> Even for candidates for whom my feedback was scathing, they are still generally positive about the experience

If you have scathing feedback for someone you are interviewing, you should probably just shut up. Or at least deliver it in a different context where they aren't being held hostage and having their every reaction scrutinized. Sounds miserable, I seriously doubt they were actually "generally positive"

> Ok. It’s not really a question. The ‘is that ok’ isn’t really seeking permission; it’s giving the candidate a few seconds to prepare for what’s coming.

Oof, what the hell? I'm not a big fan of people who want to offer feedback but don't genuinely ask first, and accept that the person might say "no". (And then honor that!)

Some of the feedback the author described wasn't really feedback, it was more like they didn't fully ask the questions they wanted to and should have during the interview, got the wrong impression, and then thought that offering feedback was the way to get that fixed up. No, the right thing to do is immediately ask a direct question about what you're looking for, at the point in the interview when you aren't getting it.

As an interviewer, it's my role to get the information I need to help inform a decision that I will not make alone. If I have a concern about some unknown, I have to navigate that; it's on me. I expect an interviewee to be prepared to share relevant information, but interviews are stressful and if I only want to hire good interviewers, I'm going to have a considerably smaller pool.

Furthermore, as an interviewer, my job is to be a candidate. Why should this person choose my team/company to work at? It's a privilege that anyone show up to join, and I ought to be as prepared to give answers as they are.

That said, any "feedback" I would give would be arbitrary. I am not this person's mentor and I shouldn't—after only 40 minutes—assume I know enough to give them feedback. Saying that I have concerns about not getting enough information, and that somehow being their "feedback," is bad framing. Try:

  Before moving on, I really want to make sure I get a full picture of your time at Acme working with the Foobar team. Would you say that you led project X? Who ultimately decided when it shipped and set deadlines? Was that part of your responsibilities?

I know TFA mentioned similar things about also being a candidate and that the "feedback" is to spur discussion, but the framing of giving "highly opinionated" thoughts about someone's capabilities as a way to ask questions is unnecessarily adversarial is an already power-imbalanced situation. I think it's better to try to tilt the power imbalance in the other direction—giving the candidate a feeling that you, the interviewer, are also auditioning for them. Doing that shows humility and, in my experience, gives a better opportunity to get to honest answers about being a good fit for each other.

I did lots of interview on both sides and know how often interviews are just luck - got asked trick question that I knew answer to, coding problem that involves algorithm I just recently used, etc.

There is so much randomness that I, as interviewer, decided on the following strategy - put candidate into best possible position and judge from that. I settle on one set of questions - "tell me about your most favorite project, why, and let's discuss in detail". If candidate knows his/her stuff - this is fun/informative discussion. Also easy filter if a candidate cannot say much or doesn't understand details of project they consider their favorite.

> “ You seemed quite nervous”

This kind of thing is weird to call out. Your perception of a candidate’s emotions isn’t relevant. People are wired differently. Some people can bullshit with no nervousness at all. Some people can be highly skilled and not able to practice this away. It’s a matter of wiring.

Calling out actions and behaviors and words, observable reality, is fine. Emotions, no.

By the time an interview ends, a candidate usually has a good sense of whether it went well or not. I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and I would never jump into this feedback mode OP describes. There's not much point in giving positive feedback if they're already feeling good about the interview. If you give someone negative feedback (no matter how constructive) they're going to get defensive and want to plead their case; but it's the end of the interview and there's no time for that. OP says people express gratitude for the feedback, but what does he expect them to do? Anyone who doesn't appreciate it still doesn't want to tank the interview by appearing ungrateful. Never play psychological games in interviews.

At the beginning of the article, I really thought the author was referring to reversing the final step as the candidate providing feedback for the interviewer, which would have been much more interesting especially on the matter of reversing the power balance! But in fact it was not.

(I have not been a job candidate in almost 10 years but in B2B meetings I kind of like to do a similar reversal of power in some situations, just to inform the other party I am not a 6-weeks rabbit)

I’ve conducted several hundred interviews, and I no longer invite argument in them. The stress, knowing they are being judged, the stakes involved with a large paycheck on the line is just not a good environment to antagonize someone in. I’m not going to put my interviewers in that situation, or myself.

And if the value is correcting misunderstandings, I don’t see it. The very fact that the communication failed and there was a misunderstanding is a huge no hire red flag. Communicating clearly matters as much as doing the job

I recently did not get a job I was a really good fit for and they were kind enough to send me some feedback as part of the rejection letter.

Reading them made me realise that if they just asked to clarify some of those points I would’ve easily explained them, which is something that still stings when I think about it.

Having interviewed people in the past I really feel like this is an amazing tool: not only is a great way to see how people react to feedback but also a way to understand more about a candidate especially if they are anxious or shy. Thanks for sharing

I've been on both sides of such conversations and being asked such a question as a candidate to me would be a roundabout way of saying "we're not intending to hire you".

Anyway, I don't usually take feedback. Every company has its own culture and they're often in contradiction to each other. Companies with a strong culture that you have to conform to tend to have high turnaround. Also the guy interviewing me doesn't have to fully represent said culture because people are people and plug in their own opinions and biases regularly.

I was hoping before opening the article this might be feedback from candidate --> interviewer. Quite a few interviews I've been the candidate have been negative experiences that put me off the job entirely. I think it's often forgotten that interviews are (or should be) two-way exchanges, not just a hazing of would-be employees.

> You explained the concepts of what makes a good team, but no matter how much I probed, I couldn’t get anything concrete from you about how to actually build a team.

