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I serve on a faculty search committee at a large university here in the US. The part of the job none of us enjoys is informing a candidate who's visited and given a teaching demonstration that we've decided not to recommend a hire. We do it in three pretty bare sentences thanking them for coming, telling them that unfortunately, we cannot offer a position (without giving any reasons), and wishing them well. This is the best we could come up with.

Is there any better/best way to do this? How do other search committees communicate rejections? How much, if anything, do they tell the applicant about the reasons for the rejection? Do they try to do more to soften the bad news? And would they send the rejection by mail or email (including PDF attachment)?

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    It is my understanding that there are great differences between what is ethical/reasonable/good and what your legal department wants you to do. Which perspective do you wish to know about?
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 16:50
  • @Wrzlprmft I welcome hearing how other search committees have satisficed the problem. Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 16:52
  • It depends on the litigatory backdrop of your country (which is it, BTW?). Your response needs to be absolutely unassailable. Unfortunately, on, say, 50 reasonable candidates, you may stumble over the one that will try to probe every available gap/opportunity to its fullest. Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 17:32
  • Related: workplace.stackexchange.com/q/11546/71681
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 18:16
  • This is a nice piece in CoHE from a few years back chronicle.com/article/The-Art-of-the-Rejection/231929
    – StrongBad
    Commented Mar 13, 2019 at 1:00

10 Answers 10

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Getting a rejection sucks. There is not much you can do about it. My wife and I have talked about this a lot and as candidates the only thing we wanted to know was how close we were and how we stacked up against the people who beat us. When sitting on search committess we have had various levels of success trying to inform candidates in the rejection letter about how many applicants, how many first round interviews, how many campus visits, how many offers, and was the position filled.

The other thing we do is make sure the letter starts off with we cannot offer you a position and then includes all the other information.

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    +1 good answer, having levels of rejection is helpful (of course, no recipient of a rejection knows whether there are truly different levels of rejection) Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 2:27
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    +1 Delivering the message early on. Nothing worse than if you have to read through the letter twice to make sure if you have been selected or rejected.
    – magu_
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 17:13
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    @robertbristow-johnson you are correct, it doesn't really benefit the search committee to be nice to the failed applicants. That said, it is not much extra work to draft a slightly more informative rejection letter. While sometimes HR doesn't want to tell people about the status of a search, it is not really confidential. Lots of unsuccessful applicants end up stalking a department web page to figure out who was hired.
    – StrongBad
    Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 4:35
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    i didn't say it doesn't really benefit the search committee to be nice to failed applicants. i think it does indirectly benefit the search committee. the failed applicant might succeed somewhere else and may, some day, collaborate with some faculty member in the school the applicant was rejected from. Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 8:23
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    what doesn't benefit the search committee is to offer information that may or may not be correct or useful to the applicant except if something leaked that the applicant might use or misuse to litigate with. just say it was a competitive position, we're glad you applied for it, and we thought someone else was better for it. Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 8:25
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One standard is to sugar-coat the rejection by some formula resembling "Thanks for your interest in our ... but we've had so many highly qualified applicants that we cannot accept/hire them all..."

This is nearly universally true, first. The possible salve-to-ego is that you're telling the person they weren't rejected because of deficiencies (even if that were the case), but that you simply couldn't admit/hire/whatever all the highly qualified people.

It is my impression that this would also satisfy any U.S.-style HR-dept's requirements.

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    What if no applicants were hired? I've seen it happen. Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 3:33
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    @Thomas, it doesn't matter, the formula still works. If anyone asks for an explanation in this case, the true answer is "We hired every single applicant that our process allowed us to hire."
    – vadim123
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 4:09
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    @vadim123 re your comment: I like how that sentence still sounds good while telling exactly zero information and being blatantly obivious.
    – Neinstein
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 7:16
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    @Neinstein sentences that sound good but convey zero information are called “BS”. It is my policy never to use such language, and I would advise OP to avoid it as well. Quite simply, no one but the most gullible of people will appreciate being manipulated in such a way.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 16:30
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    As @DanRomik notes, in effect there is a fine line between b.s. and tact. In my experience, the genuine issue really is that everyone on a short list is well-qualified, but we can only hire 1. Similarly with grad program admissions, and everything else. Thus, the issue is not "how did I fail?", because there usually is no failure at all. That is information, even if the situation is then frustrating. Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 22:25
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I understand the desire to add information and soften the blow. But there's the potential for every word in the letter get pored over and clung to. If the applicant knows they finishes second, do they feel better or worse?

I think you can be polite and complimentary, while at the same time not sugar-coating the message. For instance,

Thank you for visiting our department last week. It was a pleasure to meet you in person, and I very much enjoyed your talk. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a position.

