First paper, conference feedback - at all if rejected?

Question

I'm from industry and have submitted my first article to a conference. What can I expect from a conference? would they give me feedback only if I'm chosen. Will I also get detailed feedback if I'm rejected? or will they only say "sorry in this occasion we have decided to go for other more relevant papers to your area but thanks for writing." Does this vary significantly according to the conference, location e.g. American vs Continent? The conference is European if that helps.

Note: I'm from industry so unfortunately I don't have an advisor and my colleagues don't value innovation (impact for future) as much as impact for now. So this is my best bet to get any feedback at all.

Answer 1

You can expect to get feedback in any case. Typically, more feedback is provided if the contribution is rejected, as long as it actually underwent peer review. There is the possibility of getting "desk rejected" by the organizer before even being technically reviewed. This usually happens if the paper is either clearly out of scope or very far from the standards set by the conference. However, if your advisor signed off on your paper the probability of a desk reject should be very low.

The quality of the feedback that you receive may vary quite a bit, though. This largely depends on the conference: some tend to provide pages and pages of reviewer comments, while other (typically weaker) conferences only send back a few paragraphs of, often unhelpful, generalities. In any case, you should not rely on peer reviews as your primary method of getting feedback on your work - having your advisor or senior colleagues read your manuscript and sitting down one-on-one with you will in most cases give you more direct and more actionable feedback.