To think sending a job rejection e-mail at 10.45 on a Saturday night is a bit shitty?

[happygolurkey]

This is the second time I’ve had a rejection email for a job application just before heading to my bed. I know it’s on me to not be checking this late on, but my emails were open from earlier that evening and I had just lifted my phone to set my alarm for the morning. In the case of this one last night, I’d had a short ‘informal’ zoom chat with them followed by a formal interview. Then this fairly generic rejection email. What’s getting to me is that on leaving the interview the interviewer specifically said that they would make a decision on the Thursday, but rather than contact applicants at, in her own words ‘unsociable hours they had previously been corresponding’ they’d wait till the next day. So they knew it was a bit shit but did it anyway. I’m guessing the reason they didn’t get in touch on the Friday was they were negotiating with the successful applicant, which is fair enough. But why send it at that time of night, to me it just leaves you with your head burling and unable to sleep, whereas through the day you can distract yourself, do something for your wellbeing, or ‘get back on the horse’ so to speak by looking for something else, working on your cv or taking some positive step of some kind. Am being unreasonable, or is this just the new norm? Am buying an alarm clock today and making sure I’m more mindful of phone use, as I say, I know it’s on me and to manage that, but just think this could have been handled with more consideration. I was thinking of emailing tomorrow morning pointing this out, but wonder if it’s worth the bother. Sorry this is so long. Just feeling a bit crap

I think it was shitty too. It could’ve waited till Monday and if it wasn’t a technical delay and someone was working at that time of night doing something that could wait till Monday then that is not a good workplace so bullet missed.

I learned years ago that sending negative emails late Friday or worse, as others said, before a holiday is tactical or just plain nasty. Yet I still forget to leave them till the next work day or I think it might be a good email. And they almost always aren’t , leaving me wound up about the content and cross with myself for opening it.

Only with certain providers.

It would have been disappointing at any time, I think you're just picking because you're disappointed.

They probably don't want to be working at nearly 11pm at night either. Although it's personal to you, to them it's just another task on their list they need to get done, and sending rejection emails is always horrible which is likely why they put it off (and why many don't send any at all).

I'm an employer and if I'd sent that to you and got a reply back where you complained about what time I'd emailed you, I'd roll my eyes and think "bullet dodged, made the right choice there."

Sorry, I know it's hard for you, but you really need to move on to the next thing asap.

Cheers, I do have notifications off. Had been arranging lunch with a friend I’ve not seen in years earlier that night so email was still open when I lifted phone later to set alarm for today.
all the best

I think it is very poor indeed.

Some people have a phone for both work and home emails, indeed at one time it was an option that was promoted at my employer (not any more once the awful CIO left and was replaced by someone interested in others not self-promotion). I receive some home emails in the evening from people who live abroad in different time zones.

Assuming it was sent on a Saturday evening, I think you should feed back.

I think you are being ridiculous really. I dont see why the time matters. Either way it's not a nice email to receive but it's absolutely not something you should be losing sleep over. No one forced you to read it before bed.

In my sector, they like to start redundancy proceedings just before closing for Christmas.

You can automate when you send emails so they don't get send out over the weekend and between 9am and 5pm.

I do this on Gmail, which some businesses also use, and outlook definitely has this functionality.

I had one on Christmas day, which I thought was a bit shitty, then one on my birthday!
Luckily I had a job acceptance call the other day so screw the other ones 😁

There’s no good time to receive a rejection email. Personally I’d rather know asap than be kept waiting another day or two.

I’m not sure why you can only adopt a positive attitude during the day. You could have jotted down a quick list of positive steps to take the following day. Or made a plan to do something nice to cheer yourself up…

I once got shit from an applicant for rejecting too quickly - I now send all rejections on delayed send so it looks like I thought about it for a couple of days
🙄
OP I hope you find a job soon.

My previous boss would send emails on a Sunday but would ask you not to open the email to Monday morning
I couldn’t understand why the fuck they wouldn’t just wait until Monday

I think it’s awful OP, and I’m a bit amazed by the number of people saying it’s fine. Shouldn’t be sent on a weekend at all assuming it’s a Mon-Fri job, and certainly shouldn’t be sent that late at night. Amazed at the lack of emotional intelligence from people on this thread, it’s a shitty thing to do to somebody and if the person sending it would have been your manager, it’s definitely bullet dodged. Weekends should not be ruined by work in a Mon-Fri job, other than in real emergencies. (And yes, I’ve worked in HR, done lots of recruitment as a manager, and worked in some large corporations and firms with high work loads/hours/stress, it’s still unacceptable).

Ah yes, the HE Xmas special. Been there.

This is very, very likely due to be part of an automatic recruitment system that will have networks of actions and messages contingent on another thing being completed or altered. In all probability, the person who had thought the system wouldn't do that, or could be stopped, may not know what layers it has, generic messages, and so on.
Unfortunately I'd say that the better thing to try, would be to be strict at not opening an email account at times when news may affect your sleep and thoughts.

In my company, our HR admin is done in India. A large part of the team is in Panama. I'm in UK... by that I mean it's never the right time for someone

The thing is in their recruitment ‘sales pitches’ these firms are often at pains to tell you how seriously they take mental health, how there is all this support available for their employees etc etc.

What’s this got to do with MH?

I can understand your disappointment but many jobs no longer work on the traditional 9 to 5 schedule. If someone was expecting a response to the email, then I would have considered it poor form.

It wouldn't bother me at all. I'd just be glad they'd let me know.

Yeah I had NYE 21:30 and christmas eve 18:30 just before we started Christmas dinner...
It's not likr these days are not known in advance. It's shitty system automation.

Lol at everyone claimimg they would not open interview result email immediately. Or just have a look at the notification which pops up and usually clearly shows what the result is.

Yes, but perhaps having failed to inform her on Friday, as they’d said, they thought they shouldn’t wait until Monday. If it were me, I would want to know as soon as possible, to end the suspense.

Too right OP. I think it is worth letting them know. Even if it wasn’t intentional, and was due to some sort of automation, we shouldn’t be controlled by systems! I’m sorry you had this experience, best of luck for future applications.

Sorry but I think you are being too sensitive OP. In the grand scheme of things, it should just be a minor irritation at most and it definitely doesn’t merit an email to the company.

If it’s automated then it’s a really weird time for it to be scheduled to be sent. Personally I always think work emails after about 7pm (in the same time zone) seem a bit unprofessional and like the person/office/company is behind and has a culture of working really late which I wouldn’t like.

It is disappointing to get that before bed OP and there’s no way I would’ve been able to leave it until morning. But I don’t think there’s any point you messaging them, when you do get a job offer email you will forget about the rejections