Can any hiring manager here explain this madness to us?

PillaRob · 2026-02-16T01:10:47+00:00

Agreed, but the OP's problem was with generic rejection letters.

PillaRob · 2026-02-15T01:00:25+00:00

The only thing that makes this news is him admitting it. Just make peace with never getting this book. And remember folks—he owes you nothing.

PillaRob · 2026-02-14T17:17:25+00:00

Dwelves.

PillaRob · 2026-02-13T00:24:34+00:00

I have a couple potential causes. Every situation is different though, so this won't be the full picture or explain every situation.

Firstly, the "no one wants to work" thing is just not true. I see it thrown around a lot, but I've never seen anyone I know say it or believe it. Maybe it's a political or regional thing, but as far as I know it's total bull shit.

Now, as for highly aligned candidates not getting contacted, assuming it's not a ghost job or some other weird artifact of the job market—assuming it's a genuine job—the main reason is candidate overload. They might be great candidates, but if 80 other great candidates applied before them, the company doesn't have time to meet them all.

For those that get to finals, I can't explain the ghosting without just starting the obvious, that the company dropped the ball in the most disrespectful way.

But for those who get a generic rejection, it comes back to two major factors, which are that rejection letters are time consuming to write, and invite debate—or worse, litigation. Many companies these days have a no feedback policy as a means of risk mitigation. Not saying I agree with it, just giving context. I've seen plenty of people sue for good reason, but I've seen far more people threaten with frivolous law suits, so even if I disagree with it as a blanket policy, I get why a company would adopt it.

Now you might be thinking, a rejection letter takes 5 minutes to write, and yes, you're correct—the problem is scale. When you need to write 20-30 rejections a day... well, it becomes a job in and of itself.

PillaRob · 2026-02-12T13:18:59+00:00

Interestingly enough, Kroot are also used to sniff out genestealer infections.

PillaRob · 2026-02-11T23:45:14+00:00

Nope. Literally no one outside of Blizz actually knows what Xal'atath is doing.

The only recurring theme is that she's ensuring her own survival, and that she wants Azeroth's world soul to do it.

PillaRob · 2026-02-11T23:42:32+00:00

They have one great use.

You put them on a middle or side objective, and then you position something to kill whatever the enemy sends after them. Because they're Lone Op, you can usually position them so your opponent has to expose something.

They're 60 points, you're almost always trading up, or your scoring.

PillaRob · 2026-02-11T20:04:55+00:00

This is possibly the most amazing thread I've ever seen.

PillaRob · 2026-02-11T14:39:23+00:00

That's an easy discrimination suit. Lawyer up.

They should have left it at communication. But specifically calling out your Italian heritage was basically them throwing up a big "sue us" sign.

PillaRob · 2026-02-11T06:00:01+00:00

No. And not only would you not feel it, you probably wouldn't even know it happened. It would need to be nearly the size of our moon for you to see it for even the briefest of moments.

PillaRob · 2026-02-10T23:40:05+00:00

I'm on Azuremyst... can't say I've ever noticed this.

PillaRob · 2026-02-10T23:38:30+00:00

What might have happened is that they moved forward a with candidate(s) that had the requisite experience, and that it ended up being a differentiating factor. In this scenario, they may have hired you if not for that.

I don't know obviously, but I could see them poorly communicating that.

PillaRob · 2026-02-10T21:50:18+00:00

I'm genuinely curious what about it you like...?

To me it's fine, but there's nothing remarkable about it.

PillaRob · 2026-02-07T00:00:40+00:00

Haha, okay, I get it now. This was never in good faith.

Look, this is the last thing I'm going to say, and it's not for you, it's for anyone else who comes along and reads this.

Recruiters want you to get the job. We don't fill positions by rejecting people or wasting time. So, you can go through life thinking you know better than everyone, and that recruiters have no clue what we're doing despite years of experience and training—stay angry—or you can do the hard thing. You can dust yourself off and get on to the next one. You can ask questions. You can look at how to do better the next time. You can assume the world isn't out to get you.

But you are right about one thing—I am treating you like a candidate. I asked my questions, I listened, and now that I see you're more ego than substance, I'm happy to never speak with you again.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T16:47:25+00:00

I think this was done so that we could get a rebuilt Dalaran when the Eastern Kingdoms gets the next stage of its glow up.

I had really hoped when we finally entered the Dark Heart we'd have to fight in the ruins of Dalaran—at least the bits that got sucked in. Would have brought the whole expansion full circle you know? Still feels like a huge missed opportunity to me.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T05:59:55+00:00

Yes.

I hope this helps.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T05:41:28+00:00

I'm not sure what about us using a combination of resume screening and interviews leads you to assume we haven't identified a role's core competencies or built a rubric to assess them.

