US Company Apologises After Sending This One-Word Rejection Letter

The company wrote in its email, "We are very sorry this error occurred, as it does not represent who we are or how we treat people."

Rejection letters are not easy for anybody. Whether it is to a job candidate telling him that he didn't get the position or to a start-up founder that he might not get any funding- these are the emails most of us dread reading. However, the correct language and comfort can make it easier for the candidate to accept the news. Recently, a user took shared that he received a one-word job rejection from a company. The job applicant shared the North Carolina-based company's one-word rejection on Reddit after receiving it. Since then, the company has expressed regret for the abrupt email and blamed a system error for the entire incident.

The job applicant posted a screengrab of the email rejection a few days ago. As per the screenshot, there was no salutation at the start or end of the email, and there was no explanation for rejecting the candidate. Instead, it only stated "Decline". The man wrote in the caption, "In all my years, I've never seen a rejection letter so... I don't even know what to call this. Uncourteous? Rude? Unprofessional??" Many people on the platform empathised with the user and criticised the company for its communication skills. 

In an update to the incident, the user said that his post "made so many waves" that the company reached out to him and apologised for their email. The company wrote in its apology, "We recently learned of a system malfunction with our online recruitment software where it automatically sent out replies to applicants for some openings with the single word 'decline'. We are very sorry this error occurred, as it does not represent who we are or how we treat people. All applicants should be treated respectfully throughout the recruitment process, which includes receiving an appropriate, polite response with the outcome. We sincerely apologize for this mistake and believe we have found the source of the problem so this does not happen again."