---
id: A-008
type: artifact
title: "Explicit feedback citing skill-depth shortfall"
lang: en
registry: 2026.08.2
canonical: https://hoba.work/artifacts/A-008
json: https://hoba.work/api/v1/artifacts/A-008.json
---

# Explicit feedback citing skill-depth shortfall

Interviewer or recruiter provides structured notes citing a specific deficit in algorithmic complexity, architecture, or tool mastery.

> **On the canonical path** — [Declined, with a reason that can be acted on](https://hoba.work/process#WF-003-declined)
>
> Not every candidate is hired, and a decline is not a deviation. What makes it part of this path is that it arrives, it names the stage it happened at and the criterion that decided it, and it says whether applying again is worth anything.
>
> This entry is one of the ways that commitment stops being kept.

## At a glance

- Stage: Technical, Team
- Evidence: supported

## What it looks like

Composite excerpts, written to be typical rather than copied. No particular message, company or person is quoted here.

**Structured feedback notes** · day 3 after the panel — *reconstruction*

```
Subject: Feedback — technical panel

  The panel was positive on system decomposition and on how you reasoned about failure modes.
> The gap was in the second exercise: the solution was correct but quadratic, and the panel was looking for the linear approach using a hash index. We would want to see that reached without prompting at this level.
  We are not moving forward now, but this was close and we would welcome a re-application in six months.
```

*What to notice* A named exercise, a named property, a named expectation. This is the rare rejection that is actually actionable.

**The moment in the panel** · minute 38, second exercise — *reconstruction*

```
  38:04 Interviewer  This works. What is the complexity?
  38:11 Candidate  Quadratic — nested scan over the same list.
  38:15 Interviewer  Right. Can you get it down?
> 38:22 Candidate  Probably with an index of some kind. I would want to think about it.
  38:40 Interviewer  That is fine, let us move on for time.
```

*What to notice* The transcript and the written feedback agree. When they agree, the feedback is describing something that actually happened.

## From each side

The same entry from inside each position that meets it: what reaches them, what it means from there, and what happens next given what they control.

### Candidate

- **What reaches them:** A rejection that names the exercise, the property of the solution and the expectation for the level, together with a stated window for re-application.
- **What it means from there:** A threshold for this level in one named place, which is a claim that can be checked against what happened in the room.
- **What happens next:** Checks the claim against their own record of the panel, and works from the two facts given: the named gap and the named window.

### Hiring manager

- **What reaches them:** The panel's write-ups against the rubric, including the exercise where the step to the linear solution came after a prompt.
- **What it means from there:** Evidence about the bar for the level rather than about the person; a decline can be revisited in six months and a hire cannot.
- **What happens next:** Declines for now, keeps the exercise and the property in the notes, and leaves the re-application open.

### Recruiter

- **What reaches them:** A recommendation with a written reason attached to it, and none of the scoring that stands behind the reason.
- **What it means from there:** A reason specific enough to send as written; the field it arrived in is free text, so what is in it is what the panel typed there.
- **What happens next:** Sends the reason in the panel's own terms and adds the re-application window, and cannot expand on it if asked, because the scoring did not travel with it.

## What this observation does NOT establish

- Does not imply general incompetence; reflects threshold for this specific role level.

## Diagnostic probes

- **PROBE-A-008-1** (medium) — Review interview problem solution against industry standard patterns and identify edge cases missed. → Verifies whether candidate code truly lacked required optimization or rigor.

---

hoba — a public, versioned atlas of hiring obstacles. Content CC BY-SA 4.0. This document is generated from the registry; the canonical page is linked above.