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HR policies: can search committees give job-candidates feedback?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Are search committees really constrained by HR policies from saying nothing to candidates about why they didn't get a position?

How are candidates supposed to improve their performance without any feedback?

I understand the catch all term 'fit,' meaning that sometimes its not really anything about the quality of a candidate–its just that another candidate fit the needs of a department better.

But surely there is *something* a candidate could have done differently.

Its so frustrating to get nothing from search committees when you follow up–you either get silence or you get boiler plate BS.

Good questions. Another reader submitted the following reply:

When I worked at a state university there came a time in the 1st decade of the 2000s that universities became extremely concerned about litigation. First, resolving issues in court is costly (even out of court, if they are threatened with litigation). Second, it is bad for public relations – and thus recruitment. The universities that are now in financial distress are all dealing with shortfalls in recruiting students. So university administrators decided that they would take aggressive measures to avoid litigation. The trouble with hiring is that faculty would occasionally say things that were inappropiate and would lead to further inquiries that hinted at litigation. How do we stop this? We forbid faculty from speaking at all. I am not a US citizen, so I saw this as just part of American culture. It is distressing, but it is not going to change any time soon.

Do any other search committee members, administrators, or others with inside experience care to weigh in? Also, if SCs can't give candidates feedback, what should people like the OP do to improve their performance on the market?

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11 responses to “HR policies: can search committees give job-candidates feedback?”

  1. Tenured SLAC

    It is frustrating. A candidate puts so much effort and emotional energy into a search and is told nothing.
    My understanding is similar to the one shared in the original post. HR departments fear litigation. It is easy to imagine a scenario where a search committee gives feedback–for example, suggesting that a hired candidate is better able to teach the courses the department needs to be taught–only for the non-selected candidate to want to prove that this is not the case at all. Search committees aren’t in a position to re-open a search in this way and so–from their perspective–offering feedback only leads to negative outcomes. I worry, also, that any feedback a candidate gets may ultimately prove more frustrating than insightful.
    The best thing for OP to do is to read job ads extremely carefully. Fear of litigation also leads search committees to create rubrics that are tied to the job post. An exceptional candidate will lose out to a candidate who is more closely aligned with the job post and the rubrics tied to that post. It is a frustrating reality but OP shouldn’t lose hope. If at all possible, ask senior people who have served on search committees for their tips and insight into how searches work.

    Reply
  2. necessary but impossible

    A side comment:
    I feel that giving honest feedback is in general very difficult, especially when it is not anonymous and when the two parties involved are not in a very trusty relationship like supervision. I have felt the difficulty even in giving my own students honest feedback, and even when such feedback is crucial for their’ success (like their phd applications). The extent to which I have to sugarcoat my “feedback” is frustrating, and makes me fear that I haven’t done my job properly.
    As a job candidate, I too was desperate for feedback. But given my actual experience, I think that honest and useful feedback in this situation is quite practically impossible.

    Reply
  3. squidward

    This job cycle I got very candid feedback from two on-campus interviews. One committee chair gave feedback via email, and other other over the phone.
    I could tell it was not easy for either person to share their thoughts, and I was really grateful for their time and honest assessment. However, overall I found that — as mentioned by another poster above — the feedback I got was more frustrating than insightful. I did get a couple of helpful pointers about minor things I did/didn’t do. But most of the feedback I got was specific to the particular interview, and not really generalizable for future interviews.
    There was nothing major cited that I did “wrong,” and most of the things that could have gone better were largely out of my control. I was told for both jobs that the decision not to hire me came down to the intangible, ever-elusive “fit,” that they loved my visit, that I’m a great candidate overall, etc etc. I know the latter comment was meant sincerely and was intended to boost my confidence, but honestly in both cases it mostly just made me feel helpless and a little angry.
    I’m not going on the market again so I don’t know if I would ask for feedback in the future. If I did, I think I would bracket the request, indicating that I am not interested in hearing why I didn’t get the job, but rather that I want to know about the sorts of things that are obviously fixable in the future for other interviews.
    One last thought: it may be more helpful to get such feedback indirectly, e.g. if you know a faculty member in your department who is connected to one of the search committee members. The added degree of separation might be helpful when it comes to getting clearer feedback.

    Reply
  4. An Anon

    Seems worth noting that recent discussions on this blog have indicated that some number of faculty would be willing to reject candidates for illegal reasons such as perceived religious affiliation, and the litigation risk if they were actually honest about that to a rejected candidate would be huge.

