The government doesn't prevent you from giving actionable feedback to the person you didn't hire, it just gives the person you didn't hire the ability to sue you should you not hire them based on some criteria (race, sex, religion, or whatever their lawyer can argue).
I thought the real reason was that if you have a candidate that is, say, Black, and you tell him that you didn't hire him because you "felt that he didn't have enough knowledge of Ruby", he would be able to sue you if he found out you hired someone who supposedly has the same level of knowledge of ruby as him.
Sorta. The real reason is that you're giving the other party information that they can use in court. It's the same basic principle as "don't talk to the police without a lawyer" -- you can argue that it's paranoid, but it's a functional sort of paranoia. You have everything to lose and very little to gain.
> "felt that he didn't have enough knowledge of Ruby", he would be able to sue you if he found out you hired someone who supposedly has the same level of knowledge of ruby as him.
Except that you felt it because the other candidate interviewed and sold himself better.
The way it is being presented here you could always sue if you're black and the person they hired wasn't. It doesn't really work that way. They do have to provide proof of their claim of racism/sexism or whatnot. They didn't hire me isn't proof.
That's right. The rejected candidate can always sue. S/he might not win, but s/he can sue.
And for the employer, win or lose, it's a huge headache, risk and cost, with big PR downside to boot. The employer has no incentive to increase this risk by saying more than is absolutely necessary.
It's kinda the same reason that companies don't apologize for wrongdoing. Apologizing is admitting fault, and then they automatically lose the lawsuit.
