The email is not personal. It has a name and a few words (the "<insert something interesting they mentioned>") but it gives no feedback on why you are not hiring them. Reading the rejection email as someone who might be receiving it, it would leave me wondering and frustrated, and more likely than not I'd reply to ask why I was rejected. You're not going to hire me, there is no reason not to just tell me.
Maybe this is just American culture (they seem a bit less straight-forward with negative things than the average Dutchman), but the ever-polite "hopefully you'll stay in touch" is more annoying than nice to me. Staying in touch is regular communication, not a line you should say to everyone regardless of how terrible their resume was and how applicable they may be as a future employee in a different position when really you're meaning to say goodbye.
In America, if you discuss why a candidate was rejected and your reasoning can be interpreted as one of the many reasons that have been deemed illegal, you open up your company to being sued for discrimination. Given that your company will likely have many reviewers discussing many, many candidates, the only way to be sure no one ever slips up and gets sued is to have a blanket policy of never discussing why a candidate was rejected. Not with the candidate. Not even with people inside your company but outside of that candidate's hiring process. I have never discussed hiring process with a company that did not have this policy.
In America, if you discuss why a candidate was rejected and your reasoning can be interpreted as one of the many reasons that have been deemed illegal, you open up your company to being sued for discrimination.
This happened at a company where I worked. A candidate who was rejected emailed and asked why he didn't get the job, and one of the interviewers replied that he had a thick Indian accent (coincidentally, the interviewer was also Indian), and that would make it difficult for customers to understand him. He sued and later settled out of court for a rumored 6 figures. After that, rejections were handled automatically via snail mail direct from corporate.
That said, I don't find it likely that someone will sue you for saying, "we need someone who has more experience with <language/framework> or <type of project>", which is what many rejected candidates are looking for when they ask why they are being passed on. I mean, on what grounds would they sue?
I guess the fear is that seemingly harmless feedback could be twisted by an unscrupulous candidate (or his/her lawyer). For example, "we need someone with .NET experience" in an extreme interpretation could mean "we want people who can afford Microsoft licenses, not poor programmers who can only afford free software", and now you're looking at discrimination based on economic background. That is obviously an absurd example, but it is better to say nothing at all to the candidate than to have to waste time and money in court or on a settlement.
Even if there were no absurd lawsuits (which certainly do happen), you cannot realistically expect 100% of your interviewers to be 100% educated and 100% consistent while giving feedback to lots and lots of candidates. The cost of a single suit is high enough that you must take the risk of someone ever slipping up with an off-hand comment very seriously. The only way to reliably prevent mistakes is to reliably prevent any form of feedback.
It's unfortunate because I'm sure many people I interview would appreciate feedback and I would be quite happy to give it to them. But, the aggregate risk across all candidates is too high.
I had this happen to me in a promotional situation. My use of the magical HR words that mean nothing didn't help too much.
I had a complaint filed against me for age discrimination. It was ultimately deemed unfounded, it wasted a lot of time and left the candidate ee picked in limbo for a few months.
Judging from the comments I've repeatedly heard from Europeans, Americans are generally a lot more friendly to strangers than the average European. They are a lot more likely to reach out and strike up a random conversation with someone they have never met and will likely never meet again. Apparently, Europeans a more binary -lots of communication or none at all. Being open to any communication is the norm in America. Implying otherwise is unusual and indicates something is wrong. In practice, it's not expected that a very loose connection will actually say a whole lot, but the channel is never closed without strong reasons.
From all that, saying "stay in touch" is just being polite and making sure the other person doesn't get negative and assume you are thinking "I'd prefer to not speak to you again." -which would be an overly strong rejection (even if it's true).
It's a peeve of mine that no one can make a statement on the internet without at least two people popping in to point out that "Your theorem does not hold true over the entirety of the domain. Allow me to enumerate your falsitudes..."
I've seen this opinion expressed individually by Brits, Germans, French, Spanish, Finns, Dutch and Danes. When I make a generalization, it's not because I'm an ignorant clod who prefers to pretend that the Portuguese, Italians, Swiss, Belgians, Irish, Swedes, Austrians, Poles, Greeks, Czechs, Croats, Slovaks, Belarusians, Luxembourgers, ect are all a homogeneous mass who universally and uniformly are defined as conforming to my generalization. It's because I'm not defending a mathematical thesis, enumerating all existant situations is not the point of the conversation, I value my time and the time of all of the readers and I'm rushed/considerate enough to be brief.
Comments
The email is not personal. It has a name and a few words (the "<insert something interesting they mentioned>") but it gives no feedback on why you are not hiring them. Reading the rejection email as someone who might be receiving it, it would leave me wondering and frustrated, and more likely than not I'd reply to ask why I was rejected. You're not going to hire me, there is no reason not to just tell me.
