<p>I went to a career fair today, but I only talked to 4 companies. If I get rejected by these companies, would it be appropriate to ask them what I could have done better?</p>
<p>They won’t tell you. If you ask a company what you could do better, and they say x, that could be perceived as a condition for employment. This means that if you return the next year and do x, you have an argument that they’re now legally required to hire you. It’s a tricky situation that all recruiters are trained to avoid.</p>
<p>The best advice you’ll get is if you practice with someone else and ask him for his opinion.</p>
<p>See if your career center will do mock interviews. You basically go through an entire interview, and then you’re told what you could do to improve your skills. (Sometimes it’s done with a person from the career center, other times they can actually get people that do hiring at companies to do a few of those while they visit campus to do “real” interviews.)</p>
<p>I respectfully disagree with CFB53B! </p>
<p>Recruiters are not out to screw anybody, so if you don’t make the cut for a company, they are typically willing to let you know why they stopped the hiring process.</p>
<p>If you do not get an interview, it is less likely that you’ll get a response if you ask, mainly because getting an interview usually has the most to do with your resume. Once you are in an interview setting, however, it is perfectly acceptable to ask what the reason for your rejection was!</p>
<p>In 2010, I applied for a FT job; it was the summer before my senior year of college, so I wasn’t really expecting the process to happen so early, but it was a great experience. I had two phone interviews before flying across the country for a full interview day. When the recruiter delivered the rejection, he was kind enough to do so by phone, and while I had him on the line, I asked why I was rejected. He told me that, though everyone was impressed by my performance, they were afraid that I was not in it for the long haul - that I would take the money they paid me and use it to pay for law school, which had nothing at all to do with the job I was applying for.</p>
<p>At the time, I had just taken the LSATs and was not really considering law school, but I was honest in saying that I didn’t know what the future held for me. That was enough to scare the company away since they want to minimize turnover.</p>
<p>Armed with this knowledge, I was able to change the answers I gave during interviews to reflect the fact that law school was no longer a serious consideration (after I got the LSAT score back, it was definitely not a consideration anymore, if you know what I mean!). </p>
<p>When another company rejected me, they let me know that I had not done anything wrong, but that other applicants had more experience in the industry than I did, so they were better options for the company.</p>
<p>The worst that will happen if you ask for reasons why you are not selected for a job is that you won’t get an answer… that’s not so bad :)</p>