You are a very strong candidate, and I am sure you will find a position that fits you. Good luck with your search, and in your career.

You can cut out the parts that aren't honest, like it was a pleasure to meet you if they were a jerk, or I enjoyed your talk if it was terrible, or you are a strong candidate if they really flopped.

I would not offer any constructive feedback, or details on what sealed the decision, unless invited after an initial message such as the above. It might be better to deliver those kinds of remarks over the phone, again, to avoid creating a permanent record of a painful event.

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    No! Start with unfortunately don't get their hopes up to squash them. It is not until the third sentence that they know they did not get the position.
    – StrongBad
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 17:49
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    @StrongBad: I see your point, but my instinct is to start with something nice, just as we do in normal conversation. Unfortunately is in the second line; I think it's not hidden so far down as to be suspenseful. Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 17:54
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    +1 for an honest, professional, polite and effective response - the best approach proposed here in my opinion. But @StrongBad does have a point, so +1 to that comment as well. I suggest delivering the news quickly after the minimal amount of relevant context, as in: “I am writing in connection with your visit to our department last week. Unfortunately ...”. The stuff about strong candidate/enjoyed your talk etc will still be helpful but can come later in the email.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 23:02
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    i wouldn't worry about getting the "Unfortunately" in the first sentence. this candidate is not illiterate and will probably read through the first two sentences in a second. Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 2:47
  • I think it’s really hard to write something that isn’t going to come across as rude or cruel to at least some applicants. In this case I’d be pretty annoyed at “I’m sure you’ll find a position that fits you” which comes off as pretty naive about the current job market and possibly insulting because it suggests that this job didn’t fit you. I’m sure you didn’t intend either, but I just think there’s no winning here. Commented Feb 12, 2018 at 14:56
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I can share my experience as a candidate who received a kind, but ultimately unclear quasi-rejection after my campus visit.

What had been done well: On my visit, which was about 7 days after a Skype interview, I was told that another candidate was coming on X day and that the faculty would meet to make decisions around Y day and I'd hear from them shortly thereafter.

So sometime around Y day, I get an email from Department Chair.

I told you that I would keep you informed about our process, so I am writing to let you know that our search committee voted yesterday and decided to pursue another candidate, and the rest of the faculty has endorsed that decision. I know this is not the news you hoped for, and I still greatly appreciate the time and effort you spent as part of this process.

You will not receive any official notification for quite a while because those do not go out until after someone has formally accepted the position.

This note was consistent with the kind and high-integrity people I dealt with there. Indeed there was a lot of effort put into the visit and they knew I had a deep personal connection with the institution.

Knowing how faculty searches work, and given what had been communicated to me previously, this note was consistent with two potential realities:

  1. I was still under consideration but ranked below another visitor.

  2. I was excluded from further consideration and should regard the email as a rejection.

Obviously a common tactic for search committees in these situations is to not say anything to the lower-ranked, but still hire-worthy, candidate(s) while you negotiate with the top choice — this would go along with interpretation 2. But my previous communications with the search committee made the "keep lower-ranked candidate in the dark" strategy untenable because they had promised a follow-up at a fairly specific time. They had to tell me something at that stage.

The final sentence led my mentors and I to conclude that it was likely, but not certain, that I had been excluded from consideration. On the other hand, it may have been included just so I wouldn't be blindsided by an automated email later on if the top choice indeed accepted the offer. Normally you can never know which interpretation is correct when I was ultimately not offered the position, since either one is consistent with my not getting the offer.

In this case, I later learned who the other candidate who visited after me was. This candidate was also not offered the position and received a similar/same note at the same time. We are quite confident, though not 100% certain, that at the time we received this note that no other candidate had visited and the timelines involved allowed for no more than 1 other candidate.

A couple months later, the department announced they had hired 2 candidates for that position. This leads me to conclude that they likely brought just 2 initial candidates on a visit (the other person I know and me), we were both found unacceptable, and they subsequently brought additional candidates to campus and later decided to offer at least 2 of those.

My recommendation: If a candidate has been eliminated from consideration, please make that clear. The other information I would later get about the process leads me to believe that when I received this note, which did not explicitly reject me, I had already been ruled out as a viable candidate. I suspect the Department Chair intended me to get that message, but did not word the note carefully enough, perhaps due to an effort to soften the blow. I don't know that I needed/wanted to hear the gory details (e.g., we were sufficiently unimpressed with you after your visit that we had to extend our search process beyond its initial plan just to get somebody we could hire) but certainly I would have benefited from not hanging on to a bit of hope when it later became clear that I was wrong to do so.

