I applied for internships at both companies. Google actually mentioned in their rejection email that I should feel free to ask questions - so I did. No answer.
With Facebook, I at least had a phone interview and could run post-mortem on what I might've messed up there. Google appeared to just toss my resume down a black hole.
I later decided that really, I didn't want to be a programmer, I wanted to found a startup. I was still in school and not 100% sure of myself at this point, so I applied to 1 programming job at a small place in Connecticut. I got a phone interview and then a rejection. I blamed my "failure" then on my lack of interest probably showing through.
Sadly, I had the same null feedback experience with many seed funders that spring. Most of the time it was a black hole. 2 (Lightspeed and IO Ventures) of them gave a brief explanation, which matches some (but not all) of my own post-mortem analysis. I think that given the high probability of rejection, rejection feedback significantly increases the value of applying.
While I don't think rejection from a place like Google is necessarily "random," I would certainly agree that it rarely provides actionable info.
I applied for internships at both companies. Google actually mentioned in their rejection email that I should feel free to ask questions - so I did. No answer.
I would love to hear about this being brought up by someone else in the interview itself. "What are some reasons Google would fail to answer questions that they themselves asked for?" In fact, I would make this one of the first questions asked. "I don't want to waste anybody's time, so..." I'm sure it would disarm any interviewer who entered the room readied with a "GOOG IS GOD" attitude.
Why just Google or Facebook? I've been rejected more times than I care to remember and usually there was not even a rejection letter, let alone direct feedback of any shape or form.
Spot on. I actually know a couple of people who have been rejected and they don't have a very clear reason for the rejection.
However, I could tell during the conversation on the interviews whether I was doing well on a particular topic or not so well. I got the impression the questions just keep coming while you keep answering; when you say "I don't know this, I actually never saw similar problems before", I guess this is when the interview begins: how do you solve new problems and try to tackle them? This is also the feedback you can take away: where did you stop, and what would it take to go on?
With Facebook, I at least had a phone interview and could run post-mortem on what I might've messed up there. Google appeared to just toss my resume down a black hole.
I later decided that really, I didn't want to be a programmer, I wanted to found a startup. I was still in school and not 100% sure of myself at this point, so I applied to 1 programming job at a small place in Connecticut. I got a phone interview and then a rejection. I blamed my "failure" then on my lack of interest probably showing through.
Sadly, I had the same null feedback experience with many seed funders that spring. Most of the time it was a black hole. 2 (Lightspeed and IO Ventures) of them gave a brief explanation, which matches some (but not all) of my own post-mortem analysis. I think that given the high probability of rejection, rejection feedback significantly increases the value of applying.
While I don't think rejection from a place like Google is necessarily "random," I would certainly agree that it rarely provides actionable info.