Rejection letters should not be emailed
July 21, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, bad bosses, employment, hiring, job search, rejection lettersAsk A Manager wrote a nice post about rejection letters yesterday, and gives several examples of truly stupid ways that rejected applicants respond to them.
I still don’t like emailed rejection letters, though, and here’s why.
Email feels hasty and is too provocative
An email is too sudden and surprising. It even raises my hopes up, just a minute, when I first see it in my inbox… a request for more information, perhaps? The memo-like nature of email lacks a certain sense of closure, too. If it says “no,” is that REALLY their final answer??
Email also is more provocative than a letter, and therefore much more likely to invite a response from the recipient. As AAM points out, this is rarely a good thing.
Email shows how cheap you are
The cost of postage and paper may be rising, but it’s foolish to quibble over 45 cents when your company’s public image is on the line. Nor does it require much more staff time to use mail-merge to semi-personalize a form letter than it does to correctly enter a bunch of email addresses.
Job searches cost money, and they should. They are one of the most important thing any organization does. The real cost of job searches are retraining costs, particularly if a company did a poor job of hiring and retaining good employees to begin with. Appearances matter here, so don’t make your company look like it can’t even afford stamps, let alone decent salaries for its employees.
Email feels disrespectful
I am never hasty, cheap, or disrespectful when I apply for a job, and I think I deserve at least a tiny bit of time in return for my own investment. You asked for my application, after all, and your rejection is painful enough.
Bridges can burn in either direction: “Employ” is a transitive verb
I’ve been beating this point half to death lately, but I need to make it one more time. Ann Bares at Compensation Force has made it even better than I by pointing out that it is not the bad employees but the good ones who will leave a company if they are unhappy. The costs of a poorly-run job search will only multiply. To keep good employees, you need to attract them in the first place.
Word gets out. Just as employers and recruiters share information with each other, you can be sure that employees and job applicants do as well.
At least the best ones do, and those are the ones you want. Right?
I am willing to concede a few exceptions to my no-email rule. Among them:
- The company is receiving unsolicited applications
- The application process is an online one, or
- The applicants are informed upfront that they will be updated via email.
Please send me a letter. I want to see it and touch it. I will know what it is right away, but I want to be able to decide when to open it, and how to digest it.
And then I want to be able to crumple it up with great flourish and throw it away.
————-
Related posts:
Employers: It’s Your Turn to be Fabulous
Un-Fabulous Employers: Asking for Too Much Upfront
Blind Box Ads: Bad-Ass, or just Bad?
July 21st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Thanks for expanding on this topic! I’m curious to know if you might be in the minority on this one. We hear from a lot of rejected applicants after they receive our email rejection, and — unlike the ones I blogged about yesterday — most of them thank us for getting back to them (since so many places don’t at all) and don’t seem bothered by it being by email. Then again, we do make it clear up front that we send rejections by email, so they know ahead of time.
Also, while 45 cents for a stamp sounds cheap, if you have 400 applicants for a position, that’s $180, plus a couple of hours of a temp’s time. Doesn’t sound like that much, but we’re a nonprofit, so it’s hard to justify that when there’s a free and fast alternative that most people seem to be content with. But then I’m stingy, so who knows.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I greatly appreciate hearing your own take on this one, AAM, and I’d be interested in knowing if I’m in the minority, too. Readers?
July 21st, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I greatly prefer getting *something* – I don’t much care what form it’s in, email, paper, carrier pigeon, smoke signals…. whatever. I just get very frustrated when I don’t receive any feedback whatsoever.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Peggy on the Career Encouragement Blog responded to this post in her own blog today. Here is the first part of that response. (Click here to read the whole conversation.)
Interesting post! It seems as if this is one more occasion where it’s not so much the technology that’s the problem, as it is HOW the technology is used. Thankfully I fall into your 3rd category and let candidates know that e-mail is how we will be in touch. Also – I find it interesting that candidates don’t seem to mind if I contact them via e-mail to schedule a first or second interview…it’s only if the news is NOT what they want, that they take umbrage with the approach.
~ Career Encourager
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Based on my work with jobseekers and my own experience, I think most people really appreciate hearing something, anything that gives them status and lets them know where they are.
I wish all jobseekers were “never hasty, cheap, or disrespectful” in their own job search. Unfortunately, that is not the case and too many people find it easy to apply for everything by hitting “submit”. Many don’t take the time to tailor a resume or write a meaningful cover letter.
Those people who clearly put their best forward and make it to a final pool of candidates most definitely deserve more than a standard, packaged email once the final candidate has been selected.
Your points are well taken though and email does have it’s challenges and is definitely not for everything.
Marcie @ BullsEye
July 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
The correspondence for my most recent job search was done almost completely over E-Mail, including sending my resume (as a PDF) and receiving the benefit booklet, the Non-Disclosure Agreement and the offer letter. I did have to print out the NDA and the offer letter so I could sign both and return them, but I wasn’t offended or inconvenienced by E-Mail. Then again, I’m a software developer, and use computers both at work and at home, so actually printing something out, signing it, adressing an envelope and finding postage stamps is a bit of a novelty for me.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:40 am
[...] I received another rejection letter. It was typed on nice 20 lb bond, too — perfect for the crumple-and-lob that many of us serial rejectees depend [...]