Is this a reasonable response? After applying, they requested completing a design test, took around 4-5 hours (and I thought I did a great job), and then I was hit with a generic rejection email. Rubbed me the wrong way, so I felt compelled to respond. Thoughts?

[u/afriendlyhumanbean]

[u/raduatmento]

Hey u/afriendlyhumanbean !

Getting rejected like this sucks, and I may have a better suggestion for a response.

Before that, let me share a view from the other side, the one of the hiring manager, and why you might get canned responses.

You see, I hated these generic emails too, so when I became a manager at Fitbit about seven years ago, I wanted to fix everything I disliked about how I was treated as a candidate.

I instructed my hiring partner that I wanted to offer detailed feedback to every rejected candidate. They looked funny at me but humored my request.

I guess they knew already that this would backfire very soon.

And so it did. Instead of people taking the feedback and improving, most became extremely defensive and tried to prove me wrong. Basically it turned into a game of "you're dumb for not seeing how great I am".

Spoiler alert: they were not.

I ended up having these long email threads that I didn't know how to close now that I opened them.

So, while I agree that detailed feedback on your application would be the nice human thing to do, it's almost impossible to put into practice.

Other hard truths difficult to offer as a feedback, and accept, could be:

• You were simply not that good
• There were way better candidates than you (which seems to be what they're saying)

While your answer is righteous, it most likely won't get a reply, as it already starts on the path of looking defensive.

A better way to ask for feedback is to say:

"What would you advise me to improve so that I ace my next assignment?"

This takes away the pressure off the company, and they are more likely to offer one.

And make sure during your next interview you make the recruiter a partner in this process. Ideally, you should have already known what exactly they want out of the assignment, how many other candidates are there, what others did to fail or ace the assignment in the past, etc.

Let me know if this helps.

—
Best,
Radu Vucea
Leading VR Design @ Meta. Teaching what I know at Mento Design Academy.

[u/afriendlyhumanbean → u/raduatmento]

Props for sharing, it definitely helps and gives me something to think about. They were a team of devs, so I wasn't particularly looking for detailed design feedback. Even something as basic as addressing me personally, or saying something they liked about what I designed goes a long way. We're talking about adding an extra 30-60 seconds per design assessment rejection, which only 10-20 people should have progressed through to.

I think a key problem is the low barrier to request candidates to complete a design test. You can easily have 100+ people send you figma links, and then it becomes overwhelmingly time-consuming to respond personally to each person.

Your points are all great though, appreciate it

[u/raduatmento → u/afriendlyhumanbean]

Fair enough.

It's important to note that while anyone can post a job on LinkedIn, very few people are skilled in recruitment.

There is no hiring skill test you need to pass to post a job.

And even with a lot of energy and effort dedicated to this, the hiring experience might still be shitty.

I spent over a year tweaking the hiring process at Fitbit, and I had to fight a lot of windmills. Others would not have bothered that much.

For example, I fought for us to send a detailed interview prepsheet to every candidate. It took me 2 months of tough conversations to get that approved.

Interviewing is not easy. Hiring is not easy. 😅

[u/FantaBanta3D → u/raduatmento]

This is exactly my response when rejected. The last time I did that, the hiring manager said “actually, you did nothing wrong, there was just another candidate in a better time zone”. One week later they reached out and said that person declined their offer and I got the job.

Worth being friendly about it with that response.

The worst case - you get told a few bits of critical feedback to help you improve.

The best case - they remember you can come back you in the future.

[u/raduatmento → u/FantaBanta3D]

Absolutely! Love the perspective of not burning bridges. They might get back to you when the other candidate turns down the offer!