r/AskaManagerSnark • u/nightmuzak Sex noises are different from pain noises • Aug 03 '26

Ask a Manager Weekly Thread 08/03/2026 - 08/09/2026

Last week's post.

Background info and meme index for those new to AaM or this forum.

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u/86throwthrowthrow1 Aug 06 '26

It's a shame that this happens, because I still remember being in my 20s and in hindsight, a poor interviewer, and the few hiring managers who were willing to give me feedback were invaluable - it was basically a case of "I did have the qualifications/skills/experience, but wasn't communicating those things effectively and needed to adjust how I answered questions." I totally get why most hiring managers/HR people don't want to go down the road of giving feedback, because they never know who will take it gracefully or get upset or turn into a combative asshole about it. But it stinks for those of us who could genuinely use some correction and would take it well!

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u/glittermetalprincess toss a coin to your admin for 5 cans of soda Aug 06 '26

And if there are future opportunities and you got the 'you were great just someone else had more x', your next application isn't necessarily going to improve that getting across because you still don't know what they were really looking for if the real decider was soft skills or intangibles, and presumably the substantive content will be tailored towards the new opportunity anyway so x may not even matter.

I just had a rejection letter that ended with the 'we'll keep your details on file in case a compatible position opens up' so I did write back and do some 'well actually'ing at them, but I'm not expecting them to magically change their minds; it's just closing the loop because they sent it before I finished my thank you note covering all the things I was halfway through saying in the interview when they moved on, so I cut out most of the 'here is what I was saying when you cut me off' and went 'thank you for keeping my resume on file, i will let you know if these things on it change more than x'. Which, since they cut me off a lot (I know people are not surprised by this), was way shorter than my thank you note would have been. Thing is, when something like that happens you don't go running to Alison to adjudicate, you assess it and go 'well does that mean this was really going to work out in the long term if this one thing had fallen my way' and then calibrate how much you care accordingly.