For those who hire-- do you call rejected applicants whom you have interviewed?

[Anonymous]

I am new to hiring, and my predecessor had a practice of calling applicants whom she had interviewed to reject them, rather than just sending an email. At first, I thought it was a nice thing to do, but having done it a few times, I feel bad when I make the calls. When you call and you say you are from XXX employer, you know the first thing the applicant thinks is that they got the job. It's almost like getting their hopes up for nothing.

[Anonymous]

yes, as someone who is currently applying for jobs, I'd much prefer an email. Especially if you don't get me directly or have to call back (when you're calling with the condolence call). I'm going to think I got the job if I see there's a message. An email is far more direct.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. To be clear, I always leave the rejection on the voicemail. I would never just say "call me back" for a rejection. Also, this is only for people whom we have interviewed-- not every person who has applied (clearly who has time for that!)

[Anonymous]

I agree that an email is better.

And good for you for following up! I cannot believe the number of times I have been a finalist (multiple interviews) and just never heard anything. I find that incredibly rude and thoughtless - it takes 30 seconds to write a rejection email. It stings, but then at least you know and can move on.

[AroundTheBlock]

Back when I was younger (teens and 20s) if you didn't get a job they would mail you a 'thanks but you were not hired' letter.

In today's world email is fine. I hire people regularly and never call declined applicants.

EDIT: Though, I will say if you know a person will not be hired inform them sooner rather than later. This way they can move on and look elsewhere without wasting time waiting.

[Anonymous]

Only if I was really impressed with them and want to give them encouragement and possibly some help finding some other job (like a positive referral). I had a potential employer do that for me once, and it meant a lot to know how much he thought of me, how close it was, and for him to go out of his way to get me an interview with one of his colleagues.

Otherwise, no.

[Anonymous]

HR Bitch here: I don't. At one job I did it, and got a lot of inquiries from the rejected candidates (what did i do wrong?) and a lot of hate mail (yeah well f*ck you, bitch).

I totally understand why people want them - hell, I would want to know if I were job hunting - but at my present position, it's not done, and personally I am kind of happy about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only if I was really impressed with them and want to give them encouragement and possibly some help finding some other job (like a positive referral). I had a potential employer do that for me once, and it meant a lot to know how much he thought of me, how close it was, and for him to go out of his way to get me an interview with one of his colleagues.

Otherwise, no.

this.

[Anonymous]

At my current employer, we have HR taking care of all communication with candidates. I believe they send a rejection email. When I was interviewing, I preferred to get the bad news via email.

[Anonymous]

No longer a hiring manager, but when I was, I would contact the applicants where were not chosen if there were fewer than 10 total candidates. Later on, I would frequently have well over 100 candidates and frankly, they were not paying me as a manager to spend 2 business days contacting rejected applicants to let them know that they were not hired. These days, you can assume that most jobs will have hundreds of applicants and it just is not practical to contact everyone. Use the standard that if you have not been contacted within 2 weeks (I'd say 4-6 weeks for a government job) that they are not interested.

[Anonymous]

An email is fine for "no, thank you."

I can't tell you the number of places that don't follow up at all. They suck. I won't apply with them again, even if something else opens up.

[Anonymous]

I have three categories of rejection:
You didn't read the JD, and you're just sending the same app package to everyone who posted on the job board today -- no reply, straight in the trash
You DID read the JD but you're not really qualified, or we don't want to train you up to do the job just because you "want to make a change" -- form letter
You're qualified, your app was good, you interviewed, but someone else was better -- personal email.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have three categories of rejection:
You didn't read the JD, and you're just sending the same app package to everyone who posted on the job board today -- no reply, straight in the trash
You DID read the JD but you're not really qualified, or we don't want to train you up to do the job just because you "want to make a change" -- form letter
You're qualified, your app was good, you interviewed, but someone else was better -- personal email.

Oh yeah, any form letters (or obvious indicia that you just send out the same packet to everyone) is an automatic rejection.

[AroundTheBlock]

Most businesses send a letter or email. Rarely do they call you if you don't a job.

[Anonymous]

We only contact the finalists who didn't get the offer and only by email.