One great piece of advice an informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection.
That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process.
Having been on the hiring side of the interview table now many more times than on the seeking side, I can say that this is totally true.
One of the biggest misconceptions I see from job seekers, especially younger ones, is to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired. It's simply not true. Frequently more than one good applicant applies for a single open role, and the hiring team has to choose among them. In that case, you could "pass" and still not get the job and the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better.
I can only think of one instance where we had two great candidates for one role and management found a way to open another role so we could hire both. In a few other cases, we had people whom we liked but didn't choose and we forwarded their resumes to other teams who had open roles we thought would fit, but most of the time it's just, "sorry."
This. I've hired in a number of roles, in several industries, and what they've all had in common is that rejection is never personal.
My first career was in theatre, which a) is (or at least was, back in the day?) much more competitive than tech - par was one callback (ie, second screening) per 100 auditions, and one casting per 10 callbacks; and b) is genuinely, deeply vulnerable - you have to bring your whole self into your work, in a way that you don't in any other field.
It's still never personal, and actors who don't develop thick skins wash out quickly.
I once auditioned three rounds for Romeo, at a company I really liked, and thought I'd killed it. I didn't get the role, and was pretty bummed (particularly since - actors are nothing but petty - I didn't much like the performance by the guy who did). Six months later the casting director button-holed me after seeing another show I was in, and told me I'd been their first choice, and he was sorry they'd not been able to cast me. The trouble was, he said, their only good choice for Juliette was at least a foot shorter than I am, and there was no way that wouldn't have looked awkward.
It's never personal.
Furthermore, that "failed" audition directly led to two later jobs, and I think indirectly to a third. Having a good interview, even in a situation where you don't achieve the immediate goal, can only be good for you - both by developing your own skills, and for creating a reputation for competence within your industry.
Hey, my first "career" was also in theater!
Strong agreement. I can confirm for other readers that the day I realized this --- "Oh, rejection means nothing!" --- was a weird day. It takes a weight off.
And it is true across every other field. There are way more factors external to the "you" of the decision, and they're given more weight than the "you" of the decision. This is one of those cases where you only need to experience the "other side of the table" once for it to click.
Companies that are more humane in their hiring practices (even just actually send a rejection email vs. ghosting) deserve a bit of credit, because caring for the applicant is not a KPI.
Hey! Good to meet a fellow artist. I made it to 40 before I sold out. You?
One thing outsiders don't understand is that, for actors, auditioning IS the job. Getting cast, and working on a show, is a joy (some more than others, of course!), but the rest of your life is nothing, nothing but looking for work.
The were two things that made that "it's all cool" shift happen for me. The first is that once I'd been in the industry long enough I could pretty much guarantee that when I went in for an audition I'd see someone I knew, or at least with whom I had an immediate second-degree connection. Auditions stopped being a grind, or mainly about courting rejection - instead, they became an opportunity to hang out with some cool people for a while. I started looking forward to them!
The second was realizing that choosing and performing my audition pieces was the only time that I was in complete control. No one was telling me what to do or how to do it: I could make my own choices, and take whatever creative risks I wanted.
I think both of those approaches made me a much better auditionee than most. My batting average was a lot higher than most of my peers - even some that I thought were better actors.
I don't know how well those insights generalize. I've never (thank god!) had to do leet-code, but I'd hope that (though maybe only in a second screening?) taking a creative approach - if you can talk about it sensibly, and pivot if it doesn't ultimately work - would impress fellow engineers. I strongly believe that adopting a "what can I learn from this experience, and these people?" mindset is a good way to reduce the pressure you'd otherwise put on yourself.
> I made it to 40 before I sold out.
Do you mean you sold out in the arts or in the sense that you changed careers? If the former, I’d be curious to hear (well, read) the story since that’s not an admission one typically encounters.
I changed careers. Wrote a bit about it here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44699388
I never met a professional with a conceptual category of "selling out" within the industry. Scraping together any kind of living in the arts is a massive struggle, so everyone takes "money jobs" when they can get them. During my 10 or 12 years as a working actor I had two consecutive years during which my sole income was from performing, and maybe a couple of other other five or six month periods where I was able to drop restaurant (or whatever other) gigs for a tour. This was in the early-'oughts, and I'd have to look at my social security records to be sure, but my income during those years was somewhere around $30k. I was single, and really, really good at being poor.
By the way, that's like a 98th percentile result for an actor. Most people never come close to making a living, however meagre.
There's an old, old interview (maybe Michael Parkinson? Don't remember) with Joss Ackland - a wonderful mid-twentieth century British character actor, on stage and screen - where the interviewer asks him why the hell he did some crappy science fiction film, and Ackland says something like "that was 1962? Oh, yes. Well, my mother needed a new kitchen." No actor will ever fault him for that!
What does disappoint me is seeing actors with tremendous talent who take nothing but money jobs. I get why they do it - especially for the ones at the top of the commercial heap it'd be awfully hard to say 'no' to an easy gig that comes with a boatload of cash - but I can't help but feel sad that I'll never get to see them working at their best.
