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Ask HN: Why don't hiring managers provide feedback?

by scrapcode on 3/19/25, 1:32 PM with 42 comments

• by bell-cot on 3/19/25, 1:54 PM

  If I'm the HR VP, my choices look like this:

  Forbid Feedback - this is a one-liner in our procedures manual. For internal Training, I might add a 3-minute "here's a real-world example, where well-intended feedback turned into a disaster" story to any 3+ hour training. That'll be a different case every time, to keep it fresh and drive home the point.

  Allow Feedback - now I'm letting my front-line troops, who don't have much training for it, spend time wandering in legal minefields. The time is on my dime. Any additional training is on my dime. The liability (which could easily be $millions) is on my dime. And 99% of the (modest) upsides are for some declined candidate who we'll probably never see again.

• by romanhn on 3/19/25, 2:32 PM

  Zero upside, all liability (however remote). Even if rejected after the full interview loop, you are very unlikely to receive any feedback. Expecting it after resume submission is entirely unrealistic given that the hiring manager (or maybe just a recruiter) probably spent no more than a minute or two on it before making a decision. And given the huge volumes of spray-and-pray resumes sent out these days, feedback is not realistic even if the company wanted to provide it. Kudos to the rare exceptions, given all this.

• by toast0 on 3/19/25, 4:17 PM

  Feedback on just a resume with no prior connection is pretty much not going to happen. The number of resumes submitted is generally way too high to look at a resume long enough to write anything worth sending you.

  Feedback on interviews can happen, but in my experience as an interviewer, when I've given feedback, candidates want to rebut it. That doesn't feel like a good use of my time, so I won't entertain requests for feedback anymore. For a very few candidates, I have reached out to the candidate to provide unsolicited feedback, like if they did pretty well on my interview but were missing some fundamentals and did poorly with the rest of the panel, and some guidance on things to study for future interviews would help them on future interviews; or they weren't a good candidate for the open position(s), but they seemed like they could do well in a different type of position.

• by paulcole on 3/20/25, 12:47 PM

  1. It is a liability thing and it’s just safer to not give feedback.

  2. If I don’t want to hire you, it’s very likely that I have 0 interest in wanting to interact with you further. You don’t have a job and you want a job where I work. When I give you feedback are you going to take it or are you going to argue with it? “Oh, I’m actually ________, just let me talk to you again…” Not happening so why even pretend like I care?

  I tell people we’re moving on with other candidates and thank them for their interest. If they write back and the first two words in the email aren’t “Thank you”, it’s an insta-delete.

• by 2rsf on 3/20/25, 9:46 AM

  At the risk of repeating others- - liability - a one liner is not a good feedback, proper feedback requires a lot of resources (time mainly but not only) - we reject multiple candidates per position, getting back to each consumes a lot of time - most of the times the "you are not a good match" is the right feedback, there is nothing to improve and I am not going to educate people about career improvements

• by nizahn on 3/20/25, 4:38 PM

  I believe it has to do with the amount of work they're handling in the hiring process. The hiring process itself is time consuming and draining, so whenever feedback is asked, it is appreciated but perhaps not in the priority list of the hiring manager.

• by WheelsAtLarge on 3/19/25, 3:53 PM

  It's more trouble than it's worth for them. A lot of times, they don't really know. Also, if they say the wrong thing, it might get them in trouble. If you get to know them better then maybe they will help.

• by Leftium on 3/24/25, 2:43 AM

  Not quite a hiring manager, but the Recurse Center is very thoughtful about their application process. They stopped giving feedback, even though they really want to provide feedback. Here's their explanation:

  https://www.recurse.com/feedback

• by scarface_74 on 3/19/25, 3:13 PM

  Why are you only applying for one per day?

  And it’s not just liability. The minute you start providing feedback, the candidate is going to start arguing why you are wrong and it’s a waste of time.

• by shumakriss on 3/20/25, 2:05 AM

  At the risk of not directly answering the question, I will try to make a stand for professional courtesy and human decency.

  Many of us readers are in similar fields in the same job market all wondering why we can’t get even a bit of advice. I think we owe it to TRY to give each other to give feedback.

  We also have to try not to get mad when we get feedback we don’t like, unless it’s illegal. Then shouldn’t we all be happier that the feedback was aired and the truth came out?

  It may not scale and I may not have a solution but it seems like people give up very quickly on this topic.

  One additional issue on this topic is power imbalance. These poor companies have so many applicants, however will they reject them all AND say why, maybe even in writing? The last statement is meant tongue in cheek, of course.

  There’s other silly worries that lead to chalking things up to legality and scale:

  What if we get caught for doing something illegal?

  What if all of these unemployed people spend their savings on lawyers and sue us for giving useful advice because they’re (angry, unstable, unprofessional, arrogant, other generality about online applicants)?

  What if our hypothetical solution for a better candidate experience isn’t perfect tanks our company?

  I don’t think the issue is legality or scale but that it’s perpetually “someone else’s problem”. We can do better.

• by belter on 3/19/25, 1:48 PM

  Mostly sheer volume, but you can't believe how dysfunctional most HR departments are.

  Best of luck, but the best tip I can give you to be hired anywhere, is to absolutely avoid the HR team. Think about it, you don’t meet the real hiring manager until the last interview, too late already if you start with HR....

  Go around, contact team managers directly, be creative, so that the HR team stays in their place...they are glorified invitation senders and should stay as such.

• by tthflssy on 3/19/25, 3:21 PM

  Don't loose faith. With a single company giving feedback, you probably got already 50% of all feedbacks you can get. Your effort for asking all the others was already worth it.

  On top of that, most of the feedback will reflect what state the company is in or what kind of people they are looking for, and not necessarily you or your skills. Eg. they want a deeply technical person, or a good communicator. In one year, for the same position, they will want a different set of skills.

  If you know a lot of prospective companies, experiment with your CV / introduction and try to A/B test what is working. This is totally under your control.

• by nextn on 3/19/25, 1:39 PM

  I wish HR accepted payment in return for feedback.

• by shahbaby on 3/19/25, 6:33 PM

  I've always assumed that the reason for rejection, especially if solicited, will likely not be the real reason due to liability concerns.

  I think that no information is better than wrong information so I never ask for feedback.

• by superconduct123 on 3/20/25, 5:53 AM

  As a hiring manager what would you gain from giving feedback?

  That person doesn't work for your company?

• by markus_zhang on 3/19/25, 9:26 PM

  That's the normal. Let's just get used to it.