HACKER Q&A
📣 lemure

Is this normal practice from Facebook?


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 Accepted Answer ✓
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
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
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.
👤 n_t
"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.
👤 bor100003
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
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
👤 gonchalibro
What was the coding question?
👤 adchari
This might be due to a potential looming recession from the pandemic.