Even so, my response when I see a truly bad film is generally a shrug: "a lot of actors [and associated professionals / craft services] got paid." The artists among them will learn from even that experience, and many (many many) among them will invest that income back into doing work that they believe in.
I'm a computer engineer, EMT, and firefighter. I have scooped up brain matter from hot asphalt and run into burning buildings (without even getting paid for it). People ask me how I can do this. I dunno. Training and experience I guess. Doesn't bother me.
But the idea of standing on a stage pretending to be someone else fills me with sheer terror. Even worse would be trying out for that job 100 times and getting rejected every time.
I don't know how actors do it. My hat's off to you.
It's all a matter of perspective. My uncle once brought his kids to see a big show I was in, and afterwards said just what you did. I looked at him, genuinely surprised, and said something like "dude, you're a surgeon. If I screw up at work 2,000 people laugh at me, and forget about it five minutes later; if you screw up at work, someone dies. You really think I should be the one feeling nervous?"
You're right about training and experience, though. I screwed up on stage (in loads of tiny ways, not usually perceptible to anyone but me) every time I ever stepped onto one, and in big ways lots and lots of times as well. But, you know, I always knew that I (with my castmates' help) would get out of it. Failure is inevitable, and it doesn't matter. In fact, if you haven't failed somehow, in at least some small way, then you either don't know what you're doing, or you aren't trying hard enough to succeed.
Also, when I was training young actors I always told them that they will never experience such unconditional love as when they first step in front of an audience. Those people have given at least their time and maybe their money to see you - don't you think they want you to succeed? They're rooting for you, none more so.
To bring this back to the larger subject of the thread, I think all of that's also true of every job interview any of us will ever attend, or conference paper we'll ever deliver. It'll never be perfect, and that's just fine.
I once got an emergency call to a theatre where a fight scene mishap left an actress punched out cold. There's less opportunity for harm in entertainment relative to medicine but it does happen sometimes.
You're right, and oh my god: don't get me started on the abysmal safety record of theatres, particularly towards the non-union end of the scale. I never got a fight director credential, but I was competent, and served as fight captain on any number of shows. 1.) Unarmed fights are the most dangerous type of scene, but also the most likely to be treated cavalierly by people who don't know any better. 2.) There are safe ways to do (just about) everything. A company that can't afford to hire a qualified fight director shouldn't stage fight scenes. Period. End of story.
I've literally walked out of shows (as an audience member) where it's been clear that the actors are doing unsafe things, because I didn't want to see happen what you showed up to. Thanks for being there, and I hope that woman was OK.
She was alert when we got there. We took her in as a precaution/for observation. Don't know what happened after that but the loss of consciousness was brief so she was probably fine.
Hey!! Thanks for sharing this.
Your message and the child comment really has given me a perspective that I didn't have before.
Something Very practically stoic about it.
It's never personal
You never screened candidates who couldn’t act their way out of a wet paper bag?
Of course I have. I'm thinking of a couple of them right now, and I admire the hell out of them: it took courage to get up there and do what they did. I wasn't going to cast them in that show, right then, but within the limits of the time available I did my best to help them improve. I hoped they did, and I wished them nothing but the best.
I'm glad you brought that up, because it might be the exception that proves the rule. Those auditions did feel more personal, but it was entirely benign: I was rooting for them to succeed, and really felt for them when it became obvious (especially to them) that they had not.
Maybe it's not like that with other fields, or other companies, or other people - but if not, then that's not somewhere anyone should have to work. There's no incompatibility between high standards and human decency.
A colleague rejected a candidate this week after said candidate posted ten lines of code into a clipboard all at once and then claimed to have written it one line at a time. When challenged, he further claimed my colleague's zoom session lagged which is why he missed it.
Of course. But I've screened far more out because I was in a rush and got 40 resumes in that day and they just didn't pique my interest as much as the next one over.
> there is no information in a rejection
Building on that: There's a few reasons why a company won't explain why they reject a candidate.
One of the reasons is that they don't want candidates to "game" the system, because it makes it hard to screen for the people they want to hire.
Another reason is that often rejections are highly subjective, and telling a candidate that "we didn't hire you because of X" could be highly insulting.
Finally, quite often candidates are rejected because the people hiring ultimately are looking for people they will get along with. It doesn't matter how smart someone is, if something about the working relationship causes friction, the team dynamic can quickly devolve. (And to be quite frank, in these situations the candidate will probably have a better job working elsewhere.) These kinds of rejections are highly subjective, so no one really wants to give a candidate feedback.
These are all likely enough to contribute, but there's one big one.
If you don't say anything at all, the applicant has nothing to go on for a lawsuit against you.
If you say anything, and the applicant is a malicious litigant, you just became a potential paycheck via settlement.