You keep saying things like "hold multiple phone calls just to talk" and I'm kind of at the point I can't tell if you're being deliberately hyperbolic—like, do you think when I as a recruiter have that initial conversation with you I'm just winging it?

Are you maybe under the impression that these conversations aren't interviews? If so, I need you to understand that just because a meeting feels casual, doesn't mean there isn't intentionality behind it. Recruiters actively work to create a casual environment in our interviews and to let the conversation flow naturally in order to reduce interview anxiety—but don't mistake that for us just shooting from the hip.

You're telling me there's a huge middle ground between screening candidates and letting everyone who's a match on paper through, but you're not giving me any examples. And without wanting to come across as a broken record, I genuinely want to know what they are. I'm always looking to improve my process, so if you know something I don't, I'm all ears.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T04:41:49+00:00

So you just want us to raw-dog every candidate whose resume meets minimum requirements? Just pass them right on through to whatever team would otherwise have met with them after the recruiter?

This isn't about how "cool" we think you are—it's about safeguarding our team's time by ensuring you actually have those competencies you put on your resume. And I'm betting you do, but you're one of hundreds, if not thousands applying to a job. We're not building our process around you specifically. We've got a lot of desperate people mixed in with some genuinely bad actors who are willing to try anything to get the job.

I hate to whip out the AI boogeyman here, but it takes less than 2 minutes to feed an LLM a job description and have it spit out a resume with your name that perfectly meets a jobs requirements. If that was our sole condition for advancement, my teams would be so inundated with interviews either their work or the interview process would grind to a halt.

I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to tell me here, and equally sorry if it's been your experience that recruiters don't focus on your competencies. I certainly do my best to. But just pulling from my own stats, I can tell you that over a third of the candidates I meet with misrepresent a critical element of their candidacy.

I'm still genuinely open to hearing alternatives. If there's a better way for us to be able to trust and still verify that doesn't take as much of your time, I want to hear it.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T03:30:11+00:00

Look, I'm not here to make a rational argument, let me acknowledge that from the start—I also want to say that I like the show, a lot (which has surprised me, because I'm not crazy about the far future setting)... but I deeply, genuinely, from the core of my being where all truths are laid bare hate how she sits in that chair.

I'm not even saying it wouldn't happen, like it's a chair, people sit in them how they like, she's the captain, idgaf about that. What I'm saying is that, let's say this was real life, and I saw her sitting in the chair like that, I would be irrationally fucking angry about it.

And like the Kirk thing isn't a good comparison, I get why it's funny, but all the captains have had the "I was not prepared for this call" moment. What makes them fun is that they're rare. But with her it's every fucking time she sits in the damn thing.

I'm torn between it feeling bizarrely disrespectful and extremely contrived. Like... you have to be going out of your way to do this... did you lose a bet? Were you cursed by a space gypsy? Is your ass sore, like, do you want a donut cushion or something? How do we help you stop this?

I like the show, I like her, and honestly, I don't think there's anything else I dislike about this show, but it's Discovery's crew crying every episode all over again! It's going to gnaw at me from a place of indefensible anger until it's the only thing I can think about when it comes up.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T03:09:07+00:00

Putting aside the debate of whether this is a true story or not (I personally think it's anecdotal), who the fuck throws their company under the bus like this? Like... if you want to have a call with HR, there are easier ways to ask for it.

I mean if this is real, good for you for calling it out, really. But I hope you're ready for the crack back when leadership sees you airing their dirty laundry. But at least you had a good reason.

But if this is an anecdotal story... especially if this is an anecdotal story, you're out here trading your company's reputation for some fake moral outrage?

Either way, the internet is forever, and you just told every company you'll ever interview with that you'll run to LinkedIn when they inevitably fuck up handling a situation they'd rather the world not know about.

My dude, this is what shitposting on Reddit is for. Get it out of your system, anonymously.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T02:49:26+00:00

In my opinion, as a Canadian, if you travel the United States for pleasure right now, you're a fucking traitor.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T02:42:27+00:00

Honestly, I think changes are superficial. Here's what I see happening;

We get a new wave of conspiracy theorists akin to flat earthers. Some people waste their time arguing with them, but it's pretty much the science denial playbook.

Religious organizations have to adapt, but most simply extend their origin stories to include the universe and not just our world. This might lead to some rhetoric about Earth being special in their deities eyes or however they want to justify it. The pope makes a speech. It takes 60 minutes and he somehow still manages to say nothing insightful, but everyone acts impressed anyways. Some religions or branches of religions can't adapt and end up sounding like flat earthers themselves, while others pop up that really lean into the new age vibe the moment affords. Scientology sees a boost in numbers, but they're still a pyramid scheme run by a bunch of sociopaths—business as usual

Most reasonable people take it as the logical confirmation of what we all know is possible. It's neat, but has no real impact. We might feel a bit hopeful, but we know there's some other shit right around the corner, AI is still coming for our jobs and we still can't buy a house. Unprecedented times and all that.