I and the other candidate waited in limbo, unsure whether an offer might be forthcoming, until seeing Twitter announcements from the 2 who received the job. If I hadn't seen those announcements (or if it took another couple weeks), the possibility of a forthcoming offer could have affected negotiations I had with another institution.

Aside: I was fine receiving this information via email. In fact, I'm glad I did rather than in a phone call. Such a conversation would be awkward, especially given the emotions involved. That being said, I'm mildly phone-phobic so there's not a lot that I like to do over the phone.

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  • Did you consider the possibility that the two hired candidates had their interviews before you did? Commented May 25, 2020 at 7:40
  • Would have been unlikely — I was called to schedule my campus visit about 30 minutes after the last Skype interviews were completed and I was told there were 3 potential time slots, the first a week after that phone call. That was ultimately my slot. I can't rule out that there were 3 candidates invited in the first round, but that would have been a very tight timeline. Did they already reserve a slot that would have started about 4 days after the end of Skype interviews? Not impossible, but unlikely. In my field, I've never heard of 4 candidates coming for 3-day visits in a 2-week span.
    – commscho
    Commented May 26, 2020 at 14:57
  • The fact that they contacted you immediately after the phone interviews doesn't mean much. Maybe other people were invited right away after their phone interviews, too. The typical number of on-campus visits makes a better case (I can't comment on that since full-day visits are untypical here). Commented May 27, 2020 at 14:44
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There is no perfect way to "reject" someone. Regardless of the industry, candidates anticipate a minimum response but rarely will this cordial note contain a reason for the rejection.

Despite this, when a candidate offers their time to do a teaching demonstration, I feel it behooves the interviewers present to provide constructive feedback to the candidate. We should remember that the candidate spent hours on the preparation as well as the execution of this demonstration and would like the committee to acknowledge their effort. I make it a policy to always ask the candidate how they feel they performed and what areas would they seek to improve. Then I will provide some feedback to them about their presentation.

A word of caution

Given that we live in a highly litigious society, everyone must choose their words carefully. I advise not commenting on the person but focusing on what was presented and how it was presented. Furthermore, the old adage holds true here, "less is more." Keep your feedback concise and stay on point. Moreover, this feedback should happen at the end of the presentation so as to avoid legal issues that could ensue if provided in written form. Lastly, use your best judgement and follow your instincts when and when not to provide criticism.

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The following is my personal opinion, I don't claim it's provably objectively best.

And would they send the rejection by mail or email (including PDF attachment)?

Physical mail is too slow; don't prolong the pain. And this is doubly true if they're from abroad.

email is perhaps less dignified, but it's acceptable, especially if the applicant thinks about the above consideration. If you do it that way, make two versions: The body of the mail and an official rejection as a PDF.

But I think what you should do is make a phone call personally to reject. That allows them to do a bit of venting or fishing for information with whoever calls them - and it's up to that person to withstand this or to disclose some information - but emotionally it's less frustrating in my opinion. It also emphasizes how they weren't rejected out-of-hand, automatically, mechanically. Of course - the phone call doesn't come instead of the other options; after making the phone call, send the email or the physical letter (which is perfectly ok in that situation.

Do they tell the applicant about the reasons for the rejection?

This depends on what you mean by "a good way". It's more convenient for you - personally and as a department - not to say anything. The rejectee won't be able to argue, or to appeal, or in extreme cases to sue.

But if you care about the rejectee at all, then definitely be forthcoming with them. If you have a somewhat formalized procedure for evaluating the different candidates, that would be a good crutch for such a description: "While we were impressed by your X, another candidate presented a more impressive Y". If you really want to be candid and help the guy/girl on their next attempt, disclose what you had perceived as flaws - although that's the kind of disclosure likeliest to elicit arguments.

Do they try to do more to soften the bad news?

Generally, no. You very rarely have anything to say that will actually soften the blow. However, the personal communication - such as a phone conversation - does soften the blow IMO.

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Just something that I would add to some of the good answer we have already. If the candidate was really good, and would have been hired had there not been a better one, I might include a sentence indicating that we would be happy to see them apply again in the future.

Of course, if you ever write this, it better be true.

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One thing that I must add to the other excellent answers.

If the candidate has already had an on-campus interview, deliver the bad news as closely to face-to-face as possible. In particular, if the candidate already attends or works at your university, tell them in person. If they aren't local, tell them over phone or even Skype. Deliver the bad news by email only if a phone call isn't possible (or the candidate has expressed a preference for email). Deliver the news by physical mail only if email is not possible, or if required to do so by lawyers whom you are now working incredibly hard to get fired.