If you're hiring a dozen people a year, you can probably ignore this. If you're hiring hundreds or thousands, and thus many times that number of applicants, you're going to step on that landmine eventually. Better then to have a company-wide policy "no feedback ever"
I hear this about lawsuits a lot, but it doesn't really track for me. If a hiring manager says, "we decided to pass on you because you didn't go in depth as much as we hoped on how you would handle latency," why does that open the company up to a lawsuit anymore than no answer?
I could see if the feedback was "we wanted someone who better fit the culture," but giving a specific answer on a core hiring criteria doesn't seem like it would cause a problem.
In reality, I think the most likely reason is what others have mentioned, that candidates would argue the point.
I've been hiring people for a while and I use my "common sense" to violate conventions because of humanity, but I think you'd be surprised how defensive it becomes.
I always tell people why they didn't pass the interview, or why we didn't select them. Usually in a reasonably detailed way.
A plurality of individuals have tried to argue with me, that I didn't understand them (which, if true, could be a communication issue and thus: still an issue). Some try to litigate the issue (not in a court of law, but to say things like "but you didn't say that on the ad" (knowing how TCP works shouldn't be on an ad), or "I can learn" etc). A minority of those will go out of their way to hound me on social media.
My "HR" person doesn't get any of that because she gives no reason.
I'll continue to do it, because I think it's the right thing to do: but there are people in the world who disincentivise it. And after all; you're rejecting someone for a reason, so there is a higher probability that you will interface with someone who is as described: as they might not be finding work and thus circulating more and you are rejecting them for a reason... which could be related to attitude.
Indeed. The closest I've ever come to "arguing" (quotes very much intended) was when a recruiter called to give me feedback, and followed up by asking if I would like a call back if a more junior role opened up.
I told her that I respected their opinion but that I disagreed that I wasn't ready for the more senior role, and so I wasn't interested, but appreciated their time nonetheless. And I was appreciative. Although I predicted as soon as the interview was over that I wasn't getting an offer and why, having confirmation helped me refine where I messed up in the interview.
> A plurality of individuals have tried to argue with me... A minority of those will go out of their way to hound me on social media.
Which just reinforces why a rejection transitions to "no contact" most of the time. I try to make sure candidates have no contact information for this specific reason.
> If you say anything, and the applicant is a malicious litigant, you just became a potential paycheck via settlement.
Do you have examples? I know this is a real fear, but I've never heard any examples of lawsuits except for issues of discrimination due to age, gender, and ethnicity.
Right, and a malicious litigant will argue that the feedback they received represents discrimination against a protected class. It doesn't matter if they're wrong so long as you're still forced to come to court to defend it. They just offer to settle for less than what you winning in court will cost you.
The article linked in this thread claims no one has ever sued based on constructive feedback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22258113
(Not that I give it when rejecting most candidates, because I don't want to deal with an argument. In practice, I only gave constructive feedback once, and then posted it on my blog: https://blog.andrewrondeau.com/software/careers/interviewing...)
I used to provide feedback but often got candidates who were argumentative about it rather that accepting that the decision was final. This turned me off on the whole concept.
but confirmed why you rejected the candidate - which is sort of a win
Another reason is that often rejections are highly subjective, and telling a candidate that "we didn't hire you because of X" could be highly insulting.
If they've written down notes or a stance/defence in a talent management system, all they need to do is regurgitate that in my opinion. I wrote about it upthread but having done a data request under my country's privacy act, I was able to get a raw dump of all the data (PII redacted). Recommend that as best course of action if they're unwilling to provide feedback.
I can say that in some of the rejections that I got, it was quite personal.
I was old (55, at the time), and that seemed to actually upset the interviewers.
I had all the right buzzwords, but as soon as they saw my grey coiffure, the process started going sideways. Somehow, they seemed to think that a 30-year-old could have 30 years of experience.
I was treated pretty shabbily, a couple of times. It was clear that I was considered a waste of time.
I only made it to a test a few times. I failed the BTree part of one test (of course), and they didn't seem to like what I returned in a take-home, once. I also once failed a Swift test (I had just started programming in Swift), when I applied for an ObjC job. Otherwise, I did passably (but probably not outstanding) on the tests.
I don't know about you but the older I get, the less I take anything in life personal.
I've come to realize that there are so many aspects of life that are not under one's control and shaking your fist gravity doesn't accomplish anything; even more so when it comes to business and professional relationships.
One of my favorite quotes is from "Deuteronomy 18:13", or as the The Coen Brothers aptly put it:
- "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you"
I admit to getting quite pissed off, but I eventually decided that it wasn't worth it, and just retired.
I'm grateful that I had the means. Because of that, I would have been happy to take a lot less than many, if the work interested me, but it never got that far.
NBD. I've found that learning on my own is better, anyway. LLMs have been a Godsend, there.
These days, I get quite a bit done, but I do it on my own terms, and that makes all the difference.
This is what I’m working on, now[0]. Still has a ways to go, though. I should publish it next week.
My heroes are guys like Stu Nicholls and Howard Oakley. I've learned so much, since I decided to retire, and it's accelerating.
