爱思英语编者按：你在面试中表现优异，你的简历也令人赞叹，但最终还是没有得到那份工作，而且你很可能永远都不知道原因所在。

Didn't Get The Job? You'll Never Know Why

You aced the interview, your resume sings, but in the end, you didn't get the job. Chances are, you'll never know why.

It is a painful conundrum of the job search process: Rejected candidates want to understand why they didn't get hired, but employers, fearing discrimination complaints, keep silent. And those who do speak up offer little more than platitudes.

Without specifics, candidates are left to repeat the same mistakes, while hiring managers complain they're swamped with applicants who miss the mark.

'You don't know how to adjust going forward,' says technology professional Lisa Roberson. When she wasn't selected for a job in her field a few years ago, she emailed one of the people who had interviewed her to find out why.

The response: Someone 'more suited' to the job had been hired. 'Well, I could have guessed that,' said Ms. Roberson, who works in health-care IT.

Such exchanges frustrate job seekers, especially those who have been searching for long periods and desperately want some insight into how they are viewed by hiring managers.

Providge Consulting, a Delaware-based consulting firm, has a policy to keep candidates apprised at every step of its hiring process and scores candidates on a range of criteria to keep its decisions as objective as possible.

But when the reasons for a rejection can't be boiled down to more clear-cut measures like experience or education, HR managers 'attempt to minimize those conversations,' said Tara Teaford, director of operations. That may mean offering a vague response, adding that the company will reach out if appropriate positions arise in the future.

'Most of it is trying to protect ourselves from potential litigation,' says Ms. Teaford. 'Once you cross the line between objective and subjective, it gets very, very challenging.'

And many of the firms that want to provide feedback have their hands tied by company lawyers.

Employers were put on notice in late 2012 when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission identified discrimination in hiring practices as one of its priorities for the next three years, partly out of a recognition that few job seekers have the resources to hire a lawyer and press their claims through civil courts, according to Amy Fratkin, an employment lawyer. That means individual complaints will be more likely to result in lawsuits brought by the EEOC if the agency establishes a pattern of discrimination by the employer.

Linda Jackson, a partner with employment law firm Littler Mendelson, says she advises her clients against offering specific feedback to job candidates. For instance, telling someone he has too much experience for a particular job might be interpreted as age discrimination, she said.

Then there is the discomfort of relaying hard-to-hear information. Some hiring managers are so uncomfortable at the prospect of these conversations that they refuse to bring their business cards to interviews, says Amelia Merrill of Risk Management Solutions Inc., a risk-modeling firm in Silicon Valley.

Despite how awkward it can be, Ms. Merrill expects her recruiters to call finalists to let them know they weren't hired, giving those applicants a chance to ask for more information. She wants even rejected candidates to leave thinking they want to work there.

On rare occasions, she added, a rejected candidate will argue with the recruiter or insist he was the right pick for the job.

Of course, lots of candidates don't seek feedback: HR managers put the number of those who request it at around 10%. But of those who do, barely any get it. Only 4.4% of more than 2,000 job candidates surveyed in 2012 by the Talent Board, an organization dedicated to improving companies' recruiting practices, said they received specific feedback from hiring managers and recruiters.

But it raises the question, will the gap ever be bridged?

'If you want an efficient labor market, you have to have people understand where their talents are best used,' says Elli Sharef, co-founder of HireArt, a website that matches job seekers and employers through video interviews and assessment tests.

After hearing from hundreds of frustrated job seekers, Ms. Sharef recently decided to try offering feedback, despite some trepidation from her lawyer.

In May, HireArt emailed 127 job seekers who had submitted video interviews for jobs in educational technology and offered the chance for a 15-minute personalized critique from Ms. Sharef herself. The 21 available slots were filled in less than 10 minutes.

Most appreciated the assistance, but overall, reactions to the feedback varied. One person complained that 15 minutes wasn't enough time for the session. Others admitted they hadn't given much thought to what they could contribute to the prospective employer, which was the most common criticism.

HireArt has since decided to offer a limited number of weekly feedback sessions. But as the company weighs scaling up the service to more users, it is also wrestling with questions about how people absorb and use constructive criticism. It can be difficult to hear 'negative information about yourself, especially when you're already in a vulnerable position,' says Ms. Sharef.

Companies' job-application software could provide another source of feedback, albeit automated, suggests John Sullivan, a management professor at San Francisco State University.

These applicant-tracking systems, which are used by almost every large employer, score candidates based on rough measures like the number of keyword matches between a job description and a resume. Employers could theoretically send candidates their scores, says Mr. Sullivan.

'If you scored 90 out of 100, you might apply again later. But if you scored a 20, you know you applied for the wrong job,' he said. So far, none of the companies for which he has recommended this, have adopted it.