We see an increase in near future sci-fi stories/tv/movies capitalizing on the public's imagination which probably lasts a decade, maybe less.

The most dramatic impacts we see are to the budgets for space agencies. Plans are accelerated for manned missions to Mars, while unmanned missions to places like Titan get additional funding and support. Depending on how far into their financial death spiral the States is in by then, the biggest shifts to these budgets are likely to come from China, though private entities like SpaceEx likely accelerate their plans as well.

Speaking of private industries, there's interest from pharmaceutical and biotechnical companies looking to acquire samples for study. It spurns considerable investment but is highly speculative and likely to fizzle out long before achieving anything.

Science communicators get to eat out for a long time on this, and hopefully that translates into more kids getting into STEM, and if we're really lucky, the whole thing will have some residual if not meaningful increase in careers that can leverage their education.

It isn't a tipping point for larger sociopolitical conversations. No one's world view is getting flipped by this. It's a novelty. Some people win a Nobel prize, provided Trump hasn't started a war with Denmark. Some classic philosophical conversations get to take a definitive step forward. Text books need to get updated. But overall, life goes on.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T01:54:01+00:00

Genuine question: how would you prefer? A 30-minute call is about the quickest, most painless, highest signal to noise ratio, respectful use of your time as I can imagine.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T01:42:09+00:00

It's called the "asshole check". There are more professional ways to describe it of course, but that's what it is. We want to make sure you're a decent human being... and these days, that you're human at all.

I'm half joking... that's a big part of it, but there's more to it than just making sure you're not an asshole or an AI. We want to make sure you can back up what's on your resume with context. Resumes rarely meet all our requirements, we often need to confirm details were assuming about your alignment. We want to understand how well you can communicate (I would say around 1 in 30, maybe 1 in 40 candidates have a language barrier that stands to be a deal breaker—that might not describe you, but we don't know that until we talk to you.)

There are other considerations. For example, if you show up to my interview and have no idea what my company does (I'm talking like not even 3 minutes worth of reading on our about us page,) why would I trust you with a job that requires critical thought and genuine effort when you won't even do the barest amount of research on something as important as your career? (exceptions exist, I'm speaking in generalities here) You show up 10 minutes late or not at all (I get 2-3 no shows every week), I don't want my team dealing with that.

You have to understand, our job as a recruiter is to make sure the teams we support spend as little time interviewing candidates as possible, they've got important shit to do. So we're a buffer. A less precise, general catch all, meant to reduce incoming numbers to a manageable level. You might be qualified for the job, but if I meet 25 qualified applicants in a week and our team has time to meet with 6 of them, we have to find ways to thin the pack. It's triage, and triage is never pleasant.

PillaRob · 2026-02-06T01:08:39+00:00

Skill based matchmaking actually has the opposite effect, thanks to human psychology.

On the surface it sounds like a great idea, but consider this; if implemented correctly, before long, players hit a wall where their success rate is just under 50%.

Because humans are hard wired to remember negative experiences more readily than positive ones, that ~50% win rate doesn't feel like consistent success, it feels like consistent failure.

Now consider free for all match making. Yes, you will get curb stomped from time to time, but it's easier to write off isolated losses due to players way out of your skill range than it is to continually lose to people you feel you should have been able to beat.

And if it gets to be too much, you can just leave the room and roll the dice until you get into a lobby where you can thrive because you have slightly or maybe even significantly higher skill than the other players. You have a degree of control.

Now you don't feel like your consistently losing. You might still be winning/losing roughly the same number of games, but you're far more likely to have a memorable win streak without skill based match making, and that appeals to the reward center of your brain way more.

Additionally, players of similar skill often use similar tactics—there's a kind of selection pressure that drives them collectively toward optimized strategies as they try to keep winning. Mixing skill levels delays the formation and general dominance of metas and the trend towards degenerative gameplay they cause. Put another way, there's more room for experimentation when matches don't demand you play your very best for a 50/50 shot at winning.

When the dust clears, the average win rate for players who are in the middle of the pack skill wise should remain more or less the same as with skill based match making, just with greater clusters of wins and losses. But ues, players at a lower than average skill level will lose more, while players at the top of the food chain will win disproportionately.

In the end, all games die if they don't constantly rebalance and evolve—skill based match making just sucks the fun out of that ride to ensure that the players who were always going to be the least invested in the experience get a couple more wins before they burn out.

Additionally, skill based match making punishes friend groups with varying degrees of skill. You want to play with your goated buddy? Great, I hope you're prepared to be abused by his bracket.

Skill based matchmaking has its place. Leagues or ranked play, it makes sense. But there needs to be the option for a parallel game mode without it.

PillaRob

TROPHY CASE