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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

>explicitly tell you "this is off the record, no feedback will be submitted. Ask any questions you want, or just chill out and eat."

And people fall for that?

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Well, it's true. But if you're paranoid you choose not to believe it.

I suppose I am a little paranoid, so I guess that's fair.

I've worked at similarly (or perhaps even better regarded) companies with lunch interviews. They always say the same thing.

I've definitely seen the lunch interviewer pulled into the conversation. When the process isn't supremely formal, lines get blurred. Being paranoid is probably a smart thing to do.

Google lunch interviewers are instructed to give no feedback whatsoever, and in fact the internal tools provide no opportunity. The only exception is if they do something terrible, like punch somebody (it has happened!) or say something really racist. Then, an email is sent directly to the recruiter.

Youtube link, please?

Till about 2006, the lunch "interviewer" was able to put in feedback, but was specifically told that they were not supposed to do it.

Except for some smart alecks who would put in "Candidate held fork in left hand, was neat eater" I never saw anything beyond "n/a" or similar non-feedback. Most often I would see a savvy recruiter pair up the lunch with the referrer so they could catch up with their friend and it would act as the 'sell' part of the interview slate.

I can say that on my June 2012 interview at the GooglePlex, the engineer showed me the paper on his clipboard and it had a feedback section but said "(not required)" next to it.

He joked that "Well, if you punch a hole in the wall I might write something". Other than that we just talked about hacking game consoles & Chromebooks & breaking out of Chrome's sandbox to reach the OS from javascript.

Most often I would see a savvy recruiter pair up the lunch with the referrer so they could catch up with their friend and it would act as the 'sell' part of the interview slate.

This is a functional and smart practice.

This (lunch with referrer) happened to me when I was interviewing there and I agree that it is a smart move. It put me at ease. Presumably by the time you are there for an on-site, there aren't any questions of fit left.

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