Ask HN: Is this normal practice from Facebook?

12 points by lemure 6 years ago | 15 comments

I've been contacted from fb for a position in London with the excuse that they're hiring 1k+ people [1].

Everything seemed legit from internal recruiter contact details and procedure: I've got a lot of reading material from them, set online meetings, etc...

I did the first coding interview and the interviewer has been overly positive throughout the 40 minutes we talked. One day later the former recruiter told me I didn't pass and now he's refusing to give me a more detailed feedback claiming that "due to compliance policy we are not able to provide you with the detailed feedback on your interview"

So...it's this for real or this is some sort of very refined scam (no idea what may be the end goal tho)?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-europe-business-idUSKBN1ZK0G4

Bucephalus355 6 years ago |

The nicer they are in the interview the more that tends to indicate you will not receive an offer.

I used to wonder why this was, but kept seeing these types of anecdotes pop up again and again.

The best conclusion I have come to, which makes some sense, is that when you do well in an interview yet also some factor means you won't be moving on...the interviewer out of guilt feels compelled to be extra nice to you.

julius_set 6 years ago |

It could be a multitude of reasons. Try not to think of it as a robotic pipeline even though it appears that way. The interviewer could have been sincere but there are a lot of hard decisions / politics / etc. behind the scenes:

• The hiring manager for the team(s) could have been mandated to put in a hiring freeze

• You may have provided an optimal solution but the interviewer couldn’t see himself working with you everyday — at the end of the day this is what it’s all about you want to hire someone you are able to work well with everyday. Not likely the case here though something to consider

• Budget could have gone down

• Headcount reductions

• They night have found a better fit candidate

• Things might be chaotic as even if you do hired your can’t come into HQ until the virus passes

• [Insert any other reason here]

lonbigtech 6 years ago |

Yes, it’s normal to interview people and it’s normal for some subset of those people to fail. It’s standard practice not to provide specific feedback.

lemure 6 years ago | |

(I'm not being sarcastic, just want to understand) what's the point in saying "OK perfect interview" and then discarding without giving feedback? why would I risk applying again if I do not know where I failed?

dchyrdvh 6 years ago | | |

To avoid an emotional confrontation with the candidate. 95% don't meet the bar, but they would be offended if they were told how they really perform. Some may even sue back if they happen to be in some minority group. Companies like FB don't have a shortage of very qualified candidates, so you not applying again is just irrelevant to them. The sign of a perfect interview is when the interviewer realizes that you know more than him.

brudgers 6 years ago | | |

What is a perfect interview from Facebook's perspective? Probably a large part of it is determining whether or not to move forward. For a person who wants to work at Facebook, a perfect interview is mostly one that's passed.

n_t 6 years ago |

"overly positive throughout" means thats how you felt but not necessarily how interviewer felt. Usually, FB's phone screen expectation is to do 2 coding questions (yes in 35-40 mins!), written as close to compiler ready as possible.

lemure 6 years ago | |

by "positive" I meant that the interviewer was actually saying "good job", "optimal solution", "you're doing great", "the recruitment team will get in touch with you about next steps"

indeed there were two questions that they asked me to code, even though they didn't want to actually compile/run the code

heavenlyblue 6 years ago | | |

“The recruitment team will get in touch..”

Everybody says that all the time.

bor100003 6 years ago |

I'm guessing here but it many cases the interviewers(not only recruiters) are taught to act positively. Also if they are choosing between you and someone else they don't what to discourage you from applying.

Someone said that the company doesn't care about you in particular, but they do care about more people applying. It's just larger pool to choose from.

Orlean 6 years ago |

Legal concerns and limited time are among the top reasons you might not get feedback if rejected for a job. They are concerned it can be used or misconstrued by the applicant to demonstrate discrimination in the hiring process. Many employers follow this advice and consider it safest to avoid providing any feedback

lemure 6 years ago | |

I see, that would make sense, thanks for replying

gonchalibro 6 years ago |

What was the coding question?

adchari 6 years ago |

This might be due to a potential looming recession from the pandemic.

tmpz22 6 years ago | |

Ugh I hate to agree but it does seem like they're stuffing their pipeline just to have extra cattle at the gate in case the gates open up...