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/series/passkeys/
Not that I’m religious but I looked up that verse and don’t see how the Coen Brothers got that message from it.
I looked it up as well, because I had a guess at which famous verse it was but didn't know it by chapter/verse.
The context of the verse, based on the surrounding verses, is that "simplicity with the Lord"[0] means accepting that what happens, or what will happen in the future, is from God and there's no need to try to figure out what will be out make sense of the uncertainty of life.
I think I can relate that to the GP's quote.
[0] translation to English my own, not sure what the language you saw was. Notably, the word used in the original Hebrew[1] can be translated as "simplicity" but also "wholeness" or "completeness". Maybe that works better? Also interestingly, in contemporary Hebrew, it means "naive"...
[1] תמים
It's the Coen Brothers quoting rabbinical commentary on the verse, not interpreting the verse themselves.
[flagged]
Yeah, probably.
Cheers.
Have a great day!
> there is no information in a rejection.
The most helpful job interview I had was when the interviewer broke script and just leveled with me about how I wasn't presenting myself well. There was a shared connection (our alma mater) that must have convinced him to be straight with me instead of hiding how poorly I was doing behind a mask. The HR handbooks say that you should never let a candidate know why they were not selected, but that information can be extremely helpful.
If you're not getting offers, I strongly recommend that you find somebody you trust to do a mock interview. Let them critique your resume, cover letter, posture, awkwardness, lame handshake, etc.
In the United States, most junior/community colleges have career centers that will do this. There are also economic development boards in essentially every town with a population over 1000; they can connect you to places to do mock interviews.
Very helpful for new interviewees, whether just out of college or during a career transition.
The HR handbooks say that for good reason. Telling a candidate why they were rejected means they'll argue with you, or worse, file a lawsuit.
I have done about 75 coding interviews for big tech companies. I have told a fair number of people (around 10) that I would be submitting a no-hire, but then I went on to coach them for another 15 minutes on how they could improve. I never once heard from anyone on the subject and all the people I told were actually grateful 1) that they wouldn't be left wondering and 2) how they could pass the next one.
I'd want someone to do the same.
All it takes is 1 candidate with an axe to grind and I guarantee you'll never give feedback again.
It's fine to build a better world until then.
"Until then" means others will pay for your decision to ignore policy when it happens. It's never on the person who -- with every good intention, full of an instinct to "build a better world" -- willfully ignores the stuffy rules in handbooks and HR guidelines. Instead, when it backfires and someone does threaten to sue, it's precisely execs, HRs, legal who have to deal with it. The rules are there for good reason.
I run our hiring process and my employer is small enough that I would be personally responsible for this
Exactly. The lock analogy is flawed and a distraction. I made a local universe of how I think the world should be. I gave those people the respect I think we all deserve, and hopefully they stand up and do the same. Maybe they are in HR, or become a C-level and institute the same things.
When you comply in advance, you not only let "them" win, there isn't even a them here, just an idea of a possible threat. Fuck that. Anyone can sue for anything, you can't "do stuff so you won't get sued". Frankly, this is cowards take that lets an nebulous idea pollute your world.
We don't have to Joan of Arc or Don Quixote, we can just do the little stuff that changes culture in the direction we'd like to see it changed.
Humans are incredibly valuable across many many dimensions, not letting them know how they can improve is a massive waste and harmful to both parties.
A better world would be one with no locks on doors. But until then, I'm going to lock doors.
Plenty of people keep their doors unlocked until they get stolen from.
Sure. And they accomplished nothing.
Besides living the dream of a high-trust society?
I'm not convinced they'd prevail in court. Seems like one of those truthisms about American litigiousness that wouldn't bear out in practice.
Doesn’t matter. Simply defending against the claim costs significant money, and you can’t recover those costs.
Best to avoid the claim altogether.
Filing such a claim costs money too, and any decent lawyer will tell the claimant that he has no case.
Still dubious. I don't think miniscule risk justifies shitty behavior and making life worse for everyone.
I feel you, but there is a big difference between (a) "justification" in the overall cost versus benefit to all parties involved and (b) the narrowly self-interested thing to do.
A couple years ago I was turned down for a position after an initial screening interview because they said my writing sample didn't meet certain criteria. I felt it arguably did, but I just said "thank you for your time and consideration", and moved on. I was just glad to get a clear "no" at an early stage.
They've probably revised their policy by now, I suspect, but I appreciated that they made the effort.
Their policy will last until they're sued. All it takes is one to ruin it for everybody.
Yeah… the common connection thing is what’s at play here. This is why high-stakes introductions are done through people you know, to show that you can be trusted lest you be a social outcast.
> If you're not getting offers, I strongly recommend that you find somebody you trust to do a mock interview. Let them critique your resume, cover letter, posture, awkwardness, lame handshake, etc.
Slightly odd question but: what if it's the opposite of this?
Interviews are almost never an issue.
