Ditch The Standard Rejection E-Mail. You're Better Than That.

Rejection sucks. Maybe you are finally asking out the girl with the pink and purple hair. Perhaps you are putting in a bid for that old Victorian you are dying to restore. Or you are finally applying for the artistic residency you've been talking about since high school. Pursuing anything that lights a fire under the limp tendrils of your mundane existence also makes you vulnerable to dream-crushing rejection. Moving towards hope is terrifying. Besides, when rejection inevitably catches up to you, it feels like the universe is a backstabbing, conniving bitch out to kick you where it really hurts. There's no way around it. Going from "hope for the future" to "the future is dead" just sucks.

But what about the other side of that coin? What if you are the one handing out the rejection?

Well, I just found out and let me tell you, it sucks just as much. Sure, the specific suckage feels a little different. You know, like the way being sick with the flu feels different from getting stuck with food poisoning. In the end, though, getting ending up with either makes you profoundly miserable.

I am the office manager at a small software company. This means that I am in charge of everything that is not "managing software projects or coding". My job can be anything from accounting, invoicing or buying coffee and chocolate to organizing the Christmas party. If it doesn't involve turning our client's dreams into code, chances are, it lands on my desk. So, when we decided that we would like to hire a web designer, I got to try my hands at being an HR person for a week. I also got one more e-mail address to add to my colourful inbox because we like to keep things separate that way. I now have my personal e-mail, the accounting e-mail, the support e-mail and, newly, the job e-mail.

As soon as the first CVs came in, rejection dragged its slimy self up from the basement of "things-in-life-that-suck" and became my steadfast companion. We had some incredibly thoughtful applications and only one position to fill. Rejection was going to win that one without even trying. It had the math on its side in every way.

I took a deep breath and got to work.

After sending a quick message to all the applicants who had submitted incomplete applications or whose profile didn't even match the job ad (I swear, application spam is a thing) things got more complicated. Mostly, because all the serious applications carried so much hope. First off, none of the candidates met all the requirements. I think that is pretty normal. And yet, as I perused them, it struck me that all of them were trying to make a change in their lives. They were switching careers, moving to a different country, or trying to find more stability. Somehow, a couple of pages in a pdf carried a boatload of hope for a different future.

After reviewing the applications with my boss, it came to telling a lot of people "sorry, not this time". I felt strange and weary about it, even though I agreed with the decisions.

At first, I thought about sending a standard e-mail telling the candidates that we would not be interviewing them:

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Dear X,

thank you very much for your application.

I am sorry to inform you that, unfortunately, you have not been selected to interview for this position.

Best wishes for a successful job search.

Kind Regards,

Josefiene

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I got started on the e-mail. Then I got stuck. I backtracked. I started again. From the looks of it, you'd think I'd never written an e-mail before. Clearing out the sticky basement of a messy house seemed much more achievable than making one more word appear on that screen.

To say it didn't feel right is an understatement. It felt horrible. I hated sending out something so impersonal. Writing the e-mail felt callous and careless. Two adjectives that don't describe how I want the company to treat the people we encounter - regardless of whether we end up working with them or not.

What's more, it didn't reflect who I want to be as a person. Sending a standard e-mail made me feel as attentive and thoughtful as the iceberg that bumped into the titanic. It wasn't only "not going the extra mile". It was much more like "making do with a couple of yards instead". I felt like I was taking the easy way out of a situation that, by definition, was meant to be uncomfortable. Also, the day handing out rejections starts feeling comfortable to me is probably also the day I realize I am a cyborg after all. Clearly, an e-mail was not the way to go so, in the end, I just called.

I wanted to make sure that the candidates knew that we had reviewed their portfolio properly. The fact they had not made it to the interview did not mean we did not appreciate their skills — quite the opposite. We were very impressed with the portfolios even when the skill set just wasn't a good fit. For example, there was one guy who did terrific digital illustrations and drawings. He's probably going to become an incredible concept artist one day, but he'd never done any web design. If we had already had a competent web designer in-house, I would absolutely have invited this artist in the making for an interview. If he turned out to be a good fit, we could have just taught him what he needed to know. The problem with this position, though, was that we have no one in-house with skills in that area, so we've got nobody who can show the ropes to a new hire.

In the end, I called every single person we chose not to invite for an interview. I told them what we loved about their application and why we thought they were great. I also explained why they were not quite what we were looking for. It went a little like this: "You seem to be very good at X, but we need someone who rocks doing Y so unfortunately, you're not the one right now".

The conversations went a lot better than I had expected. People understood and, in most part, agreed with the reasoning behind our decision. There were even a few instances of "Oh, yeah, that's a bit of a stretch for me, too, I totally understand." I asked them if we could keep their portfolio on file for later. You never know. Besides, I am still curious about the concept artist in disguise.

Through these calls, I learned a few things:

1. Doing the rejecting sucks but it does not have to be crude or cold. I prefer being kind over being efficient when dealing with people.

2. Giving people the proper attention, even when I am delivering bad news, makes it easier for me, too. I feel a lot less like an asshole. I don't "love" rejecting people, but I still feel better about it when I can deal with the person directly.

3. Calling the candidates and talking about their skills with them was an unexpectedly great way to reassure myself about the decision we had made. I got to confirm that we had "read" the application correctly and that there was no misunderstanding.

I did notice that missing a promising candidate just because their portfolio did not show us all the things we wanted to see was something I worried about more than I had thought. Since those first calls, I have started to ask for more information straight away when I am wondering about something in an application. It saves me a lot of guessing, keeps me "safe" from overlooking someone awesome and lets me move on if I don't hear back.

I know that my experience does not reflect the whole world of HR. Some companies have tons and trillions of applications to go through. I also know that a personal touch is difficult to scale. But I think including opportunities for the personal is still worth it. Paying proper attention to people can make a world of difference. Heck, sometimes it even saves lives, especially when the news is terrible.

Stepping up your people game can turn your business from the " awful place where nobody bothers to even reply" into the "awesome bunch of people who gave me some great tips even though I didn't get the job this time".

I know which one I want to be.