There is understandably a great deal of discussion right now about the tragic death of 21-year-old Vicky Harrison who committed suicide after 200 job rejections.

It is perhaps easy to lay blame and make political points. But for me, there are two critical things to take out of this story.

Firstly, it is a sad fact that too many employers leave the rejection letter end of the recruitment process to junior staff with little or no help to ensure it is properly handled. The result is that very often an applicant will not get a rejection letter if they have been unsuccessful – even sometimes after they have attended for interview.

Or, if they do get a job rejection letter at some point in the process, it is too often inappropriate and standardised.

As a provider of small business HR services, I am of course aware how businesses can be inundated with responses to job ads at times of high unemployment. But the rejection procedure is as critical to the recruitment process as anything else and needs to be handled with care.  And it is much harder out there for the hordes of increasingly disenchanted jobseeker than for those of us lucky enough to be in work.

If you can’t get the rejection process right for the best reasons, remember the impact on your public perception right now and the challenges you may face recruiting in the future when it isn’t such a recruiters’ market. There are ways of saying ‘no’ that will build a more positive experience for the individual and the organisation.

My second thought is how little recruitment agencies and JobCentre Plus do to give applicants a realistic expectation of the sorts of vacancies they should be applying for. Too often they encourage jobseekers to overdo the ‘transferable skills’ mantra.

In these difficult times, if a firm wants specific experience it will ask for it. Applications from those who are less than suitably qualified will never succeed. 

I also suspect JobCentre Plus could do a great deal more to help the unemployed manage  disappointment. Afterall, not everyone has a supportive network of family and friends to keep up morale and motivation. Even when they do, professional and realistic advice could take some of the pain out of the process, or at least help people cope with it.

Tags: HR management, recruitment
Posted by Elspeth Watt
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