求职失败？你永远不知为什么

你在面试中表现优异，你的简历也令人赞叹，但最终还是没有得到那份工作，而且你很可能永远都不知道原因所在。

这是求职过程中一个让人头疼的难题，一方面遭拒的求职者希望了解自己为什么没有获聘；另一方面雇主却因担心遭到歧视投诉而保持缄默，就算有雇主坦诚直言，所说的也只不过是陈词滥调。

如果没有具体的反馈，求职者就会重复犯下同样的错误，招聘经理则抱怨他们总是遇见一批又一批不合格的求职者。

从事科技工作的丽莎•罗伯森(Lisa Roberson)说：“你不知道该如何调整取得进步。”几年前，在应聘一份科技领域的工作落选后，她给其中一位面试官发了封电子邮件询问原因。

面试官的回复是：他们找到了“更适合”那个职位的人选。罗伯森说：“好吧，我都能猜到这个回答。”现在她在医疗IT行业工作。

如此这般的交流会让求职者心生沮丧，而那些找了很长时间工作、迫切希望深入了解招聘经理如何看待他们的求职者更是如此。

特拉华州咨询公司Providge Consulting制订了一项政策，在其招聘流程中的每一步都会通知求职者消息，依据一系列标准给他们评分，以此使招聘决定尽可能保持客观。

该公司运营总监塔拉•蒂福德(Tara Teaford)称，如果求职者遭拒的原因不能以比较明确的标准来归结的话，比如工作经验或教育经历等，人事经理则会“试图简单应对那些谈话”。这可能意味着他们会给出含糊其辞的回复，另外还会补充说，如果未来有合适的职位，他们还会联系你。

蒂福德说：“那样做主要是为了尽量保护我们自己免于潜在的诉讼，一旦你越过了客观和主观之间的界限，事情就会变得非常非常危险。”

此外，许多意欲提供反馈的企业也受到来自公司律师的约束。

就业事务律师艾米•弗拉金(Amy Fratkin)称，各企业在2012年底接到通知，美国平等就业机会委员会(Equal Employment Opportunity Commission，简称“EEOC”)将把鉴定招聘过程中的歧视行为列为未来三年的首要任务之一。这么做部分是因为，他们意识到很少有求职者拥有聘请律师将其权利主张在民事法庭推进到底的资源。这意味着如果EEOC一旦确立了企业歧视行为的形式，个人的投诉将更有可能发展为由该机构提起的诉讼。

琳达•杰克逊(Linda Jackson)是就业事务律师事务所Littler Mendelson的合伙人，她说她会建议客户不要向求职者提供具体的反馈。她举例说，告诉某个求职者他的经验对于某个职位来说过于丰富可能会被解读为年龄歧视。

其次，转告让人难以接受的消息也会让人不自在。硅谷风险建模公司Risk Management Solutions Inc.的阿米莉亚•梅里尔(Amelia Merrill)说，有些招聘经理一想到未来可能会有这样的谈话就觉得非常不舒服，所以他们去面试求职者时都不愿意带上名片。

尽管气氛可能会非常尴尬，梅里尔还是希望招聘人员能打电话通知进入最终面试，却未被聘用的求职者，以向他们提供一个询问更多信息的机会。她甚至还希望遭拒的求职者最后心里还会想着希望在她们那儿工作。

她还说，只有在极少数情况下，会有未被录用的求职者与招聘人员争辩，或坚持认为自己是该职位的合适人选。

当然，很多求职者不会寻求反馈，人事经理估计要求获得反馈的求职者的比例在10%左右。但是，在那些提出这个要求的求职者中，几乎没有人能得到反馈。专注于改进企业招聘行为的机构──人才委员会(Talent Board)在2012年对2,000余名求职者进行了调查，其中只有4.4%的求职者表示他们得到过招聘经理和招聘人员的具体反馈。

这就引出了一个问题，这其中的差距有可能得到弥合吗？

HireArt网站的联合创始人艾莉•沙勒夫(Elli Sharef)指出：“如果你想要一个高效的劳动力市场，你得让大家明白他们的才华最适合用在何处。”该网站通过视频面试和评估测试帮求职者和企业配对。

尽管律师表达了忧虑，但不久前，沙勒夫在听取了数百名失意求职者的抱怨后，还是决定尝试提供反馈。

去年5月，HireArt给提交过应聘教育科技领域岗位面试视频的127名求职者发送了电子邮件，向他们提供获得15分钟来自沙勒夫本人的个性化评论的机会。网站提供的21个空缺机会在不到10分钟的时间内即被申请满了。

大多数求职者都很感激这次帮助，但总的说来对反馈的反应各有不同。有一名求职者抱怨称15分钟的评论时间还不够长。其他人承认，他们并未仔细想过他们能给潜在雇主做出什么贡献，这也是最常见的批评。

自那以后，HireArt决定每周提供少量面试反馈机会。然而，就在该公司考虑扩大规模向更多用户提供这项服务时，它也受困于有关大家是如何吸取利用建设性批评的问题。沙勒夫说，听到“关于自己的负面信息，特别是当你已经身处脆弱境地时”可能会很不好受。

旧金山州立大学(San Francisco State University)管理学教授约翰•沙利文(John Sullivan)建议，企业的求职软件能充当另一个反馈来源，尽管它的反馈是自动生成的。

几乎每家大企业都采用了此类求职者跟踪系统，它会根据职位描述和简历之间关键词的匹配次数这样的大致标准来给求职者打分。沙利文称，从理论上说，雇主可以将求职者的评分发给他们。

他说：“如果100分的总分你得了90分，或许以后你还可以再申请。不过如果你只得了20分，你就知道你申请错了工作。”他向一些企业推荐了上述这个方法，但迄今为止还无一企业采纳。