Purpose of this Template

Use this template to understand how to reject candidates in the recruitment process in an empathetic manner which improves your brand and keeps candidates more likely to apply for another role in the future.

Introduction: Why Rejections Matter

Recruitment, branding, and attracting candidates is a long-game process and mindset. Rejecting candidates makes an impression and impacts your organization’s branding. If you treat candidates poorly they will tell others, write reviews, and share their negative experience online. This guide recommends you reject candidates with kindness and empathy and we have other resources with examples of how to do this correctly. For scalable success, it is important to build kind rejections into the process.

Rejections with Humanity

It says a lot about an organization’s culture and values when they ensure that candidates who don’t make the cut also are contacted to let them know (rather than the industry standard of ghosting). While it is ideal a human reaches out, depending on how many applications and at what level an automated rejection response will suffice. After an in-person interview, the rejection needs to come from a person and be personal to the candidate.

For great candidates that don’t make the cut, have a system for keeping them in mind for future positions. Acknowledge that they just put themselves on the line, and that they devoted time, energy, and hopes into this process. It can be tremendously stressful for candidates to make time to interview outside of their everyday obligations. Not to mention the courage of taking a leap of faith in the entire process.

Timeliness of Rejections & Ghosting

Incorporating rejection automations as part of your applicant tracking system (ATS) is the easiest option so whenever you fill a role you can select all, hit reject, and the system will send an email. Anytime a role is closed such as when someone was hired or the role was canceled, candidates should be provided an update as soon as possible. We understand recruiters are very busy and if they don’t take action to reject candidates in a timely fashion it will most likely get lost in the shuffle. It is also more time efficient for recruiters or hiring managers to send rejections in order to prevent candidates from continuously following up on their application.

Providing Feedback - After Which Stages?

Providing feedback is ideal throughout the recruitment and interview process, however, it is not necessarily required at every stage. The below table provides examples of when and how to communicate rejection to a candidate during a particular stage or circumstance. One of the compassionate ways to update a candidate is to be candid, transparent and honest. The opportunity to speak openly about their skills and experience to be competitive for roles in the future will be helpful for them as they continue their search for other roles. Sharing resources whenever possible will also aid in connecting candidates with the right tools to be successful.

Stage	Feedback
Resume or Phone Screening	Automated rejection email
Recruiter or Phone Screen (1st round)	Automated rejection email
Interview or Hiring Manager call (2nd round)	Personal email rejection with reason and examples that are actionable if possible. Otherwise, automated rejection email.
Final Round Interview	Phone calls with constructive feedback, include the skills that set the other candidate apart or opportunities for growth. If not a phone call, an email with details of why or why not.
In Person or Remote ‘Onsite’	Phone call with constructive feedback or additional opportunities to apply and the applicable timeline to do so. If not a phone call, an email with details of why or why not.
Internal Candidate	In person or virtual meeting with explicit and clear feedback. Consider sending them a physical or virtual card for applying. The manager should also be directly informed so they can work with the employee to create a learning and development plan for future internal opportunities.

Rejection Phone Call to a Candidate

A phone call is one of the nicest and most humane ways to reject candidates. Bandwidth may not always allow the time to conduct phone calls which is why we recommend establishing a criteria. For example, if the candidate was within the top 3 or 4 finalists, a phone call would be the most courteous thing to do. This can be a simple, 10 minute phone call. You may decide to do so for high level or executive roles vs. ALL roles. In any case, the recruiter or the hiring manager should be prepared to give feedback if it is asked for when making a rejection phone call. The feedback written after each interview is the perfect source material for these phone calls.

Rejecting Internal Candidates

Internal candidates are tricky during the rejection process because they are already part of your organization’s culture. When rejecting the internal candidate, express appreciation for them as an employee and thank them for being vulnerable even if you went a different direction for that particular role. This rejection can feel personal to them even if it is simply a business decision. Ideally, the goal would be for them to remain in their current role, be promoted, or selected for another role.

Consider this as an opportunity to set them and their manager up with someone on the Learning & Development (L&D) team to help create a plan for them to improve the next time they are up for a promotion or apply for a new role.

An important note to remember for internal candidates: there is a high chance those candidates are applying for other roles outside of the organization if they are not promoted or selected for an internal role. This is where open communication is critical to provide the opportunity for constructive feedback, reminding them of their value to the organization and providing them with additional professional development support. If there are signs the internal candidate will be moving on, it would be in your best interest to begin succession planning for their role.

Interested Candidate Pool

The candidates rejected during the selection process may be valuable candidates for other roles so consider developing meaningful relationships and ways to stay connected with the candidates. In particular, find ways to follow up with candidates you believe would be a better fit for other roles. Oftentimes, your ATS will have tools to support keeping this group active or supported.

Resources

The dramatic rise in employer ghosting is—we'll just say it—scary

Contributors to this Template

Jes Osrow SHRM-SCP, Co-Founder & DEI Specialist
Mila Singh, Lead People Operations & Data Advisor
Ayanna Kelly, DEI Product Manager & Mental Health & Latinx Culture Advisor
Alana Korol, Design & Communications Associate

www.risewithophr.com

OPHR: One Person Human Resources