To think employers could at the least have the common courtesy to tell you you’ve not been successful?

[AlternativePerspective]

I’ve lost count of the number of jobs I’ve applied (and interviewed) for where I’ve just never heard from them again.

In fact on indeed there is often an update which states how long it will likely be before you hear back, and I’ve seen one or two which state “based on our experience, you’re unlikely to ever hear from this employer again.”

TBH, if we were in the days of paper applications I could see how writing a letter to each applicant could be problematic especially if you have several of them.

But given everything is now done electronically, and there are generallly systems in place to acknowledge your application/invite to interview/confirm the interview time etc, I fail to see why there can’t also be something in place which generates a rejection email when the applicant is rejected on the system.

It would save a lot more angst when people are applying for jobs and just hoping that they will hear back about one of them, only for it to appear that their application has disappeared somewhere.

i interviewed for a job recently and have assumed I wasn’t successful. But it would at least be nice to have been told so I could ask for feedback.

@NannyAndJohn

Hiring manager here. We don't inform unsuccessful candidates for a number of reasons including:

1. Candidates that have been invited for an interview may drop out, meaning that one of the initially unsuccessful candidates will be drafted in to replace them. It would look unprofessional to send out a rejection email only to reverse this with an interview invite a few weeks later.

2. We consider unsuccessful candidates for other positions that may suit them better.

3. The roles I interview for (financial services, mainly for new graduates) exceed 1000 applications per position. It is therefore impractical and a waste of HR's time to send out personal rejection emails to the unsuccessful candidates.

Hope that helps.

These are fair points, this isn't having a go at you, but with (1) and (2) could you not inform people honestly that that is what is happening rather than just leaving them in the dark? For (1) you wouldn't even have to tell people they're on a reserve list if for some reason you don't want to, you could either do a 'bear with us, we're still considering your application' type mass email, or simply wait until you are done recruiting entirely, then send out a 'sorry no go' generic thing? And for point (2) it is good practice under GDPR to ask candidates whether they are happy to be considered for other vacancies and if they consent to you continuing to store their personal info for this purpose, rather than holding them in some kind of limbo indefinitely - some people may absolutely only be interested in the role they applied for so in a way you are potentially wasting everyone's time by 'considering' them without telling them so - worth picking this up with your HR/IG teams I think?

Under point 3, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding in the 2 camps here, I don't think the 'you should tell people' camp is saying every rejected candidate should get detailed, personalised feedback at shortlisting stage. That definitely would take a long time to do properly. What I think is the ideal balance is a mail merged email that says 'Dear [Name], thanks for your application, sorry you weren't successful, please consider us in future, sincerely, employer'. You could even lose the mail merged 'Dear Name' part if that's too much effort. If you are a large graduate employer that really processing 1000s of applications per vacancy you surely, surely have recruitment software/applications that helps you with this, I really pity your HR if they are trying to manage that with emailled in CVs and manual lists, please if so get the powers that be to give them some software, it's not very expensive in the scheme of a large employer's budget and in fact will more than pay for itself as you can employ fewer admin people once it's in place as so much is automated. And if you do have candidate management/tracking software it will manage the 'personalised' rejection message for you and can also do the 'reserve' list messages if you want to do these. Presumably also you don't interview all 1000 applicants so I hope you do at least notify people after interview/assessment centre stage?

I think where you are specifically recruiting graduates/young people it's if anything more important than with a 'normal' job to be hot on your communications, (a) today's graduates have grown up in the world of instant comms so have higher expectations, you may well be losing good candidates if you aren't keeping in touch with them and (b) unlike me, where if I apply for a job and don't hear back it will annoy me but is probably not going to change my plans for future life and study in any meaningful way, but someone just on the verge of graduation it could feasibly do so, they may have multiple offers for post-grad study, grad schemes etc on the table and it's a known thing that the process for grad schemes takes a very long time so I can feasibly see someone you've not even shortlisted, hopefully waiting on you for months on end - would it really be too much to let them know they stand no chance?

I agree with @maxelly's very reasonable points.

@NannyAndJohn and @JaninaDuszejko if you keep me hanging around following an interview in case you want me later I am not going to say yes to a future job offer from you.