I would like to think (and have been told so too) that I'm both technically sharp and knowledgeable enough, and can communicate well enough. I have a firm handshake, and thanks to the ability to happily dive into topics I read up on, I can speak confidently - both on hard facts, as well as my understanding or opinion of any technical matter in my field - for hours maybe, if not longer.
But getting the interview... is.. legitimately hard. Multiple people have said my resume is quite solid, but I rarely get through beyond the base round.
Would you have any tips for just the act of getting a foot in the door, so to say? I'm reasonably optimistic I can take it from there.
(Two things I can probably change - using customized CVs (and a cover letter, where applicable), and reaching out to employees/HR at the places I'm applying at. Though that honestly seems exhausting with so many applications...)
Without any context of culture or country, just trying to be helpful: in my limited (<20 total interviews) experience, I would think about budget issues.
Meaning, what you ask for (or how expensive you are perceived, if you have that strong resumee) for the industry you apply, may be too different and leading to limited access.
Sometimes I feel junior people have it easier (I felt like I did, personally) since the expense in salary is pretty limited compared to either other roles or more senior people
Thanks! However... I am very junior right now lol (<1 YOE)
(I have applied to both competitive as well as more niche firms fwiw, I expect there have been stronger resumes I've "lost to". Though, my degree isn't a "common" one even though it's actually very suitable.)
It's not you. As a junior, there are going to be so many candidates for anything you feel qualified to apply for. It's a numbers game. IMHO, you should still tailor your resume to fit the position. I'd put together a too long resume with everything, and trim off irrelevant stuff so it's down to one page (maybe two, if that's the standard locally) of mostly relevant things for each position; when your resume does get looked at, you want it to pass muster.
Do your best to network. Think about the people you went to school with: who among them would you like to work with.
Every week, send 2-5 of them an email, remind them of what you did in school together, ask them how their summer/etc was, how are they doing at job hunting/if they like the job they found. If you don't mind looking a little desperate, in that email write something like I'm having a hard time getting interviews, have you found anything that works? If you don't wait for their reply... if they got hired, ask if their company is hiring; if they're still looking ask for tips.
Check in with your school's career center. Check in with your favorite professors.
Check in with your parents' friends and your friends' parents.
A personal connection is likely to get your resume looked at closely and not just ignored because there were 1000 applicants and 10 candidates seemed worth interviewing in the first 100, so they didn't look at the rest. It might not get you an interview, but it helps your chances; also, a personal connection might get a referral to an unrelated opening which is unlikely for an unconnected application. I would definitely send a friend's kid to another friend at a different company if I thought that was a potential match, but I wouldn't consider it for a resume that just came in.
I would also guess that in at least >50% of cases your application is never given a fair shot for random reasons. I remember when a company that I was working at was doing intern interviews, they would almost always run out of time to do interviews (this was back when interviews were in person), so they would pick 2-3 schools that they had time to get to (proximity * prestige was the factor there) and everyone else got a blanket rejection.
Maybe it’s because my school wasn't on that list, but I remember feeling like if I got rejected like that I would very much feel like I wasn’t good enough. But it was essentially random.
This is such an insightful take. As someone who has interviewed many candidates, I wholeheartedly agree. While it's important to reflect on how you can improve, it's also critical to maintain morale and become comfortable with rejection during the job hunt. One of the biggest obstacles I've seen; whether with friends, family, or candidates; is the tendency to internalize rejection as a sense of being inherently 'bad.' Of course, once you internalize this belief, any motivation to study is gone. It can be challenging to help people see that this negative self-talk has become the primary barrier to their success.
My recommendation to people is to apply for jobs you know you won't get while also applying for jobs you want. Exposure to rejection really does help take the sting out of the process.
> Of course, once you internalize this belief, any motivation to study is gone
This is definitely not a universal truth.
I know that if I had done better in every interview then I would’ve moved ahead and gotten the job. I guess that’s a different way of saying I was “bad” (not good enough). And it doesn’t affect my motivation in a negative way. I find that it actually helps me want to improve more.
I agree with your sentiment, but what you're referring to is "I'm not good at this task yet" which is different from "I am inherently incapable/inferior". The first can motivate, the second does not- this is supported by a large body of pedagogical research.
https://opentext.wsu.edu/theoreticalmodelsforteachingandrese...
> the tendency to internalize rejection as a sense of being inherently 'bad.‘
OK so just avoid this tendency.
Especially true in today's hiring environment. They probably have hundreds of qualified people lined up for that position. One company recently reached out to me asking me to submit a CV, considering me a good fit for their position. In the end, they rejected me, but they mentioned that they got 1400 applications. If you don't have a personal connection to get you in, it's basically a lottery.
Even sometimes if you do have a personal connection. I've had twice now where I've had a warm intro to the hiring manager, jobs where I had done the kind of work before, and the hiring manager didn't even reply to my emails.
Won't lie, both of those hurt, but I also reasoned it that if that's who I would have been working for, I wouldn't have enjoyed the work anyway.