If your previous communication with the candidate was only through email, a simple plain-text email rejection is acceptable. If your previous communication with the candidate was only through postal mail, then your time machine has apparently stranded you at least 25 years in the past; you have more significant problems than delivering a rejection.

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    Receiving a phone call is frequently annoying, even more so if its purpose is just to tell me that I'm not being hired. A Skype call is even worse because the call would have to be preceded by an email to fix the time of the call and the software employed (not all people can use Skype at work). So, no, just send me an email, thank you. Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 12:46
  • @MassimoOrtolano “or the candidate has expressed a preference for email”
    – JeffE
    Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 14:38
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    I always appreciated the phone call rejection. I had a few less than professional examples where folks would simply ignore me, so I had to infer the rejection after a month (and this is for on-campus interviews). I understand this is partially due to people not giving the official reject while they still go through the hiring process with other candidates. One place I simply got the HR rejection letter via snail-mail (again for an on-campus interview).
    – Andy W
    Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 14:50
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    It can be a subtle difference, but I disagree on the default action: that is, deliver the bad news by phone only if the candidate has expressed a preference for that, not the other way round. Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 16:53
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    @JeffE When my wife applied for a job, she once got a voicemail message on a Friday trying to schedule a call for Monday, and she spent the weekend fairly certain that she had the job - after all, who would call to let her down? In the end, it turned out to be an overpolite rejection. I'm not sure you want to risk that sort of thing
    – sgf
    Commented Feb 12, 2018 at 8:55
-1

i've gotten a few of these letters.

best to remind the candidate before they arrive for the interview/lecture, during the time when they are on campus (at least once), and in the rejection letter, is that the position is competitive and there are other candidates and that he/she may very well not be the one that comes out on top.

  1. so you fly the candidate in and lodge them at a nice inn at your expense. perhaps the day before the interview/lecture.

  2. on that night previous to the interview/lecture, you take them out somewhere nice to eat. perhaps include everyone in the Search Committee that can make it. maybe also the dept. head if this person is not already on the Search Committee.

  3. on interview day, take this candidate to the student center (where there is food) along with students (upper class and grad students in your department) that have expressed interest in coming to the candidate lecture. let the candidate interact with these students. pay for the candidate's meal.

  4. make sure the lecture is well advertised with 8.5 x 11" posters (and email sent to everyone in the department and perhaps related departments) announcing the guest lecture and the topic of the presentation. make sure there is no (good) reason for the candidate to think that, if no one shows up, it's because no one knew about it.

  5. do everything you can to relieve the candidate of any burden or cost (other than the candidate's time) of the interview.

anyone other than someone with the ego and sense of entitlement of Donald Trump should understand that getting such a position is an earned accomplishment, not an entitled right.

then when the rejection comes, the candidate may feel that they missed something, but they would have no reason to feel that they were deprived of something as a consequence of the interview.

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    I'm not sure how this answers the question. Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 1:37
  • well @Thomas, sometimes a patient with symptoms of a malady asks "What pill can I take that will make me feel better?" and sometimes "answer[ing] the question" might be what to do to prevent or mitigate those symptoms. Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 1:48
  • I like the sentiment of this answer, but it doesn't fully answer the question does it? I understand exactly what you are talking about - but I feel the question is more about trying to provide feedback to unsuccessful candidates.
    – shaunakde
    Commented Feb 10, 2018 at 9:28
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    the idea, @shaunakde, is that you can kindly tell the faculty-position candidate that they are not being offered the position and that it was still a good thing, from the perspective of the department, that he/she applied for it and was on-site to be considered. that's the softest we can make the blow. but that will not be credible unless you actually make the application experience and the on-campus interview and presentation experience a positive experience. that's the central point. (that it appears a bunch of academics here are missing or at least not heeding.) Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 1:29
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    @robertbristow-johnson I do understand that, and I do not think this answer deserves downvotes. But at the same time, I also understand what the downvoters were thinking. For what its worth, let me try upvoting so you don't lose as many reputation points. Hard luck, sorry. SD
    – shaunakde
    Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 5:20
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"We'll call you" - a classic joke I know but still effective. Set up the expectation before hand that there will be no feedback, then you don't have to give it if you don't want to.

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    This just keeps people in limbo.
    – Pieter B
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 7:56
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    Sadly some places do proceed like that. This is maybe even more infuriating for academic positions than for other applications, because of the very tight calendar accompanying the recruitment season.
    – T. Verron
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 10:59
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    I don't think the OP was asking how to be evasive and unpleasant to the candidate.
    – Sneftel
    Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 11:23

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