NEWS

MUSINGS ON REJECTIONS 💭

Published: 24th August 2026 | Author: Kate Howes

 

About once a week, I set aside time to go through and contact every single unsuccessful applicant. It’s not an activity that is exciting or brings us any revenue, and it isn’t always a quick task, either, but it is important that I do it.

Gemma and I both do it, because not replying to each applicant just feels wrong to us.

Most of the time, people don’t feel the need to reply (which is perfectly reasonable and appropriate), sometimes people ask us to re-consider the decision, or point out something we might have missed, and some just want to argue with us or express their distate for our decision and hit send on a one-word response (the most memorable being a simple, classy “b*tch” in response to my quite kind rejection email).

HOWEVER, sometimes we receive responses like these (below) from Mark and James. Messages that are lovely but also make us a bit sad. What we’re doing should be the norm, not the exception. It’s a reminder that even when we don’t get a response, we’re probably doing the right thing by letting people know the outcome of their application.

It’s what we both want if we were in the candidate’s shoes, after all.

Gemma and I are both passionate about retaining a humanity in our work; especially in the face of crap service standards across our industry and the rise of AI and automation in the job-hunting processes.

Because if we let ourselves forget that there is a real person with hope on the other side of that CV on screen, then we’re losing touch with what it is to be human; to show respect, empathy and professionalism in our work. That’s not a recruitment landscape we want to be a part of.

Yes, hiring is part of business and business is tough. In the words of drag queen superstar RuPaul on their famous talent competition, the eponymously titled ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’, “this isn’t RuPaul’s Best Friend’s Race”. We’re not here to baby our candidates or become professional besties with them, but we can be friendly, show empathy, and communicate effectively. We SHOULD be doing these things across our industry. We might have a slightly better rep then, too.