Candidate Rejection Email
When to use it
Send a respectful decline whose length and substance match what the candidate actually put in.
The prompt
Write a rejection email for a candidate for the {{Job Title}} role. STAGE THEY REACHED: {{resume screen / phone screen / onsite / final round}} WHAT THEY INVESTED: {{roughly — hours of interviews, whether there was a take-home}} ONE GENUINE STRENGTH: {{detail}} INTERNAL REASON FOR THE PASS: {{the real reason — do not restate this verbatim in the email}} WOULD WE GENUINELY WANT THEM BACK: {{yes, for what kind of role / no}} Match length and specificity to what they put in. A resume-screen decline should be short. Someone who did a take-home and three interviews has earned real substance. Give me: 1. The email. 2. If the stage warrants feedback, two or three specific points based on what they said or did — behaviour and evidence, not conclusions about them as a person. 3. Anything in my internal reason that should not go in writing, and why. 4. The door-open sentence as a single line, included only if it's genuinely true. Tone: warm, brief, honest without being harsh. No "we had many exceptionally qualified applicants", no "candidates whose experience more closely aligns".
Tip
Only promise a future reach-out if you actually intend to keep it. Candidates compare notes, and they remember precisely which recruiters followed through.
How to use it
Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or whichever assistant you use, then replace every {{bracketed}} part with your own detail. The more specific and messier your input, the better the output — a model given raw notes has more to work with than one given a tidy summary you wrote first.
More Offers & Feedback prompts
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