> you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit
And every role usually only gets one person accepted into it, or at most, a small number. Ideally they want the "best" person for the role (where "best" is highly subjective and context-dependent). Say 200 people applied for the role. Are you really going to feel bad about yourself because you weren't the absolute best person out of 200 applicants? Is it going to be a huge blow to your self-esteem that you might have been the 2nd or 3rd best out of that 200? (And that's assuming their interview process is perfect and accurately measures who the "best" person is, which is rarely the case.)
Rejections are hard. I get it. I don't enjoy them either. But it's so important not to take them personally.
Unsure about the author's financial situation but the calculus tends to change depending on it. I wasn't applying to Anthropic mind you but $50k-80k tech positions with 4 YoE in industry already. I had already burned through nearly all my savings before hitting another interview and rejection (for far less than what I used to make) and then realizing the job search had burnt me out and I was in danger of losing my lease and everything on top of that. I haven't gotten past a phone screen for half a year by now.
When America prescribes that you only deserve health insurance and shelter if you have a good enough job, and you're at the end of your rope financially, it is in my experience very difficult not to take things personally. I was actually pretty good at this earlier on, when I still had savings! But contrary to what some people say, it became harder and harder to stay positive as time went on until it became all but impossible. The last straw was when 13/hr jobs started rejecting me for not having "moving things around in a warehouse" experience.
I'm now having to work an eye-wateringly menial job with no experience requirement just to make ends meet, and even that still isn't enough for my poverty-level expenses. It's not the prestige of the job that bothers me but the fact that it isn't livable. It does feel sometimes that my life could have diverged significantly if I had just passed that interview all those months ago. So much was riding on that final interview and yet I didn't perform to some arbitrary unknowable standard to deserve a livable salary, and this is the end result of my rejection.
I'm hoping that if I get an HVAC certification or something I can just... survive comfortably. I don't think I'd be happy changing careers and I wanted to work in tech until I died or retired, but seems like it's not going to happen at this rate.
That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process.
Best to ask for feedback but of course they won't give it to you. I thought I did really well after 6 interviews with a FAANG company. They let me down by saying that another candidate was preferred. I pressed for feedback a month or so later and was ghosted. So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview, and was given a massive dump of their talent management system, plaintext notes of the interviews, group chat messages discussing me, etc.
It turns out I had a pretty bad read of the situation; there was some things that I had said that were misconstrued, some bad traits that I wasn't aware of, and then the key reason I was rejected (lack of domain exertise and relevant experience).
Anyways glad I went down this route, I still need to process the data and translate it to improving myself, but as my buddy GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle.
Tell me more about this privacy request you submitted. I wasn’t aware this was a thing.
Not much to it really; took about a month round trip time to get the data; I had to authenticate myself but that was relatively straightforward since I could use my account with the organisation which I used to submit the job application to also perform the authentication (though the actual process is a bit bizarre).
Take Amazon for example that has a privacy query page: https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/request-data
Send a message like this (have ChatGPT to tailor to your jurisdiction):
Dear Privacy Officer,
I am writing to formally request access to any and all personal information $FAANG holds about me under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), specifically pursuant to Australian Privacy Principle 12.
I interviewed for the $ROLE position with one of $FAANG's Australian offices between February and March 2025. While I understand that I was not selected for the role, I am seeking access to any evaluative records, interview notes, recruiter or hiring manager comments, assessments, and other personal information recorded or obtained during the recruitment process.
For the purposes of identifying my records, my name is $FULL_NAME, and I applied via $FAANG Job Portal.
Please provide this information in a commonly used electronic format. If you require any further details to verify my identity or locate my information, I am happy to provide them.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your response within a reasonable time, as required by the Act.
Thanks for sharing. I wonder if it is possible to do in the US.
Also, can you kindly elaborate on what you meant by 'bad read of the situation'?
I had thought I did well in all the interviews but was just bested by another candidate.
But the role continued to be advertised as they were hiring multiple headcount, so it seems the recruiter straight up lied and was trying to let me down gently. Reality settled when I saw all the hire/maybe hire/no hire positions of the interviewers.
I don’t disagree with any of the feedback or angry; I’m using all the data gathered to improve myself.
As for the privacy request, usually you agree to a privacy policy with most firms that say you can request a copy of the data anyway, don’t always need to use legislation to order it.
It's at a state level in the US, so it's necessary to look up your state's privacy laws (California was the first to adopt comprehensive privacy legislation but others have followed). TBH I had never thought about its applicability to hiring process information, since the laws are framed more as a "consumer" right, but it seems possible it's covered under some of these laws.
> So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview
I'm rather surprised this worked, is there any reason to not do this for every interview?
No, at least the privacy officer I spoke to says it doesn't negative impact how you are considered by the company, and that the requests are handled by the applicable data protection law.
I wouldn't do it for a tiny company / startup where such a request can easily be exposed to recruiter and interviewers, but in those cases you're very likely to receive candid feedback by just asking anyway.
You are my new hero.
