#49 – An Error Has Occurred. Press the Reject Button.

Dear Applicant. We thank you for applying for the position of…

Oh I know where this is going.

Unfortunately, after careful consideration, we will not be progressing your application further.

That’s as far as I get sometimes. I feel like I’m 8 years old and I’ve spent all day mustering up the courage to ask Kayleigh Wilkins to the school disco.

The school bell rings and I sweat a little. I pick up my bag. I see her walking home.

Trepidation and excitement grapple for dominance. I have a juice stain on my shirt and a tooth missing, but I combed my hair for this. I get the words out:

‘D-do you w-w-want to go to the disco with me?’. ‘Um, no thanks Alan. See you tomorrow!’

That’s what being rejected for a job feels like. My CV is me in two meticulously formatted pages, sent for approval and hoping to receive a livelihood.

And the response is just a no. Sometimes they don’t even respond and it just sits in corporate purgatory.

Were we just not a match? Is there something wrong with my application? With my CV? With my history? With me?

Rejections without feedback are incredibly frustrating. I understand HR must have a million applications to look through, but can we just agree to put down a few words?

Not enough experience, decided to hire internally, your CV contained a virus that brought down the network. You could make categories for common reasons and just tick a box when you send the rejection email so we can learn from it.

Next week: Back in Blue (and a bit of red too)