I was talking to a good friend of mine yesterday who unfortunately lost his job back in March when he found himself subject to company layoffs. (for the purpose of this post and confidentiality, I will call him JC)  JC worked for this company for the past four years in their sales division; however his experience is mostly in marketing and product placement. Being laid off is tough for anyone and this situation was no different but JC took it as an opportunity to get back into a marketing role. It certainly has been an uphill battle, JC never expected that it would be easy but one of the most frustrating and head scratching moments came yesterday morning as JC went to check his email, hoping to find some sort of hiring status update from the companies he had been interviewing with in prior weeks. Instead, what JC found was an “email rejection letter” (see below).  This wasn’t the update he was looking to see and he certainly did not expect to receive a rejection in this manner after having spent time meeting and interviewing with various people in this Fortune 500 Company.

Before I continue let me just say yes, I know companies receive hundreds if not thousands of resumes for job openings, recruiters are extremely busy, and hiring managers are tied up with running their departments, but when I read this email I was completely taken aback.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Subject: Not Selected

Dear Mr. XXXXX,

Thank you for taking the time to interview with XYZ Company. We found you to be an excellent candidate for our XXXXXX position and are impressed with your qualifications. Many qualified candidates have emerged and interviewed for the XXXXX position and we regret to inform you that we will no longer be pursuing you as a candidate as we have identified other candidates who we feel are a better fit for this particular position. We will keep your information on file for consideration in future job openings. Please continue to search for career opportunities at XYZcompany.com and submit your job profile to openings that become available. We wish you the best of luck with your career search.

Warm Regards,

XXXXX XXXXX

Talent Acquisition Director

XYZ Company

555-555-55555

XXXXXX@XYZcompany.com

___________________________________________________________________________________________

*Begin Rant*

I don’t know the specifics for why JC was not a good “fit” for the position and ultimately rejected nor does it really matter in regards to this situation. However, what I do know is, organizations that use email as a way to inform candidates that they are no longer being considered need to take a strong look at their recruitment practices and employment branding strategy. I understand and have no problem when companies send an auto-generated rejection email to someone who only got as far as submitting their resume via the company’s career website, there would just be too many people to call whose qualifications did not match with what the company was looking for. However, to email reject a candidate who has visited your corporate office on two separate occasions for in-person interviews is just not the way to conduct business. Yes, I said business. No matter what your core business is, whether it is manufacturing cars or energy management , providing customer service and engaging people is also your business, whether those people are employees, clients, partners or even job candidates.

*End Rant*

The email itself is not as important as the potential damage that organizations unleash on their reputation and employment brand by using poor recruitment practices such as this one. Plenty of organizations have come a long way and have made some positive strives to improve on what many are calling the “candidate experience” but simple oversights like this one are just not going to cut it. Anissa Stein of “The Coaching Connection” provides a great article titled “The Recruiting Relationship”. Anissa looks at the candidate experience and recruiting relationship from both the candidate perspective and the company perspective.

“The recruiting relationship has matured enough that both sides need to re-evaluate how they want to be viewed, how their brand is portrayed during these exchanges, and how each can bring more to the relationship to ensure greater work fit and therefore, work fulfillment instead of angst. It’s a shame that there isn’t some sort of “exit interviewing” for candidates to share their feedback with organizations as I believe this would provide incredible value in the recruiting and subsequent onboarding process of a new employee.” – Anissa Stein

While this email I discussed may seem like a small isolated issue, what happens when people begin to publicly talk about these issues?  Word of mouth is the biggest sales/marketing tool and this includes marketing your company as a place where people want to work. As more and more people get into social media and social networking, what happens when you find your employment brand being questioned front and center on big name blogs and sites like Twitter?

Anissa Stein’s article is provided by way of “The Talent Buzz”, Anissa Stein’s website can be found here: The Coaching Connection