Rejection Emails

Posted on by Jordan Resnick by
Talent

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Rejection

We appreciate you taking the time to interview with us for a job.  After an extensive review of your application, we have determined:

(1)  there are many other candidates in the area that are much more qualified than you;

(2) no one believed that ridiculous story about leaving your last employer – we are confident that you were fired;

(3) you have a terrible attitude about work;

(4) you were entirely unimpressive.

We wrote you this personal rejection letter as our way of saying, “next time – don’t apply.”   After the first 5 minutes, you wasted our time as we were forced to maintain the charade that you still had a prayer to get hired.  Good luck in your search – feel free to apply at any of our competitors.

Regards,

Hiring Manager

————————
When I first started in Human Resources, rejection letters were common.   You interview for a job and then hoped to get the phone call versus the dreaded “ding” letter in the mail.  For all the rejection letters and emails I have received in my career, I never got one like the one above.  The reality – I might as well have received the one above since it would have been more honest in some cases.  The last 20 years have seen tremendous advances in technology and an explosion in the number of candidates for open positions.   Alas, some companies continue the practice of sending rejection emails making it more difficult for the rest of us.

This is an open plea to recruiters and companies to change the practice.  Either send a truly personalized email highlighting the real reason or avoid all pretense.   Here are the two options:

“We have decided to pursue other candidates with more relevant experience for our Director of Sales position.  While you have 4 years in a sales position, we identified a number of candidates with 10+ years in sales – some with more that 5 years as a Manager.  You do have good experience that might be a good fit for our Sales Manager position, but at this time, you are not the strongest candidate for Director of Sales.”