Insult to injury: The worst candidate rejection letter ever?
Most job seekers agree that one of the biggest breaches of etiquette that employers commit is in not replying to them at all after job interviews. In a recent survey by Workopolis, 44% of applicants said that they never heard from the employer at all after their most recent job interview. That might seem like there are quite a few rude employers out there, but maybe those candidates left hanging were actually the lucky ones.
Here’s why.
What’s worse than preparing, dressing up, conducting an interview for a job, and then never even getting a courtesy call or email letting you know you didn’t get it? Getting a rejection letter calling you a d**k.
That’s what happened to James Allen after interviewing for a job at Right Price PVCu in the UK. Obviously the interview didn’t go well from the employer’s point of view, but Sarah Haseler, the director who met with Allen ended it with a polite comment that they would call him to let him know later that day.
When he hadn’t heard back, Allen called to follow up on the status of his application, he also emailed and texted her. She let him have it with a rejection email that reads like this:
“You are not only the most inappropriate person for this job, but probably for any job. You will spend the next few years applying for, only to get rejected as soon as they meet you…
For an old aesthetically challenged guy with no teeth, you have an unbelievable amount of confidence…
If I had been anything other than professional, I would have said what I was actually thinking, which was this guy is an absolute d**k. Get the @#%& out.”
Sarah Haseler told The Telegraph that she had found Allen to be “rude, inappropriate and insulting, towards me personally and also the company” during the interview. She wrote the angry foul-mouthed rejection letter just to blow off steam. She actually wrote him a more standard professional rejection note, but unfortunately sent him the wrong email.
For his part, James Allen told The Telegraph, “There’s no way as a professional, and especially as a director of a company, that you would treat somebody that way. I really didn’t expect something as nasty as that.”
The moral of the story? Don’t send an email when angry. If you need to write something bitter or heated to get it out of your system, do it in Word or on paper so you can’t accidentally hit send.
Allen is reportedly still looking for work, and admits that his confidence “has been shaken.”
See also:
Company accidentally fires entire staff by email
Woman fired from job via Twitter
