I'm the OP -- curious if anybody else here has given personalized feedback to candidates and has positive or negative experiences.
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Recruiter here that has worked with quite a few startups as well as large companies (agency recruiter, not internal). Some clients are great about giving candidates actionable advice after interviews ("your database skills were not up to speed"), but generally the personalized feedback is only given when it is pretty clear that the feedback will be agreed to by the failed candidate. If he/she missed all the database questions, this feedback will not be a surprise.
You start to hear the generic code words like "not a fit" when there is something more to it, like we just didn't like you, or something perhaps bordering on illegal.
I have clients that deliver me very personalized rejections for some candidates and very generic rejections for others, at which point it becomes fairly obvious that personality and other things that a candidate would be sensitive to are often the issue. It's much easier to hear "your DB skills weren't up to snuff, bone up on those and you'll get somewhere" than "we didn't like you, change".
Fear of offending candidates, or being sued, are the root of the problem - and 'not a fit' is such a bland response that it generally just creates more questions from candidates.
Have you never interviewed candidates who seemed completely obnoxious or crazy (or high!), or were just far below the required standard? I have.
What do you tell them that is constructive and not legally risky?
Those are no-win situations, and there is really nothing you can or should tell them. You have that 1-5% element that may even sneak past your phone interview or look good on paper! but that you almost immediately know will never work for you. I don't think lying is ever a great idea, but in those situations the truth is a very risky endeavor, and some sort of white lie ("we just filled the position") could be an option.
I used to do it all the time. Then HR told me it introduced legal risks (and backed it up with real-life examples), so I reluctantly stopped.
I can speak from the other end of this communication - that of the candidate - and say that I would really appreciate some kind of feedback from the startups that have rejected me so far.
I am actually going to write a blog post about this during the weekend - will pingback!
EDIT: "But somebody who spent a day interviewing with you deserves more than a form letter."
This. Exactly this.
I agree that a one-day interview deserves some feedback.
I disagree that said feedback is provided during a rejection letter.
I suggest to you as a candidate, to ask for feedback when they ask you if you have any questions for them... At that point, they can say you did well in this area, not so hot in another, etc. But its up to you to ask.
Then ask them! "Hey guys, I'd really appreciate some feedback on how to improve. I won't get defensive and could really use your advice -- please be honest!" This can go a really long way.
That's the actual funny part: They get back to you with the same b*llshit, just using different words.
It's always a good idea to ask for feedback in a thoughtful way, put people at ease, and communicate that they won't have to deal with emotional fallout. When people do that, I always take the time to give good feedback. If people still give you a BS response after that, they're just jerks and you shouldn't be paying attention to their feedback anyway, even if you got it out of them.
You should! Have you gotten any feedback so far? As somebody on the other side of the equation, I really have no data on what most other startups are doing.
I have had quite some interviews for my age[1]; both with startups and with mid-sized companies and the number of them that gave me actual feedback is minimal.
[1] Yes, you could say that I enjoy finding interesting-looking companies and send them my CV even if they are not actively looking for someone.
I've done a fair bit of interviews with our own asynchronous video interview tool (Interactly), and I always offer people feedback on why I decided not to proceed with them.
Only about 20% of people actually want to hear feedback. One of the challenges of giving feedback is that you want the decision to be final, but if you give points to improve upon then they are inclined to start negotiating with you.
With asynchronous interviews it gave me a very clear record of how they responded, which made it easy for the candidate to also look back at their own input.
One sales manager we interviewed had a significant background, previously having worked at high level positions with large companies.
However, when I saw his interview he was incoherent in his story, made vague statements, made several statements diminishing the challenges of the job without backing those statements up, and most of all his style of presenting himself showed he would be overly aggressive for the intended audience.
I gave him the feedback and instructed him to look at his own video with this in mind, and he really appreciated it.
The thing is, people need detailed feedback to improve. To stay safe on the legal side it would be easy to just give binary responses, but if we're really looking at what would improve the world, it would be actually detailed responses that enable people to improve.
Legal issues are the real problem. With so many holes you can push yourself into without knowing, a disaster is practically unavoidable in the long term.
I, however, reply with a more personal tone.