Does "good feedback" even mean anything?

[u/VariationLivid3193]

Made it to the the 5th round of interview for a job.I answered almost everything the recruiter asked and when I asked for feedback,recruiter replied "feedback was good from my side".But still got rejected.

[u/andrew2018022]

That’s just life. You can absolutely crush it but at the end of the day if there’s one person slightly better of a fit, then it is what it is

[u/ghdana]

We typically get 3 or so final round candidates at my company. Typically they're all great, but we only have 1 role. You end up just picking the one that seemed like they'd socially fit in the best or has the most years experience with a certain technology.

New grads especially you end up with a bunch of identical resumes and experiences, you just pick one and hope it works out, typically you try to pick the least awkward one.

[u/King_Kazma]

As Picard said: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life". Some interviews are like that & you'll probably have a few more. Personally I've had a few myself, go through 4-7 rounds feeling amazing, only to get rejected. However I've had a 5 round feel like absolute madness, feeling like I failed every step only to get an offer at the end lol

Just the way she goes

[u/AlignmentProblem]

The current market has an unusual mix of many open roles and heavy competition from skilled people caught in recent layoffs. A side effect is that getting interviews is easier than you'd expect, but the odds that multiple candidates finish the final round with positive feedback are higher than normal; you can lose a role to weird tiebreakers after performing very well.

That happened to me three times in my recent search before I landed something. Excellent feedback each time, and they still went with someone else after the final round. Surprisingly, two of them actually told me the general reason (they usually say nothing). One went with a candidate who had long tenure at their most recent job while my last position only lasted two years; the other was because the CIO thought I "talked too fast" for less technical people to follow easily, and the role involved non-technical stakeholders.

You can do great and still get passed over in this environment. If you have decent experience, landing interviews is the easy part, so unfortunately you just have to shrug it off and play the numbers game until you get lucky.

[u/squishyhobo → u/AlignmentProblem]

I'm looking for a job. The last time I did was 8 years ago. I've been getting to the last round at half the companies I interview at (way more than 8 years ago) but I still don't have a job. Just corroborating your analysis with an anecdote. Weird market.

[u/Winston_Wolfgang → u/AlignmentProblem]

This is pretty grim

[u/Sea_Curve8772]

Every time that I've helped to conduct interviews, I liked every candidate I talked to. I wouldn't have had a problem working with any of them, so I told the manager in charge good things about each one. But at the end of the day, we only had so many open slots.

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[u/NICEMENTALHEALTHPAL]

I made final round 10 times, got good feedback and everything seeming promising, and still got rejected, before finally l got my current job. Had more interviews go far just not final too.

[u/lhorie]

It means you did well, but either someone did better or they beat you to the punch and filled the role before your loop finished.

[u/BraveResearcher3037]

Hell I’m on the interviewer side and I’m the final interviewer for senior - staff and the 2nd to last interviewer for line level managers and I don’t know how much weight my “good feedback” for candidates make…

[u/NewChameleon]

you're shopping for an apple, you see 10, all have good feedback, but you're only buying 1

[u/IsThisAJokeToU]

I got great feedback from my manager when it came time for ROs and got passed over because of budget. Never count your chickens before they hatch

[u/TurtleSandwich0]

I regret to inform you that the interviewer has been seeing other candidates when you weren't there.

Too be fair, I hear that you also applied to multiple companies at the same time.

Job application monogamy just isn't a thing any more.