“We were impressed with your qualifications and experience however I must advise that your application has been unsuccessful at this time.
Thank you for your interest in William Buck and we would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success in your future career and advise that we will keep your details on file should a position become available in the future.“
If you’ve ever looked for a job, you’ve heard this or something similar in your journey, probably in the form of a standard reply sent to all non-successful candidates.
Most of us just accept it as part of the process, saying things to ourselves, “They had their reasons.” or “I’m sure they had lots of great candidates.” etc. and then just move on and apply to the next and then the next role.
I’m a huge believer in two-way communication, in feedback as a learning or refinement mechanism. In fact, it’s one of the things that makes me so good at what I do.
So, today, I did something different. When I received the response above for a role I didn’t even get considered for, I wrote back stating my disappointment and asking politely for some feedback as to where they felt my experience and skills were not as good a fit compared to other candidates.
We’ll see if I hear anything more. I highly doubt it, but for the reasons stated above I felt compelled to ask.
