I’m finding the hard way that finding another job is a grind: you invest time reading what they want to hire, you write a CV and an application.
Most of the time you don’t get an answer, meaning you are that irrelevant to them. Most of these times it is YOU the one who has to ask if they decided for or against. On the limited times they write you back, it’s a computed generated BS polite rejection letter.
I asked one of them how many candidates they considered and why they rejected me, but that only made them send me another computer generated letter.
I’d like to know how close I was and in what ways I can become a more interesting candidate, but nobody is going to give me a realistic answer.
It sucks having to need them more than they need you. And I should consider me lucky, because I have a job, but jesus christ, I feel for those who have to do this without stable income or a family that offers them a place to stay…
Oh God it was such an onslaught on my self image and psychology. I believe humans aren’t equipped to handle the amount of rejection you have to receive during that grind. I certainly wasn’t.
I’d like to know how close I was and in what ways I can become a more interesting candidate, but nobody is going to give me a realistic answer.
I can tell you from the employer side there is nothing to gain by answering this question asked by a candidate, and everything to lose which is why you the candidate almost never hear a response.
There are some legally protected reasons you cannot be turned down for a job. Its all the stuff you’d think of: race, religion, marital status, sex, age, etc. The likelihood you were turned down because of one of these illegal reasons is usually very low in the USA. I’m proud to say for the hiring efforts I’ve been a part of, these have never been considered criteria for disqualifying a candidate. Its always been for things like lack of knowledge/education, criminal history (example multi-DUI for a job that requires driving or conviction of embezzling when put in charge of company finances ), etc.
However, any documented reason a prospective employer gives back to a candidate becomes a liability. Will that candidate sue the company claiming that they weren’t hired because they think the position required some not married, which would be a crime of the employer?
I saw a job posting for a court domestic violence advocate and they would probably reject men on principle.
Legally they cannot. Also, domestic violence happens to men too.
I know
Legally they cannot.
gender supremacists:
“Hold my beer and watch me do exactly that. Again and again and again without any censure or pushback, purely because I am being a gender bigot against men, and for no other reason. We have full societal and legal ability to employ open misandry, because opposition of any kind is misogyny by default.”
domestic violence happens to men too.
71% of non-reciprocal (only one person being abusive) physically violent (actually striking) domestic violence involves women striking men.
As in, 71% of those victims are men.
And under those same conditions (non-reciprocal physically violent DV), two-thirds of victims that were injured seriously enough to require hospitalization were men, yet almost 100% were also arrested as the “perps”, even though they were the only victims.
Losts of people have problems with these facts. Wild how bad anti-reality ideological indoctrination has gotten.
As someone who’s been on the hiring side there are some legalities involved on what to answer here. But I’ve always made a point of telling people who asked why. However I’m not in HR, so lots of people might get filtered before I even got a chance to interview them.
Also we asked candidates to do a take home and we talked about their solution during the interview, so most people got a good understanding of why they were rejected, but a couple of times people asked afterwards and I replied to them with the reasons we considered they were not at the level we were looking for, but that we would keep them in consideration for a more junior role if there ever was an opening.
Send out so many applications and keep busy, so that every response is a surprise. Only after a response can you set a reminder to reach out after a week. After a reminder, send a message and do not set a reminder. Keep applying to other jobs.
I just lose track of jobs I applied to in my head. If they aren’t responding, they don’t care and neither should you.
Since the answer is unknowable, you might as well assume the best for yourself. Imagine that the job would have sucked anyway.
For example, I once interviewed for a job, was accepted, then showed up on my first day only to find out that the position had been given to someone else. Was I angry and disappointed? Of course. I made myself feel better by deciding I was better off not working for someone so untrustworthy.
I once interviewed for a job, was accepted, then showed up on my first day only to find out that the position had been given to someone else.
And with written proof of acceptance, any employment lawyer worth their degree could have gotten you a healthy amount of compensation even after their cut. Behaviour like this by any company is illegal in almost all jurisdictions, and should never be tolerated.
I didn’t have anything in writing. That’s what stopped me from taking it further. You’re completely right, though.
Most of America (all but 7 states) and all of Canada are one-party jurisdictions. That means you can record conversations without anyone else knowing so long as you are a primary participant in said conversation.
If you have an iPhone (which prevents calls from being recorded as a security feature), it helps to invest in a small digital recorder and to take all calls on speakerphone.
If you take communications through apps like Teams or Slack, there are third-party apps that can screen record your entire monitor such that the other person won’t be informed of the recording. Recording through teams, for example, would have Teams tell the other person that the screen is being recorded.
Don’t just record convos that you think might be important. Record all calls just in case someone does something particularly in your favour, such as asking an illegal question.
I used to work in sales and I did a lot of cold calls. The world-weary senior sales guy would always just shake his head at me when I got frustrated. “It’s a numbers game,” he would say. “It’s just a numbers game.” In the beginning I would waste a lot of time researching each individual call, but that didn’t help me make sales. The truth was a certain percentage of people that I could call would have a need for the product I was offering. Of those people who had a need, a certain percentage would choose us over a competitor, because we were the best fit.