    Reply
  5. not enough jobs

    I’ve been on a few search committees, and honestly, it is not clear that any possible ‘feedback’ would have been helpful to the candidates.
    In every single case, the majority of the first-round candidates, and every single candidate that had a campus visit, would have been a perfectly good (if not excellent) colleague. Ultimately, the people that got offers really were just a better fit.
    Ultimately, the only ways for the other candidates to improve would have been things like writing papers on a topic I thought was more interesting, teaching different courses at some point in their past, not having jetlag, or being nicer to Dr X who has a lot of influence in the department. None of this strikes me as particularly helpful.

    Reply
  6. Michel

    I would settle for just getting a rejection from places that interviewed me.

    Reply
  7. R1 faculty

    Maybe it will be helpful to say something generic. I work in an R1, phd-granting department and have heard a lot about searches at a few similar departments. It’s almost always some combination of issues with actual philosophy (eg often, the rest of the faculty not on the search committee will read writing samples and find them to be bad), intellectual fit (eg in my department candidates have said things that colleagues have found objectionable about their attitude towards doing philosophy, or their negative attitude towards sub field x that many colleagues work in), and less common but still coming up is what classes the candidate will teach etc. But at least at the small sample size of r1 depts I am very closely familiar with, first order philosophy is the main thing that sinks candidates. (Also it’s not my experience, at r1 departments, that people often think “any of these people would be amazing colleagues”. Often, but of course not always, the reason you see searches fail at these departments is just that perceived philosophical quality of candidates isn’t high enough.) I’m not defending any of this, just putting it out there—the moral seems to be that if you’re competitive for r1 jobs, work more on actual philosophy (writing sample and job talk especially) and getting feedback on your work from a wider variety of people. (Of course, there are also trumping considerations like: don’t be an asshole on a flyout etc.)

    Reply
  8. Smiler

    R1 faculty …
    You made me smile 😉 … don’t be an asshole on a flyout … yes, save that for after you are hired 😉

    Reply
  9. Mike Titelbaum

    One thing you can do is approach a search committee member and ask if there’s anything you can do to improve your application/interview/job talk in the future. If you can manage to have this conversation in person rather than via email, it will often go better. Also, focus on the strength of your application going forward, not demanding an explanation of why you didn’t get a particular job or—even worse—trying to argue that you should’ve gotten that job. (That may sound far-fetched, but I’ve been confronted by such conversations in the past.) When people approach me in an appropriate way after I’ve been on a search committee, I’m happy to provide any useful advice I can.

    Reply
  10. Ted

    At least for the finalists for the last few TT positions at my R1, there is really nothing that can usefully be told. We would have been happy with any of the three finalists for each of these positions. The final votes came down not to quality of writing sample or job talk or interview, but what extras each candidate would bring to the position. (well, with the exception of the one candidate who came in as the clear leader, was an asshole to our administrative assistant and was out of the running before they even gave their job talk or teaching demo).

    Reply
  11. Bill Vanderburgh

    To amplify “Ted” and “not enough jobs”, much of the time hiring committee decisions are compromises between people who have differing standards of evaluation and therefore different evaluations of the candidates. Sometimes, the factors most strongly influencing one vote are not even in the back of the mind of another vote. Typically, some candidates are strong with respect to some of the requirements/preferences of the job, while other candidates are strong on other factors–in essence making it an apples-to-carrots comparison in almost any case. Then there is the crystal-ball-gazing of trying to decide what the dean will find acceptable.
    As a result, an element of randomness is part of the selection process even when committee members are trying to be as objective and evidence-based as possible. I can’t recall a search I’ve been part of where everyone agreed on all the candidate rankings for all the same reasons.
    Like with teaching awards, the winners are almost always deserving, but there are lots of non-winners who are deserving, too.
    Sometimes selection is just a matter of one of the finalists being slightly preferable on one factor; the same candidates interviewed by a different department would probably be rank-ordered differently.
    Given all that, there is really not much feedback a chair or committee member could give that would be generalizable to other interviews, especially since the needs and preferences of the next department are probably quite different. Even things like, “You didn’t leave enough time for questions after your talk” or “Your teaching demo was pitched too high/low for our students” might be the opposite of what is needed at the next interview. The committee is probably split on those things, too, so the chair might be unwilling or unable to express a general point of feedback.

    Reply

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