You're right but if a candidate is going to spend hours or days working with your company I think it's the least they deserve. If there is a legitimate reason for not hiring them I'd like to think litigation would be rare.

I mean when you work with a sales guy to buy something and ultimately don't buy you usually tell them why especially if you've been working with them for days. The inverse is true as well if you decide not to sell a product to someone. It just seems weird to me that a person can spend so much time with a company and possibly not even get a good learning experience out of it (when you're left with the impression that everything went as smooth as statistically possible and then you're declined without any useful data how do you know how to improve if at all? Hell maybe someone was just better than you or they decided they needed something else for the job; telling the person could save them so much trouble).

If you want someone to spend hours or days trying to join your company I feel like you should be able to give them feedback. I don't like the trend of big companies not giving anything. Interviewing is a two way street but there is just a weird stigma or legal worry preventing feedback.

But you're right. I wonder what the statistics are for interviewing; are more people interviewing while they don't have a job or do have a job and are looking. I feel like it has to be the former like what you were suggesting but I haven't seen data either way (not even sure on the logistics on collecting that in a good, representative way).