There isn't, but you can also sometimes deduce things you didn't do as well if they were apparent. Like, if you couldn't answer a bunch of questions or finish the task on time, and all the other interviews were good, there is a good chance it was that thing, and you should brush up on it.
Sometimes interviews are designed to be a hard grind that everyone fails and it's based on 'did you fail the least', but those are rare and once you've done a bunch of interviews, you can tell the difference.
If your half way through a process, recruiters are often ok to tell you what you didn't do as well on and offer that as feedback and tips. At the end they tend to be quiet so you can't figure out the final reason for a rejection unless you somehow have a friend on the inside that can find out informally for you. If your lucky to get a rejection call, you can even get vague hints as to why it wasn't a go from the recruiter if you have the social skills and the right recruiter. I often play guessing games based on my deductions.
But these are more obvious parts.
"to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired"
This is excellent advice in general.
When you're on Reddit long enough, you'll see posts from men about how they were kind and considerate to a woman, and she still didn't want to date them. But that's not how life works. It's not about putting kindness, skills, effort, and good intentions into the machine and receiving success in return.
You should do these things because you want to. For yourself. Not because you will definitely get any reward in return.
Aim to excel in a job interview because you are good at what you do. Aim for being kind to others because you're a good person. Aim to learn a new skill because you're curious and love learning. Help a friend because you value your relationships.
And be happy because of what you do, because of who you are, because you can be proud of yourself.
The opposite can also be true. The worst job I ever had was where I was hired by a company, and placed on the team of, a hiring manager that had recommended I not be hired. He offered me no support at all. They just couldn't find many people willing to work at the company, and I was naive enough to just be excited that someone wanted me. I left after about 5 months.
I once interviewed a very good candidate - good skills, interest in the business, a few years of experience, could definitely do the job I thought I was interviewing him for - only to find out after the fact that we actually only wanted an industry veteran with very specific, particular domain knowledge, and neither the recruiters nor me and my immediate manager had really caught up to that requirement.
> One great piece of advice and informal mentor gave me long ago is that there is no information in a rejection.
I mean, there might be, in two ways. Sometimes, you just mess up in some obvious way and can learn from that. But you also get a glimpse of the corporate culture. Maybe not for FAANG and the likes - the processes are homogenized and reviewed by a risk-averse employment lawyer - but for smaller organizations, it's fair game.
But as with layoffs, there's nothing you can win by begging, groveling, or asking for a second chance. The decision has been made, these decisions are always stochastic and unfair on some level, but you move on. You'll be fine.
I think the point, which I agree with, was that in the typical case of a stock rejection, you don't know if the errors you think you made had any bearing on the decision. Information you get from the process you would have gotten whether or not you got accepted, so it's not from the rejection.
There are cases where the company gives you some indication of why they rejected you but they are rare in my experience (in the USA, mostly for legal reasons, IDK about other countries). Or they give you information in some other way. Some companies will stop and send you home part way through if it's not going well. That also gives more information.
Agreed. I've been rejected from roles I've been genuinely excited about and felt totally defeated. This last application run I made a concerted effort to protect myself from feeling bad and it definitely helped. Some people can be excellent candidates but ultimately the wrong fit for the role or an equally better or exceptional candidate is also in the pipeline.
I did a LOT of road bike racing a while back. Out of a large starting group (often 60+), one person wins.* Being prepared helps -- you want your fitness dialed and your equipment in good shape. But then Shih Tzu happens, even if you have the equanimity of Lao Tzu. If you conserve energy at the right times and expend energy at the right times -- and luck goes your way -- and the right combination of people work collaboratively -- then you might win. Or flat. Or crash. (Or die, but that's pretty rare.)
In bike racing, winning feels really good, but I don't think people really do it for the winning, because if you dominate one category, _congratulations!_ now you get to compete against the next level, replete with additional helpings of pain, exertion, and whatever the opposite of mental acuity is.
* In contrast to many sports where one of the two participants is guaranteed to win.
> One of the biggest misconceptions I see from job seekers, especially younger ones, is to equate a job interview to a test at school, assuming that there is some objective bar and if you pass it then you must be hired. It's simply not true. Frequently more than one good applicant applies for a single open role, and the hiring team has to choose among them. In that case, you could "pass" and still not get the job and the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better.
This hasn't been true for the interviews I've given. For technical interviews I was given a question and rubrik of what they should say and a clear guide on how to grade them and give feed back about performance. Unless they did something truly bizarre there wasn't room for being subjective
> Unless they did something truly bizarre there wasn't room for being subjective
Without having been there, I have a sense of what you mean, but I do want to add:
1. Statistically speaking, there will misinterpretation and even outright errors on the part of interviewers.
2. As feedback gets passed up the chain, most processes I know about are not formulaic. People make judgment calls. They might be more or less consistent w.r.t. following some ideal, sure. A company might pride itself on consistency and that might be good. Another company might pride itself on adaptability -- changing a process to suit the current need, because maybe the old process wasn't that great.
