| 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. |
This happens. There are people who work together with lawyers to send in applications knowing they are not looking for a job but looking for the ability to sue in any part of the application process. Sadly, this is also a reality of the world and unfortunately cannot be chalked up to a silly worry.