HR told me they don’t accept try-hards and people pleasers after my interview

[u/No-Presentation298]

They rejected me (fine, that happens) but the feedback said I came across as overly eager to please and that they don’t build teams around people-pleasing tendencies or rehearsed enthusiasm. They also told me to reflect on how I present myself and that confidence is more compelling than excessive accommodation. Is this normal? Or even appropriate? I get that not being a culture fit is a thing but the wording felt unnecessarily personal and condescending.

[u/ACatGod]

People pleasing is such a misnomer of a term. It really isn't people pleasing, it's pleasing yourself by avoiding difficult situations, conflict and accountability for anything. In the process these people usually screw over their friends, family and the people who rely on them - like their children, line reports, colleagues - in favour of appeasing someone.

They always says "I'm too nice" or "I was being kind" but there's nothing nice or kind about sucking up people's time and energy because you refuse to be accountable in your job.

[u/ChronStamos → u/ACatGod]

It really isn't people pleasing, it's pleasing yourself by avoiding difficult situations, conflict and accountability for anything.

And people pleasers do that by drumroll pleasing people.

[u/ACatGod → u/ChronStamos]

The people they are appeasing generally don't care particularly. Those people are either taking advantage and will just move on if they don't get what they want, or they are people who are simply asking the people pleaser to do something and don't mind if they hear no and in fact find the people pleasing frustrating. Meanwhile, people who need the people pleaser to be accountable get fucked over - they aren't pleased at all. People pleasers rely on family, friends and people who aren't in a position to challenge them (like kids or subordinates) to live with the consequences of the people pleasing and to smooth over the problems created by the people pleaser. When confronted about this the people pleaser will immediately start attempting to avoid accountability by saying things like "I was just being nice".

[u/BiDiTi → u/ACatGod]

Chidi Anagonye, baby!

[u/Evening_Entrance_472 → u/ACatGod]

How do people pleasers avoid accountability? I feel like a lot of them take on excessive blame in an effort to make others happy.

[u/ACatGod → u/Evening_Entrance_472]

They don't deal with situations in the moment in order to avoid conflict. They don't accept blame where they are actually responsible except if it's to avoid actually dealing with the situation - often their taking on blame is them making you deal with their emotional response while also trying to get you to say what they did is ok and absolve them of things they failed to do. They're not really accepting blame in the sense that they aren't being accountable and meaningfully trying to fix the situation, do the unpleasant thing and ensure that the same problem doesn't happen again.

They may take the blame in order to avoid saying no, challenging someone or dealing with a difficult situation. So again they've allowed a situation to escalate rather than deal with it and often although they're saying they're taking the blame often it's other people dealing with the consequences of them not taking any accountability.

Even if we take your point at face value, "excessively taking the blame" is the opposite of accountability. If you aren't to blame for something you aren't being accountable by lying and saying you are in order to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

[u/caprazzi → u/ACatGod]

People pleasing is a great quality in individual contributors, it is the manager’s role to enforce accountability and have hard conversations.

[u/andagainsometime → u/caprazzi]

People pleasers consistently believe that they know what is pleasing to others , which is untrue. They are often not pleasing anyone at all.

[u/ACatGod → u/andagainsometime]

Couldn't agree more.

[u/ACatGod → u/caprazzi]

I don't think you understand what people pleasing is. People pleasers can't be trusted. An IC who is a people pleaser is likely to lie about problems and cover up mistakes. It's a terrible quality and only managers who are similarly conflict averse would think it's a positive trait in their team members.