with management style; it's just common sense.