Comment by commandersaki | Hacker News Reader

Comment by commandersaki | Hacker News Reader

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That is to say that you cannot draw any conclusions about yourself or your interviewing technique or your skills or anything from the single accept==0 bit that you typically get back. There are so many reasons that a candidate might get rejected that have nothing to do with one's individual performance in the interview or application process.

Best to ask for feedback but of course they won't give it to you. I thought I did really well after 6 interviews with a FAANG company. They let me down by saying that another candidate was preferred. I pressed for feedback a month or so later and was ghosted. So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview, and was given a massive dump of their talent management system, plaintext notes of the interviews, group chat messages discussing me, etc.

It turns out I had a pretty bad read of the situation; there was some things that I had said that were misconstrued, some bad traits that I wasn't aware of, and then the key reason I was rejected (lack of domain exertise and relevant experience).

Anyways glad I went down this route, I still need to process the data and translate it to improving myself, but as my buddy GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle.

Tell me more about this privacy request you submitted. I wasn’t aware this was a thing.

Not much to it really; took about a month round trip time to get the data; I had to authenticate myself but that was relatively straightforward since I could use my account with the organisation which I used to submit the job application to also perform the authentication (though the actual process is a bit bizarre).

Take Amazon for example that has a privacy query page: https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/request-data

Send a message like this (have ChatGPT to tailor to your jurisdiction):

Dear Privacy Officer,

I am writing to formally request access to any and all personal information $FAANG holds about me under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), specifically pursuant to Australian Privacy Principle 12.

I interviewed for the $ROLE position with one of $FAANG's Australian offices between February and March 2025. While I understand that I was not selected for the role, I am seeking access to any evaluative records, interview notes, recruiter or hiring manager comments, assessments, and other personal information recorded or obtained during the recruitment process.

For the purposes of identifying my records, my name is $FULL_NAME, and I applied via $FAANG Job Portal.

Please provide this information in a commonly used electronic format. If you require any further details to verify my identity or locate my information, I am happy to provide them.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your response within a reasonable time, as required by the Act.

Thanks for sharing. I wonder if it is possible to do in the US.

Also, can you kindly elaborate on what you meant by 'bad read of the situation'?

It's at a state level in the US, so it's necessary to look up your state's privacy laws (California was the first to adopt comprehensive privacy legislation but others have followed). TBH I had never thought about its applicability to hiring process information, since the laws are framed more as a "consumer" right, but it seems possible it's covered under some of these laws.

I had thought I did well in all the interviews but was just bested by another candidate.

But the role continued to be advertised as they were hiring multiple headcount, so it seems the recruiter straight up lied and was trying to let me down gently. Reality settled when I saw all the hire/maybe hire/no hire positions of the interviewers.

I don’t disagree with any of the feedback or angry; I’m using all the data gathered to improve myself.

As for the privacy request, usually you agree to a privacy policy with most firms that say you can request a copy of the data anyway, don’t always need to use legislation to order it.

> So I submitted a privacy request to the privacy and legal team about all and any data pertaining to the hiring process and interview

I'm rather surprised this worked, is there any reason to not do this for every interview?

No, at least the privacy officer I spoke to says it doesn't negative impact how you are considered by the company, and that the requests are handled by the applicable data protection law.

I wouldn't do it for a tiny company / startup where such a request can easily be exposed to recruiter and interviewers, but in those cases you're very likely to receive candid feedback by just asking anyway.

You are my new hero.

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