Looking for a job is the same as sales. Your product is your labor. It can feel personal, as though the product is you yourself. But you’re not selling yourself, you’re selling your work product. A certain percentage of buyers (employers) will need the labor that you can provide. A certain percentage of those we’ll choose you over a competitor because you are the best fit. It’s a numbers game. It’s not personal, it’s just a numbers game.
All there is to accept is the knowledge that the vast majority of employers, the wealth holding members of society, do not actually care about anyone that won’t earn them more money.
And then also that not all, but most of society will also tell you that you must be doing something wrong, it must be your fault.
“The wealth holding members of society”
Hahaha, every hiring manager I’ve worked for (you know, someone looking to fill a spot on our team) wasn’t exactly what I’d call “a wealth holder”.
They’re middle-to-senior management, making anywhere from 100k to 300k, at most. Sometimes quite a bit less.
We’re talking people who are a good 3 levels away from the C class. Meaning they’d be competing with everyone at their level, and above, to get to those higher seats in the pyramid.
Hiring managers are rarely farther up the food chain, unless they’re hiring for those seats farther up the food chain - which isn’t any of us here.
It’s It like there’s a team of managers who just do hiring/interviews. HR handles the initial stages, and the actual “hiring manager” is the person who’s looking to add someone to their team, someone they’ll be managing.
Well, I’d say 100k to 300k qualifies as more money than I’ve ever made in a single year of my life, more than I’ve made in my entire life if we go closer to 300k…
But what I meant was that the ultimate hiring process is dictated, signed off on or altered, all the way down, by the wealth holding members of society. The top execs, the board.
And that the society created, and largely owned, by their policies is essentially gaslighting us every day.
Have you ever spent an entire year applying to jobs… as a full time job? After having had a career, losing it to a disability, then trying to go back after years of recovery?
With maybe one reply every few months, despite being qualified for everything you are applying to?
Becoming depressed as everyone around you spends the first month giving you mindless cheery platitudes, then forgetting you exist, then becoming angry when you tell them you can’t afford to do anything that involves money?
Then when you finally cave and go work some bullshit job you are immensely overqualified for, everyone blames you for not living up to your potential?
They made it, it worked out for them, why didn’t it work out for you?
Even though it never once occured to them to maybe help you out monetarily and avoid going into massive debt, or by putting in a good word for you with their network of contacts.
Because employers are opaque and their evaluation of you isn’t something that should be important to you. They’re not giving you a clear response oftentimes because they want to avoid legal issues.
Something I picked up over the years. The reasons are potentially personal or emotional.
Skills, experience and education are important.
But they are also concerned with cohesion.
“Is this someone I can have a beer with and have a good time”
“Will this person enjoy the company of the staff under my charge”
“That guy drove in with a insert political message on their bumper sticker. :/”
“Gross they used random font”
“We got too many Marks at this company”
Reminds me of one team I was on that had Karthic, Karthik, and Karthick. THEY JUST KEPT HIRING THEM.
HR is playing pokemon trying to catch em all
I had applied for a job in a busy area a long time ago. I followed up a week later, nothing. I called a few days later. Nothing. I went to the office in person and *spoke to the receptionist, who was pre-screening resumes. She picked up a box the size of a case of paper, and showed me another, half full. The full one were resumes she’d not looked at yet; the half full was what she had.
The same way you get over not knowing just about anything else.
Let it go.
Does it serve you in any way to continue to be bothered by not knowing?
You are irrelevant to them. Just like I’m irrelevant to you. That’s life.
Shiit so many comments here.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment
Life is all about probabilities, you can do everything right and still lose (however doing everything"right" is nigh impossible). You lose if they have a better candidate, you lose if their department is suddenly not in need of the position, etc.
With that mentality, I don’t bother with CVs, and just use the time saved to apply to more jobs or maybe some kind of relevant project.
It really doesn’t hurt to keep asking. Nobody that matters is going to be offended by it. Eventually someone will tell you, but just be aware that different people may have different reasons so don’t assume feedback from one employer applies to all employers.
At the end of my interviews, before saying bye,I ask what I could have done better. Almost always received constructive criticism. I highly recommend it.
This is a seriously good idea! Employers want employees that are looking to improve themselves.
Either you fucked up and they’ll tell you so you can improve next time, or they’ll just be impressed at your desire to grow.
Whenever I’ve been on the hiring side of an interview, the people seated in the interview aren’t given any special “Keep the company safe” training, but the HR person coordinating always have been. I suspect that’s why it works much better to ask in the interview than after it.
Giving you feedback opens them up to liability if you sue.
Not being dickheads when hiring people makes suing unnecessary
You’re assuming no candidates are dickheads.
Company has to watch out for
- maybe a candidate was a dickhead
- maybe one of the interviewers was a dickhead
- maybe something changed so it looks misrepresented
If job candidates are suing because they believe a company is being particularly inappropriate, that is at direct cost to the candidate who 99/100 times has less resources than a company. And they will be snuffed out in court in a jury trial if they are clowning around with the legal system.
The company will also pay, but in that same 99/100 times the company will have more resources to fight in court in most states. It’s in the best interests of communities, culture, and the people’s right to force the legal battle upwards instead of downwards
You think people only sue when necessary?
