Ah yes, the rejection email. The beautifully soulless, copy-paste poetry of the corporate world. You ever get a rejection email and think, Wow, that was so informative! Now I know exactly what to improve for next time!?
No? Yeah. Me neither.
Instead, we get the same cold, lifeless email written by what I assume is an AI trained exclusively on corporate jargon and passive aggression:
“Dear Candidate, we appreciate your interest, but we’ve decided to move forward with other applicants. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.”
Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Karen. This totally helps me understand why I wasn’t chosen. Was it my resume? My cover letter? The fact that I used the word “synergize” without irony? Did I blink too much? Not enough? Did my email signature offend someone? Did someone else apply with the exact same skills but a cooler name? Did you hate my font choice? (It was Calibri, you monster!)
Or was it something more sinister? Did I remind you of your ex? Did my email land in your spam folder and you just assumed I was unqualified? Did I fail some secret hiring test where you drop a pencil on the floor and see if I pick it up to test my kindness? The mystery is killing me!
I’m not even mad I got rejected. That’s part of the game. I’m mad because there’s absolutely nothing I can take away from this.
The “No Feedback” Vortex of Doom
Now, you might think: Okay, I’ll just ask for feedback! Ha. Ha ha. No.
First, you realize the email is noreply@company.com. Great. Love the direct and personal touch. I feel truly valued. But wait! Maybe you applied through a recruiter. Surely they have answers. So you ask, and what do you get?
“Unfortunately, they decided to pass at this time. They don’t provide feedback, so unfortunately, that’s all I really know.”
Excuse me? You’re telling me that an entire team of people sifted through applications, conducted interviews, and made a decision… and at no point did they take a single note on why they rejected me? I don’t believe it. I think they know. They just don’t want to tell us.
Rejection Emails: The Equivalent of Ghosting, But With Company Letterhead
These emails are all the same. It’s like they were written by AI who moonlights as an emotionally unavailable ex. No details. No hints. No clues as to why I’ve been sentenced to job-hunting purgatory.
At this point, I’d rather get brutally honest feedback. Something like:
- “Your resume was fine, but we had 200 others that were slightly shinier.”
- “We went with someone else because they had experience with a very specific software that we didn’t mention in the job description. Oops.”
- “We picked another candidate because their Zoom background wasn’t a pile of laundry.”
At least then I’d know what to fix. But no. Instead, we get vague nonsense that translates to:
“We don’t want you, but we also don’t want to tell you why because that would require effort.”
Why Are Companies Like This? Why Are they so weird about feedback?
There are a few possible explanations:
-
Legal Fear Companies are terrified that giving feedback could open them up to a discrimination lawsuit (*“We rejected you because you don’t have enough experience” → “Are you discriminating against my lack of experience??”)
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Laziness Let’s be real. Providing actual feedback takes time. And some hiring managers simply don’t care enough to do it.
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Avoiding Awkwardness Nobody wants to be the bad guy. It’s easier to send a vague email and move on.
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They Just… Don’t Remember If a company rejects 200 people for a role, the decision-making process can get fuzzy.
Recruiters are busy. Hiring managers have a lot on their plate. And yes, there are legal reasons for not giving specifics. While I kind of get these reasons, they’re still not good enough. Because the end result is that job seekers are left completely in the dark. Surely, there has to be a middle ground between “Nothing personal, kid” and a ten-page performance review on why my handshake was weak. I’m not saying every rejection needs to be a TED Talk on my professional shortcomings. But would it kill companies to include something useful? Even an automated checkbox system would help.
How Rejections Should Be Done
Let’s say a company truly doesn’t have time to write personal feedback. Fine. But at least give me a little data to work with!
Imagine if a rejection email included something like this:
- ✅ Not enough experience with X, Y, and Asembly Language which this job doesn’t require but we’re just being picky.
- ✅ Interview performance didn’t meet expectations(but we didn’t actually tell you what those expectations were. Womp womp.)
- ✅ Another candidate had more relevant experience in Quantum Mechanics, a doctorate in maths, and a Nobel Prize in Physics(But you were close!)
- ✅ We were looking for skills in Y that weren’t on your resume(but we didn’t mention that in the job description. Oops.)
Would that be so hard? Would that break HR? No. It would take five extra seconds. And it would help candidates actually improve instead of blindly applying to the next job and hoping for better luck. Because right now? Rejection emails are basically just corporate ghosting, and frankly, I’d rather get rejected by an actual ghost. At least they’d be more transparent about it. 👻
What Can We Do?
Since companies refuse to be helpful, our only options are:
- Bribery. (Kidding. Probably.)
- Resume Audits. Get a second pair of eyes on your resume.
- Mock Interviews. Because maybe the problem is that your nervous laugh sounds too much like a villain’s.
- Networking. Because let’s be honest, half of hiring is just knowing the right people.
- Sheer, Unrelenting Persistence. Keep applying until you question your own existence and make it through the mystical, unknowable hiring process. 60% of the time, it works every time.
Final Thoughts (Or: Please, Just Say It to My Face)
Look, rejection sucks. But what sucks even more is rejection without context. If companies truly cared about building strong talent pools, they’d give at least some feedback. Because without it, all they’re doing is leaving candidates stranded in an endless cycle of trial and error.
And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not feel like I’m playing a job application slot machine and the house always wins and tells you no rules.
So, to every recruiter, hiring manager, Dalai Lama of job hiring out there: JUST TELL US WHY. If you can reject us in 30 seconds, you can give us a reason in 10.
But I won’t hold my breath. I’ll just be here, refreshing my inbox, waiting for the next soulless, feedback-free rejection. 💀
What’s the worst rejection email you’ve ever gotten?
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