The Silent Treatment

“Thank you for your application. We regret to inform you that the position has been filled by another candidate. We wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors.”

What’s the problem with the above sentences? No, nothing’s spelled wrong. There are no grammatical errors. And there aren’t any of those tricky double-word optical illusions either.

The problem with that little paragraph is that I barely saw it during this past job/internship application cycle (and not because I was accepted to everything. We should all be so lucky). Chances are, if you were applying for jobs, you didn’t see it much either because many employers have adopted what can only be described as a silent treatment toward those less-than-worthy applicants. This means that applicants who are not passed to further rounds are never notified of their rejected status. This policy is unreasonable and disrespectful. Employers need to treat their applicants with due regard and grant them the courtesy of knowing where they stand in the job acquisition process. Not responding to an application is simply not acceptable.

The application process through which many employers put us is incredibly rigorous, designed to weed out both those who are not the most capable for the job and those who only “kinda” want it, and leave those who are both qualified and committed. This is not a bad thing, and of course in an ideal world, you would only need to apply for­—and get—jobs you really want. But because of the high probability of rejection these days, we often need to apply for multiple types of jobs, some of which we may be more qualified for than others. Of course, there are people out there who look so good on their applications, who are so incredibly qualified in their chosen fields, that they will never be rejected. But this is not the majority of us. A senior friend of mine has thus far submitted 42 (yes, 42) job applications, and has heard back from “not enough of them.” I myself, after applying for 12 summer positions of various types, heard literally nothing from nine of these organizations. These were applications into which I had poured several hours each, filling out endless forms, crafting cover letters, asking for recommendations, and writing essays. Time and effort that, for the all reaction I got, might have been better spent hanging with my friends or getting homework done. It almost makes you wonder if your application was even considered, even read, even opened in the first place.

This dearth of rejection letters can’t be because of a lack of time or an expenditure of unnecessary effort; it took me approximately 23 seconds and zero brainpower to type those above three sentences. The average employer could (and probably does, for those who still do this) staff that little email out to their current intern or secretary, who can easily send it en masse to however many applicants need to be notified. Therefore, it is just plain rude to not acknowledge an applicant’s desire for, and the often-considerable effort they put into, asking you for a job.

Rejection is a fact of life. I can handle rejection. What I can’t handle is a higher-stakes combination of being stood up by a date without a plausible reason and being given the cold shoulder by a group of middle school girls for no reason. Believe it or not, many of us have been rejected before, in ways more painful than by a job. Yes, it can be disappointing, frustrating, heartbreaking, and may even draw tears, but rejection is not always a bad thing, and can definitely make you a stronger person. So, dear employers, the next time the job application time of year rolls ‘round, please, oh please, if you’re going to reject me, just. reject. me.

Maya E. Shwayder ’10-’11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a psychology concentrator in Pforzheimer House.