Did YOU ever get feedback? This is not a good interview. Why didn't you just ask the question? Can it be that you don't know how to interview, or was is just so you could get on your high horse and say "you didn't read my mind, so you're a bad fit"? And it seems a pattern in your feedback: you seem to wait for YOUR time to shine as a "benevolent feedback giver" instead of asking the questions when it makes sense, and you can get an immediate answer.

Taking the spirit of the post, the bi-directional feedback, to heart. As a candidate, it gives me a clearer idea of how to improve going forward. However, this is a thought exercise and impractical. Anyone that has worked at a company with more than 5 people knows you can’t just offer feedback as you enter into legal hot water

So, regardless of what else you ask in the interview, this question makes the interview two-way instead of one-way

No it doesn't - there's nothing in the article about asking for feedback in return. The only reference to somebody actually doing that is extremely negative.

If the author reads this, they may be well-motivated but should consider quite seriously that they are not understanding "two-way" as they intend.

Interviews nowadays are one way. It’s almost like hiring managers want to appear busy at their work places and the rest of us are there to entertain them. A sort of humiliation ritual. For example, now they like to ask “Tell me about exceptional work you’ve done, that nobody else could do it?”.

> Both are reasons I treat a confirmed concern as a flag to check against the earlier stages, not a verdict.

This read very oddly, as an LLM.

> Ok. It’s not really a question. The ‘is that ok’ isn’t really seeking permission; it’s giving the candidate a few seconds to prepare for what’s coming.

The first rule for a manager when asking if someone is ready to hear feedback is accepting a no[1].

Posing it as a question when it isn't, immediately negates the validity of what follows. It says, "I'm not taking you input as worthy of consideration," and everything that follows it is hinged on this impotency.

If you're not willing to accept someone's input in the form of a 'no,' it's inconceivable that you'd expect others to take yours.

1. The 'shot across the bow' scenario doesn't apply to interviews - there's no chain of command.

> If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

The only right answer is to leave such an interview immediately.

> Both are reasons I treat a confirmed concern as a flag to check against the earlier stages, not a verdict.

As much as I've enjoyed the article so far, little LLM-isms like this turn me off just a little bit. It's not egregious but it's somewhat distracting.

(There were some earlier that I glossed over because the article's good enough. Good job to the author for making it relatively painless, but still.)

It gets slightly more LLM-ish towards the end, not to an unacceptable level but still noticeably so. Maybe the article could've been a bit shorter, as most of the best information is earlier.

> In Summary

I also think this entire section is unnecessary, and that it would've been perfectly complete to simply end after "This type of negative response is very rare." Just personal preference though.

I've interviewed hundreds (maybe thousands at this point?) of candidates in the course of my career, and as much as I think giving feedback at the end of the call is a great idea, I personally would struggle with doing it in a way that was actually useful to the interviewee. Because unless it's a hard "no" (e.g. someone is obviously lying about their experience), I almost always need to ruminate on the interview afterwards before I can write up useful feedback. Sometimes it's the act of writing itself that helps me form a coherent recommendation.

This is also why I hate interview processes where my co-interviewers want to debrief immediately, or when I have a recruiter breathing down my neck as soon as the call ends.

OP here. It's fascinating reading people's interpretation of both the intent of the article and also me. I'm happy to answer any questions if people want.

seems quite stilted.

instead of "i'd like to give some feedback, may I?" at the end, the interviewer should just ask the damn question in real time. "that description is very high level. that is great for an external summary, when the decision is already made and you want to communicate, not discuss. so i appreciate that. can you go into more detail and justify your choices, as if for an audience of peers and for discussion?"

a good interview should be an interactive exercise, not a one way explanation from the candidate. even LC/DSA type rounds should always find the candidate asking for clarifications, asking if they are on the right track is this what you are looking for, should i be attacking this a different way, etc.

and i would never give unsolicited positive feedback. even when you are the final decision maker, other rounds may uncover weak spots and there may not be a consensus to hire. by giving the positive feedback you confuse the candidate and make a no-hire result even worse. leave it to the recuiter/HR to do that.

as an interviewer i always mention whether i will recommend them for hire (if it's a yes) and that's it. iff asked i provide critical feedback. as a candidate i always ask for critical feedback, which gives me the chance to sharpen any answer when the interviewer doesn't do a good job on asking for what they really wanted.

Interviews are highly subjective when interviewers want answers to questions that they don't even explicitly ask. I have on occasion received terrible quality feedback telling me that I didn't tell them something in sufficient detail. Well, they never asked, and I don't read minds. I don't want to put people to sleep.

It's best for probing to be explicit and for feedback to be immediate after each question, not after the interview.

Wow, this post makes me anxious about getting a job. This whole process is so blatantly terrible... Not OP's fault, to be clear. Though asking a rhetorical "is that ok?" isn't exactly nice!

The part I'd push on isn't whether the feedback helps, it's that the post's evidence can't tell two different cases apart.

"Candidates express gratitude" is measured by the person who still holds the decision, at the moment the candidate has the most to gain by looking coachable. Someone who genuinely found it useful and someone who is just managing you produce the same reading. An instrument that returns the same value either way isn't measuring the thing.

What's interesting is that the thread already contains the version with the incentive removed: 0plus1 got the feedback attached to a rejection, after the decision, and describes it landing: "if they just asked to clarify some of those points I would've easily explained them." Same feedback, nothing left to lose.

So maybe the closing move is right and the timing is wrong: send it with the outcome, not before it.