Being rejected for a job can be a brutal experience that really hits job applicants’ confidence, especially if they were among the favored candidates but didn’t get an offer. That can foster deeply negative feelings toward the organization that delivered that final “thanks, but no thanks.” But a new study shows that this really doesn’t have to happen, and how a hiring manager frames a rejection really can impact the chances that qualified candidates who are turned away — maybe because they were a close second choices — will apply again in the future. There are also other lessons here in how to say “no” in a business context.
The research, out of Philadelphia’s Temple University, found that people who are given a meaningful rejection notice that explains the reasoning that led to the rejection, even if it’s brief, were much more likely to engage with that company again in the future. In fact responses that better explained the rejection rationale increased retention by over 21 percentage points. That’s a sizable improvement, and, as science news site notes, it might be because if a hiring manager explains why they said “no” this time, it might empower someone to try again in the future because their uncertainty about the outcome is lowered.
The study’s lead author, Sunil Wattal, associate dean of research and doctoral programs at the Fox School of Business at Temple, told Phys.org that the results really show how “even simple things can make a difference in terms of how a rejection is received.” This can involve seemingly low-effort actions like “being more friendly or being more informative,” alongside “being more informative,” when you tell someone they were rejected. It’s clear that “no one likes being rejected,” Wattal noted.
The study used user data from social media-like coding platform Stack Overflow for the core “rejection” analysis, but Wattal told the science outlet that it’s definitely applicable in a broader context. It’s common for companies to “send simple, one- to two-sentence emails to let a candidate know that they will not be getting a job. How likely is that candidate going to be to apply for a job in the future?” he asked. Worse, if an “employer ghosts somebody or just rejects them with one line, then they’re never going to apply to the company again.”
The point here is that the recruitment process is costly both in time and money terms — paring an extensive applicant list, even with the help of AI tools — takes effort by HR workers and management. The interview process consumes more time, and it’s easy to see why companies may be tempted, once they’ve selected the top candidate, to brush off the other applicants with little additional thought. But the top few members of that list may be a good fit for future roles in your company, and you’ve already invested time and money getting to know them. If all it takes to tempt them to reapply in the future is a more friendly “no” than you may have planned for, then why not try it?
You may have gotten to this point in the story and considered this research as simple common sense.
But under the current fraught job market, the job application process has become much more difficult, not least because many HR managers are experiencing burnout, and because AI tools allow job applicants to try a scattergun effect and apply to many more jobs than they’d have been able to do manually. Anything you can do to simplify this process, such as encouraging near-miss candidates to reapply in the future, is a boon.
Separately Wattal notes the same line of reasoning about rejecting job applicants can be applied elsewhere. This includes talking to customers who have faced rejections for refunds, for example: when you handle these rejections in a motivational way, explaining your rationale in a polite way, Wattal said it can even “actually strengthen trust, loyalty and long-term engagement.”
Kit Eaton
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