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by zaptheimpaler 901 days ago
The whole point thing about having half a breakdown after being ghosted is not going to be remedied by receiving a generic rejection email.. even the actual response he did get after pestering them was just "you were good but another guy was better" and yeah this is 90% of all anyone will ever say anyways. Like you can simply assume that 1. a better candidate was found or 2. the job opening was already closed because already hired or budget or role reconsidered if it helps you feel better.

The whole idea that we can apply the norms of personal relationships to a business transaction like this with 100s of candidates, no pre-existing relationship beyond 1-2 calls at mostand at best a generic rejection is basically displaced disappointment turned to resentment and anger. To which I say, you can either rant about it online and hope they change, or you can learn to regulate your own emotions.

3 comments

FTA:

> The effect of getting ghosted for me, and likely others, is impactful. The narrative in my head played out like this: “was I really so bad that they wouldn’t even tell me no?” It was also a chilling effect for my projects that involved generative AI. I didn’t want to work on them. Every time I logged into my Github, I was reminded of the company because I still had a fork of the take home assignment. It took about a month for my project work to feel normal again, but I shelved some of my LLM projects and moved on.

How is this "half a breakdown"? They stopped working on their side projects for a month. That's a completely understandable result after having spend hours of your life interviewing and not even getting the courtesy of a "no". I'm happy with myself when I make any significant movement in my side projects within a month, so I can certainly imagine that a disappointing professional experience would zap my personal coding motivation for a few weeks. That's a not a breakdown--that's human nature. Most people aren't coding on the side at all.

> The whole idea that we can apply the norms of personal relationships to a business transaction like this with 100s of candidates, no pre-existing relationship beyond 1-2 calls at mostand at best a generic rejection is basically displaced disappointment turned to resentment and anger. To which I say, you can either rant about it online and hope they change, or you can learn to regulate your own emotions.

What? We can't extend common courtesy into business transactions? You sound... tough to work with. Yes, resiliency is important and great and we should all strive for it. That doesn't mean we should throw away longstanding norms of professional decency.

Also, calling this a "rant" is unfair. It was well-written and calmly worded. A lot of people are reading it. Some of them might go back to their job Monday and think "oh, I should ask if the recruiter ever followed up with the rejected candidates".

Thanks for the implications on my character in the work place. Written very courteously yet not so nice.. maybe that's the key difference in perspective. I don't care about politeness I care about kindness.

When someone writes a kind or genuinely useful letter with feedback when I get rejected, I greatly appreciate it. An automatic or generic rejection is the same as nothing to me. It has no actual information in it. And requiring a recruiter to reply to all rejections personally might feel nicer to you and less nice to them.

> I don't care about politeness I care about kindness.

Your original comment is not kind either, my friend.

Genuinely useful feedback is the best, for sure. But hearing a generic "no" still makes it easier to take a deep breath and move on as soon as they decide against you rather than weeks later when you've decided it's appropriate to give up hope.

It's also a liability thing. Keeping the legal attack surface minimal. It can result in you getting junk responses if you ask for feedback too. I've referred several friends to jobs who then got rejected, and they're almost always given the wrong reason when asking for feedback.

Especially if there's a perceived culture misfit or some manager thought we both would leave at the same time for a startup after a few months (this happened me more than once!) they all got insulted on their skillset instead by the recruiter. And sometimes even skills that weren't even in the job description!

It's not just about personal feelings. It's about not being left in the dark for a decision that affects your whole life. When you're ghosted you're just left wondering whether or not you got the job, whether or not you should start to look for a new place to move to, whether or not it's worth pursuing other opportunities. It adds uncertainty to one's life and therefore unnecessary stress that could be avoided if the company bothered to write a 30 seconds email.

Rejection emails still hurt feelings but at least you get a clear answer and can plan your life around it.