3. There _will_ be differential treatment, as perceived by the interviewer, even if you behave _identically_!. Cultures are different, comfort levels are different, styles are different! Saying the same thing, with the same tone of voice, with the same timing might have different effects on different people.
I Always give reasons, to them, at the time, if I know them.
There's a real reason. Maybe my perception is bad, maybe they misspoke, maybe they can explain something...
I don't want to be a fool and let a his candidate go.
I'm really picky but I'm also extremely forgiving and believe in improving the person and making it a beneficial experience regardless of the outcome.
Other people don't do this because I dunno, my pet theory is most people forget to be adults
But you know, this kind of information burden is one of the factors radicalizing the youth right now. These people don't just dissappear into a void if they are unwilling to accept that, they're organizing and being drawn to more radical movements to crush you. So is this way of dealing with workers here really that sustainable?
I wasn't advocating for any particular system, just stating the way things are, now, on the ground.
That said, I have my doubts about the true extent of the radicalization of "the youth", at least in the USA, given that the DSA/Mamdani voter base is squarely bougie upper middle class college grads freaked out that elite overproduction has killed their job prospects. Whatever radical things they may do, the result won't be to create more jobs for college grads.
>Whatever radical things they may do, the result won't be to create more jobs for college grads.
They probably won't. But whatever damage is caused likely won't be good for us all anyways. Not everyone is going to have the luxury of being detached from crisis once radicals make sure they feel it too.
Hell, I've interviewed people who were perfect for the job and whom I wanted to hire, only to be told that the financials of the business changed and we can't hire for that position any more.
I'd hope HR told the candidate that the position has been retracted, but maybe the HR system just sent an "unfortunately" email, I have no idea.
There's information there, though, you're just not privy to it (short of radical candor, which I would prefer), so what you're really saying is that there's no information in a rejection for you.
> ...the only reason is that the hiring team liked someone else better...
Or they liked you just as much as the one they hired, but you lost the coin toss. Or, they hated you because they misunderstood something you said. Or...?
Fantastically well said. I’ve also seen people literally flip a coin when unable to decide between some equally skilled candidates.
Hiring is all subjective (i.e. bs): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41049365
This claim is exaggerated too far in the other direction. I try to spiral in towards the gravity well of truth rather than slingshot out of the solar system.
Same with fundraising.
Yeah I think this is a great mental framework. Getting rejected hurts, it's natural to want to find a reason, and with some self-reflection it definitely can help one grow. But you gotta be very careful about over-indexing on any one interview where the reasons for rejection may or may not have anything to do with what you did and said during the interview (let alone your personhood).
Frankly, if you want to get better at interviewing, it's better to do more general research on what hiring managers and companies want, and then do more interviews to practice communicating that you have the skills and temperament to deliver value.
One specific piece of advice to the OA: this kind of post might feel cathartic, but it doesn't get you closer to your goal. Sure, it will resonate, people will commiserate, and you'll get some dopamine and internet points—but if your goal is to work at a top tier company like Anthropic then such a post can only hurt you. The reality in fast-growing, ambitious companies at the forefront of the AI bubble is that expectations are sky high, and getting things done to attempt to meet those expectations is incredibly difficult for a hundred different reasons. In this type of environment, whatever technical skills you have are not enough. To be successful you need a sustained and resourceful effort to solve whatever problems come your way. One of the most toxic traits is having a victim mentality. Unfortunately it's a common affliction due to the low agency that individuals have in big companies and late stage capitalism in general, but you've got to tamp it down and focus on what you can control (which in practice is often more than you might think). While this post doesn't directly demonstrate a victim mentality, it suggests internalizing the rejection ("My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.") in a way that is adjacent and something that would give me significant pause if I was a hiring manager evaluating for a role in a chaotic company.
> While this post doesn't directly demonstrate a victim mentality, it suggests internalizing the rejection ("My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.")...
Well said. While it might have only been the recognition of that feeling, I do think it might reflect a deeper internalization. Though I'm no psychologist; I only have an intuitive, common-sense understanding of the concept of "internalization".
> ... in a way that is adjacent and something that would give me significant pause if I was a hiring manager evaluating for a role in a chaotic company.
Yes, I can see why some people would have this take. But there are other takes, such as "this person cares and feels things deeply, and as long as they process these emotions, they'll probably come back stronger."
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The point is that bit of information doesn’t tell you anything about yourself and your own skills and intrinsic value. You could be there best hire to date but someone even better than you shows up, or the bosses nephew or funding went away, etc. All events outside of your control.
I don't love the boring, uselessly pedantic takes some people have on what is otherwise truly good advice.
Give it a rest, please.
Where do you think you are? 90% of the posts are exactly that.
It has none of the actionable information that people want in a good feedback message:
- What did I do wrong during the interviews
- What did I do that you weren't happy with
- Why was I not liked enough to be accept==1
If there is even a bit of information on these things, there are actionable things that can be done for the next interview (with any company).
LOL. People who think "try-hard" is bad need not apply. Nobody owes you anything, least of all a job, man.