I don't think anyone has asked for a rejection email within a week. I am well aware that sometimes you are a back up candidate or a back up interviewee. But I think its polite to reply to people whove taken the time to apply for a job at your company, it can be after the interview stage. A basic bland 'sorry your unsuccessful' to unsuccessful applicants. Interviewees should definitely not be kept on tenterhooks in case you want them in 3 months time. My policy is if they treat candidates poorly they probably treat employees poorly and so I wouldn't take a job at a company that kept me hanging with no communication

Meh. Plenty of candidates do take up offers that arrive 3 months after the advert was posted. We're a big company, we do interesting and rewarding work, we've been recruiting like crazy over the last year and we are a great place to work. People want to work for us and we don't have high staff turnover, recruitment is linked to growth. It's obvious from this thread that it's standard practice to not tell candidates when they are unsuccessful (and it has been standard practice for decades) so we don't stand out for that.

@JaninaDuszejko

Meh. Plenty of candidates do take up offers that arrive 3 months after the advert was posted. We're a big company, we do interesting and rewarding work, we've been recruiting like crazy over the last year and we are a great place to work. People want to work for us and we don't have high staff turnover, recruitment is linked to growth. It's obvious from this thread that it's standard practice to not tell candidates when they are unsuccessful (and it has been standard practice for decades) so we don't stand out for that.

Seriously? People take the time to interview with this "great place to work" that can't be bothered to let them know that they haven't been successful?

3) The roles I interview for (financial services, mainly for new graduates) exceed 1000 applications per position. It is therefore impractical and a waste of HR's time to send out personal rejection emails to the unsuccessful candidates.

3) The roles I interview for (financial services, mainly for new graduates) exceed 1000 applications per position. It is therefore impractical and a waste of HR's time to send out personal rejection emails to the unsuccessful candidates. except nobody has said that all applicants should be contacted, although given it’s pretty much an automatic process if you’re receiveing thousands of applicants it would be easy to build a rejection email into your system when you reject a candidate.

But in terms of shortlisting and interviewing candidates there is literally no excuse for not sending out a rejection and/or feedback to a candidate you have interviewed.

In fact legally a candidate is entitled to receive feedback so employers should be making this happen without showing themselves up to be rude and inconsiderate.

It's obvious from this thread that it's standard practice to not tell candidates when they are unsuccessful (and it has been standard practice for decades) so we don't stand out for that.
No - you are no ruder than the majority who also don't bother, and you clearly have no aspiration to join the small band giving a better candidate experience. It's a shame there's no desire and no apparent incentive to improve, but there it is.
Most of us who apply for jobs (and especially who go to an interview would prefer to have some response rather just be ghosted but it's clear most companies don't care about about that.
I offer thanks and praise to the few doing better.

No - you are no ruder than the majority who also don't bother

As I said before I'm not in HR, it's not my job to arrange interviews etc, I just do the interviews for people in my dept. Clearly our HR professionals think acknowledging an application is sufficient and that not sending out rejection messages doesn't have a negative impact. The HR professional above said much the same as me, that we don't send out rejection letters because good candidates may well be invited to interview for another job (at which point a candidate is perfectly within their rights to say 'no thanks I've got another job'). We recruited ~1000 people last year so we seem to be doing something right even if a few people on MN claim they would refuse an invite to an interview after a few months.

Applicants should be contacted after an interview either way, but to put my view on a few points on here:

Recruitment agencies in my industry are just not worth the effort. They never have candidates, but if they do, it's just the same people who we have already had applications from on Indeed.

And secondly, its not only the employer who doesn't make contact. Quite regularly I see an application from a good candidate on Indeed, or via e mail.
So I call them, leave a voice mail saying thanks for your application please can you call me to discuss, don't hear from them. So i e mail, don't hear from them again.
Why would.you apply for a job, then never reply to the employer?

We acknowledge applications initially and everyone gets an outcome. We've made our application process slightly lengthier which automatically screens out the "sprayers and prayers" and works really well for us.

We generally recruit directly, with agencies for certain positions. A word of warning for applicants through agencies- double check they are not doctoring your CV before forwarding it on. I almost rejected someone based on a heavily sanitised CV - luckily I asked for the original and it was about 100 times better.

It works both ways on the communication front - I recently gave someone (requested) feedback as to why they hadn't been shortlisted, and it really was due to some exceptional competition- they were perfectly employable - they didn't even bother to acknowledge the email, meaning that if another similar position arose, I wouldn't actively consider them.

