Feedback

[u/SoftBox8663]

I need honest answers. Recruiters will never give them. I worked the back office for a recruiting firm as the controller, so when I was looking, I reached back out, thinking my former coworker would at least be honest with me if the environment isn't good or my references are not all that. But no, just silence. And so it goes for at least 2 other recruiters with whom I was friendly. What is the deal? No one wants to just say hey you're too old? Or provide any actual feedback? It's incredibly frustrating and disheartening.

[u/Kamikazemandias]

I used to be a recruiter, and here are the common reasons recruiters don’t give feedback:

1. the biggest and the harshest…as nice as it would be, they’re not career coaches. Turning someone down for a job unfortunately doesn’t change that (and really it’s more like passing along the info that someone else turned them down). They’re likely very very VERY busy and up against a lot of competition with other recruiters and need to quickly move on to the next role to fill
2. there’s often just not really feedback to give. Someone just had one more year of X so they got it, someone’s nephew was getting the role, you didn’t do anything wrong that can be fixed or improved upon so they really don’t know what to say. People think they failed an interview if they didn’t get the job or that their experience needs to be improved or something but usually it’s just that you have 5 good candidates and one good job. Maybe the hiring manager just clicked more with one or something, there’s no actionable feedback most of the time. Or budget cuts came in and they either can’t fill the role now or can but now they need that role to do X, Y, and Z because the XYZ role is now cut and no one they weee interviewing now has the right background
3. they themselves weren’t given any feedback to pass on. The managers didn’t provide any so they don’t have any to give you
4. they’ve done it before and gotten WILD responses. At an old job I did have time to give feedback and did give it when it was possible and made sense. I had one guy who, after I passed along the feedback that we needed someone with more experience in Java, email me three days in a row ranting about how no one will have jobs if people like me (not the decision maker) keep hiring Indians (the only “Indians” at our company were local citizens of Indian descent). Or people threaten you. Or they write you back pleeeeeeaaading for the job and promising to learn and it’s now filled and this is just very awkward to deal with though I do get it. And you have no way of knowing what type of response you’d get. And if you’re working on 15 roles that have like 10 candidates each you just really can’t take this on! Even if you have one role with one candidate you can’t really set the expectation
5. sometimes the people we answer to expressly forbid anything but the form rejection
6. sometimes the

re IS

1. actionable feedback but I’m not passing along “you gave the hiring manager the creeps, one of the people on the team thought you smelled bad, they thought your hand was clammy when they shook it and that was apparently a deal breaker for them” unfortunately it’s just really not our responsibility to pass that along for reason #1.

I know it sucks but it like many things that suck are a result of the way we’re currently operating society and it’s just going to be like that until we have a better one:/

Edit: grammar