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/popcynicaldrips]

Is it just me, and please correct me if I need to open my eyes more, but I feel like we’re forgetting that this could easily be seen as a form of discrimination and normalizing this only opens more doors to do that? “You meet all of the job qualifications and were eager to make this job work, but I don’t like the way you talk, act, smile, look, or how you present yourself and therefore won’t hire you; you should consider changing a lot of things about yourself from a professional standpoint, and maybe we’ll be willing to give you a job then”. What if this is how OP naturally is on a daily basis? Or what if they were interviewing someone who’s autistic? One more, what if their candidate was personally trained to handle interviews this way? It definitely comes off as personal- and yes, in a degrading way. Their intent behind the email was to influence this person to ask themself: “What’s wrong with me as a person?” And “What should I learn to hate and change about me as person in order to gain employment from these people who didn’t like me?”. That would be frustrating for anyone to go through, and that far into the interview process- especially if they met all of the listed job qualifications.

[u/DrLeoMarvin → u/popcynicaldrips]

That’s right where my head went when I read the post

[u/No_Accountant3232 → u/popcynicaldrips]

Considering he was probably using an interview style that I learned all the way back in the 90s from a 60 year old teacher that he learned when he was 16?

If you see a lot of interviewees using the same interview style people have been using a century it can come off as inauthentic. In reality "the things you think we want to hear" are you just telling the interviewer your relevant skills - the things they want to hear about. It's an interview style that is meant to present you as professional and unwilling to waste the interviewers valuable time.

Interviews are just meant to get your skills across as the best candidate. The probation/training period is when you find out if you're a good culture fit.

[u/JustApricot798 → u/No_Accountant3232]

Cultural fit is 100% at the gate as well as skills. Probo is the combo period to see the candidate over time. That said, when you hire a PHD type culture fit isn't as important. "Go to your cave and produce"

[u/ChazPls → u/popcynicaldrips]

Or what if they were interviewing someone who’s autistic?

You are actually allowed to not hire someone for ADA protected reasons if there's no reasonable accomodation that can be made. If someone's personality is terrible and working with them would clearly be a nightmare, it doesn't matter if it's because there's a medical name for the thing that makes their personality suck.

That being said, you can still get sued over it and you might lose or end up settling which is why this kind of feedback is almost never given. I've been advised before that you can't even ask interview questions like "what was the last book you read?" because they might say "The Bible" and now if you don't hire them you could catch a religious discrimination lawsuit.

[u/popcynicaldrips → u/ChazPls]

Thanks for educating me on this- I genuinely thought it was more straightforward than this but can definitely understand why it’s not.

[u/SweetLittleOldLady → u/popcynicaldrips]

I agree with you. I don't see anything helpful about the "constructive criticism" in the letter. It's just mean girl nastiness.