@JaninaDuszejko except many posters have posted on here about how they do manage to keep in touch with candidates. And in my experience lots of places do notify applicants of rejections, and they do notify applicants if they are considering them for other roles.

So yes, it does make your company stand out, it does make your company look poor. You obviously think your company is too good to respond to applicants. But I think its basic manners and it will lose you good applicants, you've already said there's a shortage in your field. No company is above basic courtesy to their applicants

You obviously think your company is too good to respond to applicants. But I think its basic manners and it will lose you good applicants, you've already said there's a shortage in your field.

Theres one GP practice who always seem to be hiring for differenr roles. They never respond to anything, and tbh I wouldnt work for them because of this.

[quote OrangeSharked]@JaninaDuszejko except many posters have posted on here about how they do manage to keep in touch with candidates. And in my experience lots of places do notify applicants of rejections, and they do notify applicants if they are considering them for other roles.

So yes, it does make your company stand out, it does make your company look poor. You obviously think your company is too good to respond to applicants. But I think its basic manners and it will lose you good applicants, you've already said there's a shortage in your field. No company is above basic courtesy to their applicants[/quote]
What a great post. Really outlines the issues clearly and constructively.

I'll go and tell HR today to change their policy because someone on MN said they won't apply if we don't send a rejection letter. I'm sure they'll change the policy immediately.

IMO for applications an automated ‘if you don’t hear from us within x weeks you’ve been unsuccessful’ is fine. Because to send an email to 100’s of applicants you need to copy paste every single one of their emails. Not easy. If you already have a distribution list then sending emails is quick.

However not contacting people after theres has been some progress is appalling! They can’t have interviewed 1000 people can they

Also a friend going through this now.
Brilliant first interview, interviewer said he’d schedule another one with head honcho.
That was 2 weeks ago. No contact since despite follow up.
Today saw job has been removed from site but an identical one (with different job ID) just went up.
????

YADNBU - a couple of years ago my husband went for three interviews at the head office large sportswear shop, taking holiday from work to do so. At the third interview he was told there was him and one other person left in the process. After leaving that interview he never heard from them again.

Today saw job has been removed from site but an identical one (with different job ID) just went up.
????

Could be a different job in which case it's worth getting back in contact and saying 'I'm still interested, is the process now complete for the job I was interviewed for or is that ongoing and should I reapply for the new job with the new job ID or can you automatically transfer my application across?'

They can’t have interviewed 1000 people can they

We recruited ~1000 people last year so HR will have arranged the interviews for several thousand.

I work for a huge company that employs hundreds of people and they do send rejection emails to people who aren't successful.
The interview process is quick no matter how high up the ladder you are. Eight days from application to job offer in my role. Main manager was a month.
Absolutely no reason why it would take 3 months to decide to offer a job. Really rude to keep people hanging about, especially those who desperately need the work.

I agree this is a nightmare. I have my own business and the irony is the hardest area to recruit is HR and hiring professionals. So much incompetence and unprofessionalism. I work in quite a niche market so don't want to piss off future hires or free-lancers by treating them like dicks.

@znaika not surprising when HR is often seen as a ‘cost centre’ and hence underfunded. People seem to go into HR when they aren’t quite good at anything else ... specialist recruiters aside

I applied for a job at the Kings Fund once, assessing healthcare providers and giving feedback on how they could improve. The interview was all day, with lots of hanging around. It was exhausting.

I didn't get the job, I just got a cursory no letter. I rang them up and asked fir feedback and they told me it wasn't their policy to give feedback to candidates.

I said to them 'but the job was all about assessment and feedback, how can you as an organisation say that that' or something along those lines, it was a long time ago. 😆

The person was a bit shocked to have me say that and fudged some rubbish back at me, obviously wanting to get me off the phone.

I concluded I didn't want to work for such an organisation!

Off the back of this thread I got in touch with an employer who didn’t tell me I hadn’t got the job after an interview. Not only that they completely ignored my email asking them to confirm that I hadn’t got the job (as they had promised to do at the interview) and asking for some feedback.

I emailed them the other day to say how discourteous they had been and I got an email back apologising and they were glad of the feedback from me.