The process of hiring a new employee is time consuming, and can be overwhelming when you are swamped by large numbers of applicants. Finding the best applicant for the position is the number one priority, and companies may overlook the importance of sending out rejection letters.
According to Tim Gould “…Survey after survey indicates there’s one thing prospective workers hate about the application process—the fact that they never hear from a company after an interview.” Although it is clear that the applicant didn’t receive the job when they never hear from a company after an interview, it is still important for the company to send a rejection letter. Not sending a rejection letter says to the applicant that the company “doesn’t even care enough about people to send a courtesy letter.” This is not the type of public image that most companies work to build.
One reason many companies may overlook sending rejection letters, is that they don’t know what to put in and what to leave out. Here are some tips to help make writing rejection letters an easier task:
- Don’t put in the “we’ll keep your resume on file” statement. Although this is standard in most rejection letters, such a promise could potentially create legal problems. Some applicants may take this to mean that they will be considered for all future openings, and you don’t want to have to re-interview rejected candidates every time a new position opens up.
- Don’t send a form letter. Although it’s easy to send out a simple form letter to everyone who didn’t make the cut, sending an impersonal letter can be just as insulting as getting no letter at all.
- Don’t get into specifics. Avoid sharing any information about the person who get the position, and there is no reason to explain in detail why the applicant wasn’t chosen for the position. Sharing this type of information could lead the rejected applicant to decide their qualifications were better than the chosen candidate’s and possibly lead them to conclude they weren’t chosen for some other factor, such as discrimination.
For more information on writing rejection letters, HRMade Simple Users can log in and search “Rejection Letters” for more information.