Ask HN: Am I wrong in providing this feedback to a candidate?

3 nrjpoddar 4 5/21/2025, 9:23:24 AM drive.google.com ↗

Comments (4)

baobun · 11h ago
It's been one day? There is some possibility of extraordinary circumstances (of which you can't possibly be aware at this point) explaining the situation that could paint things in a very different light.

Would you send a similar email to any of your other coworkers being missing with no contact for one workday?

BTW you need to blackbox names in te future, those green squiggles look reversible.

nrjpoddar · 9h ago
Thanks for the pointer.

The candidate emailed at the end of the supposed joining day saying doesn't intend to join and accepted another offer after we tried reaching multiple times during the day.

JohnFen · 7h ago
It may have helped you vent your (completely understandable) frustration, but that's about all it accomplishes. From your brief description and comment here, it sounds to me like this candidate's goal was just getting an offer letter to use as leverage to get a better deal from the place he really wanted to work at.

That's an awful practice, but is also reasonably common. I think a better response would have been to not say anything to the candidate at all, but just put him on your "do not hire" list and move on with your business.

nrjpoddar · 5h ago
Fair enough but my response was purely so that the candidate learns and hopefully understands the feedback. I have seen candidates get an offer letter not sign/accept and then decline but here the candidate was literally supposed to show up in our office but decided to just ghost instead. It was a new experience for me but looks like it's fairly common nowadays.