Let's talk about feedback!

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Resources of the Week!

1. I was on the Blind Ambition with Jack Kelley and Rick Chen (of Blind fame). We talked about hiring for startups and small businesses - you can access it here!

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Feedback: The Great Debate

Not a day goes by that I don’t see a post (like this one) where candidates ask for feedback from recruiters and hiring teams. And I have some thoughts here - so let’s talk about it!

But first a poll - after an interview, how do you prefer to receive feedback?

Why don’t more recruiters offer feedback?

1. Efficiency: offering personal feedback, even if it’s fairly generic, is going to require additional customization for each candidate and this isn’t an action that is aligned to reaching their goals so it doesn’t make much sense for a recruiter to take this step.

2. Risk: any time you offer feedback, you open yourself up to a level of legal risk, of someone arguing with you, of being called out on LinkedIn, etc. Some companies have a policy against offering any feedback for this reason.

3. They don’t have much to add: sometimes, a recruiter or hiring team often doesn’t have a great reason for the decline. “We had other candidates who better aligned with our needs in this role” often truly IS their feedback!

Personally, when there is something glaring, or when I see someone has applied a few times, I do try to identify some feedback I can offer, but usually at the application stage, the reasons boil down to one of 4 things:
-Location doesn’t match with our target location/time zone, or they are in a location we can’t legally hire in
-They don’t have work authorization and my company doesn’t offer visas
-They lack key experiences/skills necessary for the role
-They are a solid candidate, but we have others who were also great and have filled up our interview slots

Is the feedback even going to be useful to you?

In general, when someone is rejected at an application stage, I think it’s going to be rare that a recruiter provides useful feedback, and I think you can generally figure out why without the assistance of a recruiter:

1. Check out the job posting - did you meet all of the minimum requirements? Were there some areas where you were banking on transferable skills? The team likely had candidates who had more relevant experience so they chose not to consider folks who were stretching into the role.

2. Were there mismatches in location? Work authorization? This can often knock folks out of a process at the application stage.

3. If it’s a remote role or a role in an area where jobs are hard to find (like recruiting!), then it’s entirely possible you were a great applicant but they simply had a large applicant pool.

The reality is that a recruiter telling you that they had more qualified candidates isn’t going to make you a better applicant for the next role.

The most helpful thing at this stage in my opinion is the data itself.

Have you had a 0% success rate when applying for Sr. Marketing Manager roles, while you’ve gotten interviews 3% of the time for Marketing Manager, and 5% of the time for Sr. Marketing Specialist? That tells you what level employers may see you as a fit for, so you can either adjust your resume, or target those titles.

On the flip side, if you’ve had a few interviews, a team may have useful feedback - now you may again be able to figure this out for yourself. Maybe you know you stumbled over a question, or the recruiter said, “I know the team is looking for Hubspot experience, but I’ll talk to the team if they’ll consider your experience with other CRMs.” This can give you insight into why the role didn’t pan out even without additional feedback from the recruiter.

The other thing I’ll add is that some folks ask for feedback but what they really want is a second chance. They want to be able to explain why the feedback is inaccurate, or plead their case. And in my experience, this is rarely going to work. Because it’s not just about you against the hiring bar. It’s also that there were other candidates being considered, and they ultimately decided they saw more potential in those candidates; you adding additional information is unlikely to change that.

If you’re genuinely surprised after an interview, and you genuinely want feedback for your own growth or peace of mind, then it may be useful to reach out and ask for feedback - but if you walked away knowing things didn’t go well, you’re unlikely to get anything particularly useful.

I really want the feedback

So you’ve reflected, you’re truly unclear what went wrong, believe that feedback might give you some direction, and are not trying to use the request for feedback to convince them to reconsider.

Well in this case, go for it!

Here’s how you can frame this ask:

“Of course I’m disappointed in this outcome, but I know you’re a great place to work and I’m not surprised that you have some incredible people to choose from. I really thought the interview went well though, and would love to hear a bit more about the decision so I can take this into consideration when I reapply in the future, as well as for my job search moving forward.”

Then go into that conversation as a learner, reiterate the positive experience you had, thank the recruiter or hiring manager for the feedback, etc. That way, you use that interaction to build a relationship, leave a positive impression, and increase the chances they consider you in the future (which could be in just a few weeks or months!!)

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer a few of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

I have two schools of thought here:

1. I don’t think it hurts to try and negotiate and no good employer is going to rescind an offer simply because someone negotiates.

2. At the same time, I think heavy negotiation on the part of a company signals that they have an inequitable approach to hiring.

So a few tips:

1. Start the conversation around compensation early. Ask about how the company sets compensation so you know what factors to highlight, and whether there’s room for negotiation in the first place. If an employer says we pay all new hires X, then they likely aren’t going to negotiate as that would be against their policy.

2. If you DO want to negotiate, anchor on the skills and experiences that align with what they have said they are looking for, and market data (see #3). Even as a recent graduate, you may have coursework, part-time jobs, internships, etc. that build key skills they said they valued. Keep in mind that a company generally isn’t going to pay a premium for irrelevant skills. For example, a masters in education might matter for an L&D role, but a company isn’t going to pay more for a masters if you’re pivoting to an entry level software engineering role.

3. Do your research. If a company makes an offer that’s well above your target salary, within the range they communicated and that you said you were happy with, and competitive with what you’re seeing in the market, than trying to negotiate arbitrarily is unlikely to pay off. If it’s not inline, it might make more sense.

4. Be realistic. Most negotiations result in a few percentage points at best. It’s rare that people are negotiating 20% increases. If a company told you $90-100k, offers you $95k, and you then ask for $120k, that is going to frustrate them, and feel like you’re playing games, are not knowledgeable about the market or how compensation works, etc. If you ask for $98k, citing that you really excelled in the process and know that you have unique skills that are rare on the market, and have another offer in the $100k+ range, they might be more open.

If you decide to negotiate, this can sound like:

“I really appreciate this offer, and am excited to join the team. I do know that most companies have been more in the range of $75-$85k for this role, so the offer of $70k is a bit low relative to the market, particularly given my experience with XYZ. Can we get closer to that range? I’d really like to make this work given that I know I can have a significant impact quickly in this role.”

And if a company signals that there is no room for negotiation, that this is their best and final offer, etc., I would believe them. If you keep pushing, that may be where they decide to move on to the next person because they start worrying they’ll lose backup candidates, or even that this approach will translate to how you work with others.

One last tip: Do not claim to have competing offers unless you actually have one that you prefer or are willing to walk away. I have heard of companies that pull offers at that point because they don’t want to lose a backup candidate and feel like they’ve already lost you.

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