Great point. Having been on both sides of the hiring table, I can tell you that the candidate has no idea what we use to make decisions, because the candidate has no visibility into our internal issues.
Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some kind of clue. Which is 99% wrong.
Some examples to give you an idea:
- we like you, you did well at the interview. But we have one position open right now, and Joe, who is the star engineer at our competitor, is making signs that he'd be willing to finally join us. We have been courting him for two years. So we put your application on hold, until Joe makes a move. Nothing you can do, and we sure won't tell you, in case Joe doesn't jump ship, and then we call you back as if nothing had happened.
- we like you, but we are about to close a new contract in the middle of Texas. If that contract closes, we'll need to hire someone ASAP there, instead of here. So while technically the position we have is here, we are waiting just a bit to see if the contract closes and if we need to shift our hiring. We should know this week, so no point in telling you anything. One week later, it turns out the contract is not signed yet, but it looks really close. Let's wait another week, we should know for sure by then... A month goes by...
I made an account just to say as a frustrated person on a job search right now with pretty good qualifications what you are doing is silly.
BOTH of your examples are things that in no way whatsoever make you liable legally and you have no reason not to tell the candidate in either situation. You could literally tell the candidate even vaguely that there might be issues that will take awhile to clear up before the company can make a hiring decision. You can vaguely say that these are based on internal business processes that you aren't at liberty to explain.
Please TELL the candidate that they did well and you would hire them and might be interested in hiring them in the future if not for 'vague thing that lets the candidate know it is the company and not you'. This is incredibly frustrating and there is no reason for lying about it.
Saying "I'm sorry, there's nothing you can do to make these problems go away" would cause me to give up on the interview process and look else where. I can't see a benefit for the company to let the interviewee know what is going on behind closed doors.
There's a talent shortage and employers hesitate giving information that would potentially close doors.
My recommendation: If they delay or have excuses then don't bother. How they treat you before is how they treat you after. My rule for professional communications is 24-72 hours.
Those are the most frustrating reasons. You wonder why people hate finding a job, its because of people like you doing this type of nonsense. Figure out what you want and need before wasting people's time.
From the perspective of running several consulting/job-shop types of business, this happens all the time from clients/customers/prospects (who are effectively employers, and are in very analogous positions here).
We'll be going along through the process of sales, project definition, quoting, etc, and then all of a sudden they just go silent. No reason, no explanation, just ghosted. For days, weeks or months.
Then, suddenly, with no warning or explanation, they call/email again, and the process picks up as if not a day has passed -- the only difference is often they are in a bigger rush and want the project more. (seen similar with VCs too)
So what happened? Almost anything. Other business have their own priorities, and their own fires to put out, and can often quickly get distracted from a project.
The difference is one of perspective. For us the employee or service provider, this job is a critical priority. For them, it's one of many, even for top priority projects.
It's just not the same sense of urgency from different sides of the table. I've learned (after way too much anxiety) to just accept and ignore it -- mostly.
And the times I couldn't just ignore it and felt that I had to do something, and only barely managed to hold myself back? Almost always glad I played it cool (even if I wasn't cool inside my head).
Actually, I haven't found that to be the case with this phenomena -- as soon as they return, they are eager, engaged, respectful, and often write large checks, and there's no diff in their attitude on projects that have a sales process gap and those that don't.
I just don't put this int the category of disrespect, but of "they've probably got their own problems, so I ought to have a bit of compassion".
(If I put any unannounced hiatus in the sales process in the disrespect category, I'd have very few clients left, as I generally fire clients that treat us with any significant disrespect.)
It'd certainly be nicer if they were more forthcoming, but I've seen it in two industries, software & manufacturing, and it just seems that
1) they're writing the checks and determining the schedule, and
2) their schedule is often determined by THEIR clients, and when that has a hiccough, the entire downstream supply chain gets a cold.
I've just found it better for everyone to be sanguine.
Don’t assume parent is making this decision on their own, or even at all (inspite of using the proverbial “we”). Most of us are just caught up in the system with little recourse to go against it.
Of course, if you are using a proverbial “you”, my comment doesn’t apply.
> Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some kind of clue. Which is 99% wrong.
I've applied to jobs that required a long and tedious hiring process and in the end unfortunatley I didn't get hired, but I also had nice HR drones contacting me to provide a thorough review of my application.
Regardless of your decision process, if you don't give any feedback to those job seekers you turned down then you are the problem. The reason why candidates overanalyze stuff is because you left a wide gaping hole by providing no feedback.
> The reason why candidates overanalyze stuff is because you left a wide gaping hole by providing no feedback.
Moving the goalpost to more specific information, weakens the employer position. Now they are no longer interviewing potentially qualified people, but interviewing people trying to intentionally pass themselves off as specializing in a few skills. Weak hiring practices are the norm, so the strategy of hiding information (the most valuable skills) benefits the employers. People are very good at faking skills at a cursory (or specific depth, like side projects), which is part of the reason Headhunters are derided, prepping both sides to fail for their own commission.
Frankly, I don't want the interviewer's feedback. There's a lot of superstition in hiring people because of how much luck is involved, meaning that there's a good chance that the reason they decided not to hire you is completely meaningless.
Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some kind of clue. Which is 99% wrong.
Some examples to give you an idea:
- we like you, you did well at the interview. But we have one position open right now, and Joe, who is the star engineer at our competitor, is making signs that he'd be willing to finally join us. We have been courting him for two years. So we put your application on hold, until Joe makes a move. Nothing you can do, and we sure won't tell you, in case Joe doesn't jump ship, and then we call you back as if nothing had happened.
- we like you, but we are about to close a new contract in the middle of Texas. If that contract closes, we'll need to hire someone ASAP there, instead of here. So while technically the position we have is here, we are waiting just a bit to see if the contract closes and if we need to shift our hiring. We should know this week, so no point in telling you anything. One week later, it turns out the contract is not signed yet, but it looks really close. Let's wait another week, we should know for sure by then... A month goes by...
etc.