There’s a lot to consider about when you’re employing a new employee. You cautiously think through how you’ll screen applications, what queries you’ll inquire in the interview, and how you’ll structure the offer in light of salary requirements.
On the other hand, even if that course goes efficiently and your dream candidate signs on, your job is not complete yet. You need to contact the other applicants and inform them that you have appointed someone else.
Turning people down is part of the employing course, but it doesn’t always have to be rough. As a matter of fact, if you do it right you can form good relationships with applicants you would think through for future roles, or provide treasured feedback.
Read on for some best tips for discarding an applicant over email, plus the explicit sentences you can use.
- “We went with a more experienced candidate.”
The Muse co-founder and COO Alex Cavoulacos composed an email template for declining an applicant in which she advises using the line, “…we are looking for someone with more understanding in [expertise or job requirement] for this job.”
Experience is great excuse. Initially, there is tendency for applicants to compare themselves; to reason, “What did the individual who got the job have that I didn’t?” It can be even more unsatisfying for an applicant if the role calls for three years of experience—and she has that. But if she came to realize that she lost out to somebody with six years of experience, it can reduce the sting pain.
Secondly, experience usually is the reason. Even if the selected applicant does not have extra years of directly significant experience, odds are that he had some other capability that he have shown or discussed in the interview that made you decide he could do a better job.
- “The nature of the role has changed.”
I will accept it: I used to grow emotionally involved to my favorite applicants. I rooted for them, and if they couldn’t get a job with us, I desired to support them discover a job to another place.
On occasion in these cases, you want to offer feedback. You desire to assure a candidate that it’s nothing he did, or you try to find a way to carefully recommend that building out some supplementary skillset will support him in his job search. Per the “experience” excuse, it’s a nice way to describe why someone else was superiorly suitable. For instance, say the place need someone with strong communication skills (which the excluded candidate had), but the individual you hired had those skills in more than one language. That tidbit—that you relocated the role—convinces the passed over applicant that he didn’t commit a mistake in his interview (and proposes that he may want to think through signing up for language courses).
This options also works when you think the applicant may be better apt for a future or altered role. For instances, maybe the original opening was for a sales position, and then the funding didn’t come through, but there’s a program-oriented opening in the pipeline, and you need this applicant to apply. Tell him/her that the theme of the role has been altered—but she’d also be a strong nominee for the role that was upcoming in near future.
Alison Green of “Ask a Manager” spoken a great sentence that you should always provide feedback to internal applicants. And a line about the nature of the position can be a natural segue to converse expertise—with those you think this applicant could enhance before applying for related roles.
- “It’s not a fit at this time.”
I would bet that most recruiting administrators have directed (no less than) one interview that they merely couldn’t wait to end. I’ll confess it: I’ve avoided auxiliary questions, since I didn’t want to drag the process out.
In these cases, you try to keep communication with the overruled candidate to a minimum. You should still email them back — at all times, but in this case, the most universal line is the way to go. Fit is obscure and so it’s an easy justification: How could somebody who isn’t working for you have a sense of what a “fit” for the role would be?
Furthermore, “at this time” is a mystic phrase. Some might debate that it leads the applicant on, but I beg to differ. It pacifies candidates who might otherwise get a bit insolent with their follow-up. Bring up future interactions is a kindness, because it retells the applicant to stay professional, which will only comfort him/her in future.
Refusing applicants isn’t fun — or an easy task. But, with the guidelines mentioned above, you can tie the knot of professional relationship with a candidate you rejected earlier, and get back to concentrating on your excellent new hire.