[ninjay]

I'm graduating soon from a top university (not Ivy League though) with a masters in CS. I've interviewed with 4 companies so far and 2 of them have just never gotten back to me. One of them was after 4 interviews including a 4 hour coding test. I sent several emails, but just silence.

I can only attribute this behavior to cowardice. I guess they (HR) are just to afraid to be upfront. I apply to one company at a time so they have my full attention. Finding out I waited around for nothing makes me rage. It's so incredibly rude to treat people like that.

I want to start a list of companies that do this. Make them accountable, or at least keep people from wasting time.

In fact, here they are: SpaceX (4 hour code interview, then nothing), LogicMonitor

[pmorici]

That's about par for the course in my experience. You shouldn't wait around for these companies to get back to you, if you do that you'll never get a job. Apply to as many places as you are interested in.

My own anecdote; I'm already employed but am ready for a change and have been casually looking around to see if there is something interesting out there. At least twice I've done coding quizzes associated with a job posting and then been contacted to setup an phone interview time. Each time they setup a time and then don't actually keep the appointment. In one case they actually contacted me again several weeks later as if it was the first time they had emailed me. In both cases I believe the companies were small enough that the hiring was being handled by the "CEO" and there was no dedicated HR department. No way I would work for a company that does junk like that. Even if you do need to cancel an interview it's easy enough to send a 5 word email, "Sorry, I need to cancel"

[Jacqued]

Sadly it's a very common behavior. I have seen companies who will blacklist your phone number once they ruled you out. So you have a number, call them, interview, and after the interview when you try to call again to get an answer, you are asked to leave a message which will never see a response. In the meantime, someone else who has not been interviewed yet will call that number and reach the interviewer.

I can get past people not calling me back to say "no" but i find this kind of behavior quite despicable, surely taking 30 seconds to call someone must not be such a hassle (after all, you've already spent at least an hour interviewing them).

TLDR : get used to it, and just ignore them like they ignore you and don't apply there again

[jdotjdot]

You got lucky with SpaceX. From what I hear, it's a sweatshop, with minimum 70 hour weeks and 120-hour weeks not unheard of.

[jk4930]

One joins SpaceX with a sense of mission and urgency. Their rate of progress comes with a price. That should be clear upfront.

[jdotjdot]

I'm of the school of thought that that kind of life isn't "a price," it's poor management. Work quality (as well as employee health) decreases with incredible speed under those kinds of conditions, with very real permanent damage possible.

I don't know if it's clear upfront or not; I never was looking to interview there. But "a sense of mission and urgency" is no excuse for what can only be considered labor abuse.

[jk4930]

If one wants to work for SpaceX we can assume that he's at least aware of the space industry environment and SpaceX's goals to get to Mars by the end of this decade (plus some years of buffer). It should be clear that SpaceX utilizes the available (human) resources intensively to iterate quickly over new design approaches.

I'm positive that with a more cosy, relaxed way grasshopper wouldn't safely land and no Dragon would dock at the ISS. In this case SpaceX wouldn't exist any longer.

[jdotjdot]

It's not about "cozy" or "relaxed"--regardless of my thoughts of how cushy or stress-free an environment should or shouldn't be, SpaceX is at the point where simply you are reducing the productivity and effectiveness of your employees, as well as their health. They are more likely to make mistakes, which in the case of space exploration, can be life-threatening mistakes. There are quite a few articles out there describing how lack of sleep (not to mention stress) cause people to react similarly to how they would if they were drunk (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/05/sleep/max-text). Less social acceptance of drunk employment, but similar danger and productivity loss.

I think you'd need to provide more explanation of why you think the Grasshopper wouldn't land if SpaceX's employees were permitted to get a full night's sleep. Why is SpaceX different than NASA? As far as I know, no one ever worked those kinds of hours at NASA, and certainly not for years on end--maybe for the week before a space launch. I know if I were an astronaut, I'd much rather the people at mission control were well-rested and alert rather frenzied and terrified of management, falling asleep at the controls.

[kevingadd]

Well, I'll tell you right now that you can expect to be forgotten or actively ignored by 80-90% of the companies you interview with. That is sadly normal, in part because recruiting/HR departments have incredibly high turnover, and even the mediocre companies get lots of applicants.

However, you're absolutely right that having someone come on-site for interviews and a coding test and then ignoring them is unacceptable. I assume you've tried all the obvious steps for correcting it, like following up with the recruiter multiple times and reaching out to contacts at the company. Sometimes companies take their sweet time processing interview feedback, but a recruiter should definitely tell you that - and taking more than a couple weeks is probably always wrong. In cases where recruiters and low level people dropped the ball on recruiting, I have sometimes had good results from reaching out to people who cared - regardless of the results of the interview, most people don't want their company to get a reputation for mistreating candidates.

On the other hand, I don't know if I recommend burning your bridges.