When it comes to college acceptance letters, students can usually tell by the size of the envelope whether they’ve received good news or bad news. In the same way, job applicants opening an email from a recruiter can spot the rejection sentence right away. Their eyes scan to find the word unfortunately, and they get the gist.
The rest really doesn’t matter. Yet, so many form rejection emails are longer and more complex than they need to be.
We understand that this may not be the news you were hoping for. . . . We faced an incredibly hard decision. . . . Please know this decision was not made lightly. . . . This doesn’t have to be the end of your ride with us. . . . We recognize the value of unique experiences, including yours.
Delivering bad news is uncomfortable. Leaders are taught from a young age to sandwich criticisms between compliments (which has since proven mostly ineffective), and it’s human nature to want to be likable and to deliver the rejection in a kind way. But when it comes to rejection communication, experts across the board agree: Cut the fluff.
“What ends up being the most problematic is when employers try to do things in order to kind of control or influence the individual’s emotional response,” says Elisabeth Morray, VP of clinical operations at Alma, an online service that helps users find a therapist.
This is not the time to showcase the personality of your workplace.
“When you advertise to the general public, you’re going to have a lot of candidates clearly applying based off of current market conditions. You want to be very thoughtful with creating a positive experience for them,” says Ricardo Cuellar, VP of human resources at WAO Fintech and author of the HR Uncensored newsletter. “When you start being cute, you can come off as insensitive [and] maybe not emotionally intelligent.”
Many applicants are left without any response after filing a job application, so any form of rejection is better than none. The detail and personalization of a rejection will depend on how far into the process you are, but experts agree that every applicant deserves communication, whether they received an interview or not. Morray advises companies to focus their rejection communications on being timely, appreciative, and clear—not on being gentle.
“We can’t know how our communication is going to land. It’s not realistic to expect that what we do as an employer is going to prevent people from experiencing their emotional response to rejection,” she says.
Be clear
The most critical piece to get right is the clarity.
“You definitely want there to be no ambiguity about this person’s process,” says Emma Carew Grovum, director of careers and culture at the Marshall Project. Including phrases like “We’ll keep you in the pipeline” can be confusing. She also advocates that all communication should focus on the candidate—not on the company.
“People can see right through that. They know that’s BS. They can feel it in their soul,” she says.
Crafting a message that gets straight to the point should include only the context that would help an individual move on or provide perspective on their qualifications, Morray says, offering the example that if you received thousands of applicants, it can be helpful for a candidate to know that.
Carew Grovum agrees: “I really like where we tell people: ‘This is a deep pool of very talented folks, and it was a very competitive job.’ And I think that people should know that.”
What’s not relevant? Whether the review was done by a human or AI.
“I’m not sure that’s a piece of context that I would necessarily include because it doesn’t really do much in terms of helping that individual move forward,” Morray says.
Show gratitude
This is a tough market for job seekers. The median length of unemployment rose in September to 9.8 weeks, the highest in almost two years, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
“Whether the applicant spent five minutes or five hours applying to this position, they cared enough to devote some of their time. Time is our most precious commodity. They were willing to spend some of that in order to put themselves out there and offer up their skills and qualifications for this opportunity,” Morray says. “Expressing appreciation and recognition of the time and care that was put into the application is really important and hopefully very authentic.”
Don’t wait too long
According to Carew Grovum, the Marshall Project sends rejection communications throughout the hiring process.
“If you are not moving forward, we let you know when we’ve reached the end of that round,” she says.
Take a scroll on LinkedIn, and you’ll find post after post complaining about ghost jobs—jobs that, applicants say, companies post to look like they are growing but that they have no intention of ever filling.
To combat that, Cuellar prefers when rejection communications include that someone was hired.
“You’re pointing out the fact that we actually have received a lot of interest, and we’ve made an offer to a finalist,” Cuellar says. “At least from an applicant’s perspective, it would make me feel a little bit better, knowing that at least somebody’s getting hired, and I can understand there’s going to be stiff competition for the role.”
