Improving Your Rejection Emails: How to Provide Human and Helpful Feedback to Candidates

To be honest, this response to our rejection email made me feel bad. In our last round of hiring at Peoplism, we had to send rejection emails to dozens of people who didn't make the interview round. To make the process manageable, I copy-pasted the body of the rejection email, changing only the names. That didn’t feel very thoughtful or generous.

But I did take the time to write the best possible form rejection email I could. I know how crushing rejection can feel after pouring energy into a job application. I also know how important candidate experience is for a company’s reputation—and yes, that absolutely extends to candidates you ultimately reject. It’s a small world, and candidates talk to each other, their networks, and Glassdoor.

The good news is that it’s not very hard to write a good rejection email. The are three key components to providing candidate feedback:

Be human (but don’t make it all about you). Acknowledge how hard the job process is. Yes, it’s hard for recruiters and hiring managers to sift through dozens or hundreds of applications, but it’s also hard for candidates, who have no idea if anyone is ever even going to read their application. Don’t talk about how hard the process was for you, focus on the candidate.

Be helpful. Point rejected candidates to a course, certification, or conference they should look into to increase their skills. Even better: point them to a company that is hiring for a similar role. It might seem strange to point people to competitors. But the reality is that you can’t or don’t want to offer these folks a job. So use your knowledge of the space to point them to companies that are actively hiring. You may be shocked with the positive feedback!

THE CHALLENGE

Update your rejection emails to be more human and helpful. (If you don’t send rejection emails, email the template below to someone at your organization who does.)

Here’s a sample letter you can adopt:

Dear [NAME],

Thank you so much for taking the time to apply for a role at [COMPANY]. We know applying to jobs is tough and time-consuming, and we really appreciate that you chose to apply.

Unfortunately, we decided to move forward with another candidate for this role. However, we hope you'll continue to pursue a career in [INDUSTRY/FIELD]. Here are a few places that we’ve seen are hiring that you might look into:

• [LINK TO SIMILAR COMPANY 1]
• [LINK TO SIMILAR COMPANY 2]
• [LINK TO SIMILAR COMPANY 3]

Thank you again for your time, and we wish you all the best in your next role!

Warmly,
[RECRUITER/HIRING MANAGER]

For the 3-4 candidates that make it to our final interview round, we take the time to write more personalized rejection emails. We briefly tell them about the 1-2 of the areas that they scored the highest in our structured interview, as well as the 1-2 areas they scored the lowest. Because we use a structured interview process, this just requires taking a quick look at the rubric!