[plake]

Because giving good feedback is hard work, and candidates won't always take it well (even if they don't sue). If the employer has already decided not to hire you, there's just not that much in it for them.

For what it's worth, as an interviewer I'm happy to give feedback in person, at the end of the interview, if the candidate asks for it. It's much easier to do when you're both in the same room, and asking e.g. "is there anything you think I could improve on?" makes a positive impression either way.

[zippergz]

I hate it when candidates put me on the spot at the end of the interview, because it feels like they're trying to get me to tell them (or at least hint to them) if they're going to get an offer or not. Even if that decision were wholly within my hands (it rarely is), I'm not ready to discuss it with them at that point. The other way it sometimes goes, if I do cave and give some feedback, is that they try to disprove me or show that they actually can do the thing I said they need to work on. It just ends up creating awkwardness, and doesn't benefit either of us.

[Impossible]

When I interviewed at a FAANG company, I had multiple candidates do this to me after it was clear that their performance wasn't great. One person even asked me if they could interview with another team. This usually happened after it was clear that the candidate didn't perform very well. It was extremely frustrating for the reasons you mentioned. These were candidates that should have gone through multiple hiring cycles and known what the process is like, that I'm only doing the coding interview and recruiters and potentially hiring managers have final say based on my feedback.

[plake]

It probably depends on the candidate pool, but I've had a few interviews where the candidate can tell they missed the bar, and genuinely just wants advice on how to work on it.

Definitely if they start trying to haggle, or pressure you into something, that's a hard pass, I'll say whatever bullshit it takes to get them out the door. I'm happy to help out the former at the expense of fielding the latter, though I can understand why not everyone is!

[Old_Thrashbarg]

Agreed, I'm way more willing to give feedback after the decision has been communicated.

[wendyshu]

Nothing wrong with being transparent. And maybe they really can do the thing you're assuming they can't.

[SubuSS]

I haven't read the article, but it is off-point to say no-one sues. History has no effect on what someone will do tomorrow - exposure is what companies try to limit.

The sueing angle kicks in when you do stuff like give feedback for folks who you think will take it well Vs keep it away from folks who give you a bad feeling or whatever. It is all exposure.

Almost in all the companies I have been at, there has been a big push to keep the interview experience uniform for all candidates. So you can't have hugely different loops setup for the same level for different candidates for example.

Fun fact: This is a main reason why as a company grows, you aren't able to get in with a wink and a nod anymore, even if you know 100% of the folks already there.

[Aeolun]

If noone has sued about feedback in the past 10 years, over probably millions of interviews, it’s a fairly safe bet that nobody will sue in the next 10.

[xtracto]

That is not how expected utility works... theres a probability of being sued a d there's an impact of the event of being sued or bad mouthed in social media... even if the probability is low, the negative expected utility (expected loss) is still high because of the impact value ... Not worth it.

[Dylan16807]

> even if the probability is low, the negative expected utility (expected loss) is still high because of the impact value

The impact would have to be astronomical. It's not.

> bad mouthed in social media

Which could happen anyway. And feedback might actually reduce the chances.

[celdon25]

If it's hard work, then that's a symptom of the reasoning behind a no-hire not being sound to begin with.

And there is plenty in it for them, as the candidate may want to apply a second time at a later point, having been made aware of and improved on the areas that were identified as needing improvement. They'll be more likely to re-apply to a company that gave the feedback than to a company that didn't.

[kenhwang]

It's hard work because then you'll have to explain and document the hiring proceedings, then sanitize it before sending out, with content that's actually actionable by the interviewee. What we put in internal candidate notes is very different than what should be sent out, and someone has to do that translation.

There's also plenty of reasons a candidate didn't get hired that not really immediately correctable or not even their fault. For the latter, we do provide feedback/explanations and try to keep in touch in hopes they apply again in a couple of years. But 80% of the time we really just don't want to see the candidate again. I'd say 10% of the time, we see the candidate again, but so far, even on reappearance years later, they get the same feedback from completely different interviewing committees.