your advise on rejection letters please

Sambucus_Nigra

mlz1413 wrote: »

I know I can't spell but equally when I'm applying for a job I use spell check.

anyway I got into an argument that was off my topic its just that I have strong personal feelings on the subject.

think the best thing I can do when replying to poor applications is be very specific to the person or just send a standard no letter - when its been spell checked.

Spell check would not pick up a grammatical error such as advise/advice.

So if you had 100 applicants and 99 didn't mention the expected salary, you would bin the lot and appoint the one that had; even if they were the wrong person for the job?

I also would never put feedback into a letter; never have and never would. For the same reasons as Emmzi - life's too short.

Savvy_Sue

I agree with what others have said about salary: IMO a sensible employer will say what their salary range is, then applicants can decide if they're willing to work for that or not.

I've taken large cuts in order to be working in the 'right' place. But I'd rather discuss that at interview than give you a reason to dismiss my application.

Notice periods I feel less strongly about: you need to work out whether you'd rather have the not quite right person next week, or the right person in a month's time. For a position where notice might be 3 months, I'd say it was even more crucial to get the right person first time. But what do I know, we've only worked through 3 iterations of the recruitment process because we didn't find the right person first time!

mlz1413 wrote: »

I explained what I was asking for in a covering letter and then I asked if feedback on poor quality covering letters should be given.

since then I have given more info my personal feelings about why the covering letters are poor.

My final question on how to respond to a p1ss poor application iis because I'm not employed to do HR and so am finding it hard to be constructive - which in my book shows a willingness to listen to other people which means learning too.

My emphasis. You are not employed as a recruitment consultant, you are not working as an adviser at the Job Centre (although you might be better than some that are!). Therefore it is not your job to tell people how to apply for jobs.

mlz1413 wrote: »

think the best thing I can do when replying to poor applications is be very specific to the person or just send a standard no letter - when its been spell checked.

That's great, if you have time and if you can always get it right without input from the recruiting manager and if you've got time for the ensuing discussions ...

Emmzi wrote: »

I don't give any specific reasons for rejection from letters/ cvs as I have had too many candidates want to argue the toss with me and I can't be bothered with their version of why they are great after all. Seriously, don't get into it.

I've now started asking recruiting managers for one sentence of generic feedback for 'junior' posts - eg "other applicants showed a closer fit to the person specification" covers it nicely, from the 'not bad but not quite good enough' to the 'good grief did they scribble this on a moving train?' applications.

Because it is not MY job to tell applicants that if their application looks as if it was scribbled on a moving train, they will be not be shortlisted for interview with us or anywhere else. Nor is it MY job to tell people how to tailor an application to a job description and person spec. There's money to be made from doing that job, certainly, but it's not what my employer is paying me to do!

For 'senior' posts I'll ask for a tailored sentence, eg 'did not have as much experience of the sector as other applicants'. However I've also had 'nice try' for an about to be graduate who thought they could run a growing organisation based on experience of helping out with their family business. Had to pad that out a bit ...

I am finding that the one sentence feedback method does seem to stop the phone calls and emails asking for specific feedback (which we would give post interview). But it does need to be carefully worded to ensure that it does not smack of discrimination (eg 'less experience than others' is OK, 'not enough experience' might demonstrate age discrimination).