[kaspm]

A candidate we passed on reached out and asked for more specific feedback about why we passed. I happened to have some time over the holidays and agreed to provide him with some additional information personally and to meet up for coffee.

> It's not you: The first thing I told him was that 80% of whether you get hired at a company is nothing you can do anything about. It depends on the company, your skills, their needs gap, the timing, the manager, so if you're batting .200, that's pretty good.

The second thing was that there were some really basic stuff to make sure you're doing every time you interview that you CAN control to narrow that gap further:

> Dress: wear dark jeans, nice shoes, a button down dress shirt. This outfit is almost never "too fancy" or "too casual". If the company requires more fancy than that, might want to question if you're a good fit (unless you like wearing a suit shudder)

> Give Specific Examples: Always try to start your answer with a summary, then give a specific example then abstract it into a generalized theory. Don't start with the generalized theory and never give specifics

> Know your stuff: If you list something on your resume, especially in a recent job, make sure you can not only explain it but that you have an opinion about it and that you've considered other opinions.

Edit: the outfit above applies mainly to men, I'm less versed in what the equivalent would be for women. If someone wants to add that, I am sure it would be helpful.

[lj3]

I once had an interview where I was told they did a bit of functional programming, but experience with FP wasn't a requirement. They flew me out and interviewed me. A few days later, they rejected me. I asked them if they had any feedback for me and, surprisingly, they answered! They said I was rejected because I didn't have enough FP experience.

This is just to illustrate that "It's not you" may sound trite, but it's true.

[NetOpWibby]

See? This! This would make the job search process a lil' less opaque.

[SilasX]

How? That's just general "how to do well" advice, it doesn't help explain which of the reasons were relevant to a particular rejection.

And even that comment doesn't give an example of a shortcoming relative to one of those bullet points.

I mean, from the comment it sounds like kaspm literally told the candidate: "hey, sometimes it just doesn't work out, you should be glad at 'batting .200'.". I don't see the actionable feedback.

[kaspm]

Ah sorry, this is a good point.

Edit: I added the specific examples of each item that I gave the candidate but decided to remove them so as not to expose them publicly should this candidate read hacker news.

People can PM me if they'd like to know more information about the way this particular candidate could have benefited from the above.

[SilasX]

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks for explaining. Sadly, that was the interesting part.

But I don't really see the privacy issue if the name is left off and there's no way to figure out who it was you interviewed.

[web007]

I'm interested in the details, but I don't see PM info in your bio.

Please reach out to twitter@web007 or ryan at geekportfolio with anything you can share - I'm working on a side-side-side-project for increasing employability, and this kind of info is exactly what I want to promote.

[kaspm]

I see that the contact info is private. Will do