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What That Rejection Email Tells You – Not Much

You've applied for a job, and the rejection email arrives.

"Thank you for your interest in our company. After careful consideration, we've decided to move forward with other candidates."

Sound familiar?

It's the standard response that thousands of job applicants receive every day.

And while receiving an answer is certainly better than being ignored altogether, there's something important to understand about these messages.

A rejection email tells you that you weren't selected. It doesn't give you a clue why.

That's a pretty significant distinction.

You might have met every major qualification listed in the job description as well as the experience, education, technical skills, and professional background the employer was looking for.

And you still didn't get the job.

Why?

Perhaps another applicant had more directly related experience.

Perhaps someone already working for the company was selected.

Perhaps the employer changed its priorities during the hiring process.

Perhaps there were qualifications the company considered important but didn't clearly communicate in the job description.

Or perhaps the sky fell and not everyone got the memo.

When someone receives one rejection after another, it's easy to start wondering whether there's something wrong with their résumé, their qualifications, or the way they're presenting themselves. In other words, it becomes very easy to start blaming yourself. 

However, you need to put the entire situation into perspective. Out of the 300 applicants that sent in resumes within the first week of the listing, you joined the Rejection Email Club.

There is also a very large difference between being unqualified for a job and being qualified but not selected. Those two situations should never be confused.

Unfortunately, generic rejection emails make no distinction between them.

The result is that applicants are left trying to interpret a hiring decision without having the information that led to it.

Would more meaningful feedback be helpful? Absolutely.

But until employers become more forthcoming about their decisions, applicants need to recognize the limits of what these messages actually communicate.Which is not very much at all.

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Maureen McCullough is a veteran resume writer with over 25 years experience in the field, serving clients nationwide. With a deep understanding of hiring, job searching, nationwide job markets and candidate needs - she offers resume writing for all levels from entry level to executive and C-Suite.

In addition, she offers candidate value proposition services which improve what candidates bring to the table. These include career strategy, career transition, career development, executive coaching and consulting, interview preparation and LinkedIn profile optimization.

She is the creator of the exclusive FAR → Foundation → Accomplish → Rebrand™ executive career strategy framework which gives executive clients our best possible flagship service for their career advancement.

She is also the creator of the Resume Job Match Review, a sophisticated yet extremely practical structured analytical framework based on her own proprietary software which compares your résumé against job descriptions you wish to apply for, helping you cut down on mismatches.

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