Maybe this is just American culture (they seem a bit less straight-forward with negative things than the average Dutchman), but the ever-polite "hopefully you'll stay in touch" is more annoying than nice to me. Staying in touch is regular communication, not a line you should say to everyone regardless of how terrible their resume was and how applicable they may be as a future employee in a different position when really you're meaning to say goodbye.
In America, if you discuss why a candidate was rejected and your reasoning can be interpreted as one of the many reasons that have been deemed illegal, you open up your company to being sued for discrimination. Given that your company will likely have many reviewers discussing many, many candidates, the only way to be sure no one ever slips up and gets sued is to have a blanket policy of never discussing why a candidate was rejected. Not with the candidate. Not even with people inside your company but outside of that candidate's hiring process. I have never discussed hiring process with a company that did not have this policy.
In America, if you discuss why a candidate was rejected and your reasoning can be interpreted as one of the many reasons that have been deemed illegal, you open up your company to being sued for discrimination.
This happened at a company where I worked. A candidate who was rejected emailed and asked why he didn't get the job, and one of the interviewers replied that he had a thick Indian accent (coincidentally, the interviewer was also Indian), and that would make it difficult for customers to understand him. He sued and later settled out of court for a rumored 6 figures. After that, rejections were handled automatically via snail mail direct from corporate.
That said, I don't find it likely that someone will sue you for saying, "we need someone who has more experience with <language/framework> or <type of project>", which is what many rejected candidates are looking for when they ask why they are being passed on. I mean, on what grounds would they sue?
I guess the fear is that seemingly harmless feedback could be twisted by an unscrupulous candidate (or his/her lawyer). For example, "we need someone with .NET experience" in an extreme interpretation could mean "we want people who can afford Microsoft licenses, not poor programmers who can only afford free software", and now you're looking at discrimination based on economic background. That is obviously an absurd example, but it is better to say nothing at all to the candidate than to have to waste time and money in court or on a settlement.
Even if there were no absurd lawsuits (which certainly do happen), you cannot realistically expect 100% of your interviewers to be 100% educated and 100% consistent while giving feedback to lots and lots of candidates. The cost of a single suit is high enough that you must take the risk of someone ever slipping up with an off-hand comment very seriously. The only way to reliably prevent mistakes is to reliably prevent any form of feedback.
It's unfortunate because I'm sure many people I interview would appreciate feedback and I would be quite happy to give it to them. But, the aggregate risk across all candidates is too high.
I had this happen to me in a promotional situation. My use of the magical HR words that mean nothing didn't help too much.
I had a complaint filed against me for age discrimination. It was ultimately deemed unfounded, it wasted a lot of time and left the candidate ee picked in limbo for a few months.
Judging from the comments I've repeatedly heard from Europeans, Americans are generally a lot more friendly to strangers than the average European. They are a lot more likely to reach out and strike up a random conversation with someone they have never met and will likely never meet again. Apparently, Europeans a more binary -lots of communication or none at all. Being open to any communication is the norm in America. Implying otherwise is unusual and indicates something is wrong. In practice, it's not expected that a very loose connection will actually say a whole lot, but the channel is never closed without strong reasons.
From all that, saying "stay in touch" is just being polite and making sure the other person doesn't get negative and assume you are thinking "I'd prefer to not speak to you again." -which would be an overly strong rejection (even if it's true).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvidoBBJSRA
BTW, there is no "stereotypical European" or "average European". But I got used to the American notion of European = British.
I personally would describe "stay in touch" as "fake", definitely not "polite" or "friendly".
Americans include Bolivians, Chileans, Colombians, people in Alaska, New Yorkers ... Is the average a Guatemalan?
Europeans include Southern Spaniards, Finns, Germans ... is the average a Luxemburger?
It's a peeve of mine that no one can make a statement on the internet without at least two people popping in to point out that "Your theorem does not hold true over the entirety of the domain. Allow me to enumerate your falsitudes..."
I've seen this opinion expressed individually by Brits, Germans, French, Spanish, Finns, Dutch and Danes. When I make a generalization, it's not because I'm an ignorant clod who prefers to pretend that the Portuguese, Italians, Swiss, Belgians, Irish, Swedes, Austrians, Poles, Greeks, Czechs, Croats, Slovaks, Belarusians, Luxembourgers, ect are all a homogeneous mass who universally and uniformly are defined as conforming to my generalization. It's because I'm not defending a mathematical thesis, enumerating all existant situations is not the point of the conversation, I value my time and the time of all of the readers and I'm rushed/considerate enough to be brief.