Hiring guideChecked against FTC and EEOC guidance, 15 September 2026
Candidate Rejection Email: Templates for Every Stage of Hiring
A candidate rejection email is the message that closes out an applicant you are not moving forward with, and for frontline hiring it is a volume job, not a courtesy job — a single opening advertised on social typically produces dozens of applicants, and every one of them who is not hired is a message you owe. Two rules decide the shape of it. If your decision was based even in part on a background check, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report before you decline, and a second notice after. And under EEOC rules you have to keep the application records for a year whether you hire the person or not. Everything else — tone, timing, whether you give a reason — is yours to decide. Below: templates for every stage, the adverse-action sequence written out, and the case for texting the early ones instead of emailing them.
Why frontline hiring generates so many of these
Rejection volume is a function of how well the top of your funnel works, and on social it works well enough to become a problem. In our benchmark the median campaign delivered applicants at $13.88 each, and the share of clicks that finish an application — the candidate conversion rate — runs 31% for caregiver roles, 25% for customer service and dispatch, 20% for warehouse, 11% for registered nurses and 8% for CDL drivers.
Put a real number on it. A caregiver opening advertised for three weeks on a modest budget can easily produce 40 to 60 applicants. You hire one. That is 40 to 60 people who applied to you, and 39 to 59 rejection messages that either get sent or do not. Most frontline employers do not send them. The applicants notice, they say so in reviews, and the ones you wanted to keep warm for the next opening are gone.
The rejection email is not a courtesy. It is the last thing a candidate experiences of your company, and at frontline volumes you are producing hundreds of those experiences a year whether you write them or not.
The two rules that are not optional
1. If a background check informed the decision, FCRA applies
This is the rule most employers get wrong, and it is the only part of a rejection that carries real legal exposure. If you decline someone based even partly on a consumer report — a criminal background check, a driving record, a credit check, an employment verification run by a third-party screener — the FTC’s guidance requires a two-step notice.
- Before you decline: a pre-adverse action notice that includes a copy of the report you relied on and a copy of A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The point is to give the person a chance to look at the report and dispute anything wrong in it before the decision lands.
- After you decline: an adverse action notice naming the screening company, its address and phone number, stating that the screening company did not make the decision and cannot explain it, and telling the person they may dispute the report’s accuracy and get a free copy within 60 days. This one can be delivered orally, in writing or electronically.
There is no federally mandated waiting period between the two notices. The five business days you may have heard is industry practice, not law — the FTC guidance says the advance notice gives the person an opportunity to review, and stops there. Five business days is still a sensible default, because a gap of an hour looks exactly like what it is.
Note what this does not cover. A rejection because someone lacked a certification, interviewed badly or wanted more than the job pays is not an adverse action under FCRA, because no consumer report was involved. The order you run your checks in therefore matters — see the legal order of operations for vetting a candidate.
2. You have to keep the records for a year
29 CFR 1602.14 requires employers to preserve application forms and other records bearing on hiring for one year from the date the record was made or the personnel action was taken, whichever is later. If a discrimination charge is filed, the clock stops being a clock: you must keep everything relevant to the charge until the matter is finally resolved, including records for other applicants who were up for the same job.
The practical consequence is that deleting an applicant the moment you reject them is the wrong instinct. Keep the application, the notes, the scorecard and the message you sent. It costs nothing and it is the only evidence you will have that the decision was made on the grounds you say it was.
What a good rejection email actually contains
Five things, and nothing else:
- The decision, in the first line. Not in paragraph three after a windup about the strength of the applicant pool. People scan these.
- The role and the company, named. Candidates apply to a lot of jobs and will not remember which one you are.
- Thanks that costs you nothing to mean. They gave you time.
- What happens to their application — kept on file for future openings, or not. Only say kept if you will actually go back to it.
- A door, if there is one. A link to your other openings, or an invitation to reapply after a specific thing changes (getting the certification, finishing the hours).
What to leave out: false encouragement, the phrase “we went with a more qualified candidate” when you did not, and any detail about the other people who applied.
Templates by stage
Four stages, four levels of effort. The rule of proportion is simple — the further someone got, the more human the message should be. Someone who filled in a form deserves a clean two-line close-out. Someone who took a half-day off work to come in deserves a real note, and ideally a phone call.
After the application, before any contact
This is the high-volume one, and it should be automated. Short, immediate, no false warmth.
Subject: Your application to [Company] — [Job title]
Hi [First name],
Thanks for applying for the [job title] role at [Company]. We have reviewed your application and will not be moving forward with it this time.
We post new [role type] openings regularly — you can see what is open now at [link].
Thanks for your interest,
[Name], [Company]
After a phone screen
They spoke to a person, so a person should close it. Still short.
Subject: Following up on our call — [Job title] at [Company]
Hi [First name],
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me on [day] about the [job title] role. After the call I have decided to move other candidates forward for this one.
I appreciated you walking me through your experience at [specific thing they mentioned], and I would encourage you to apply again when we next post — we are hiring for this role fairly regularly.
Best,
[Name]
After an in-person or working interview
They gave you hours, arranged childcare, or gave up a shift somewhere else. This one is worth writing by hand, and if you can, worth a call first with the email as the follow-up. If you ran a paid trial shift, confirm the pay in the same message.
Subject: [Job title] at [Company] — our decision
Hi [First name],
Thank you for coming in on [day] and for the time you put into the [interview / trial shift]. I want to let you know directly that we have offered the role to another candidate.
This was a close decision. [One true, specific, non-comparative sentence — e.g. “Your experience on the overnight side was genuinely strong, and the deciding factor was the forklift certification the role needs on day one.”]
[If applicable: Your pay for the trial shift on [day] will be on the [date] payroll run.]
If you are open to it, I would like to keep your application on file — we expect to be hiring for [role] again within the next few months and I would rather call you than start over.
Thanks again,
[Name], [Title]
The silver-medalist version
For the person you would have hired if you had two openings. This is the single most valuable message on this page, because it is the only one that makes the next hire cheaper. Send it with a specific date attached, then actually keep it.
Subject: [Job title] — not this time, but I would like to stay in touch
Hi [First name],
We filled the [job title] position, and I want to be straight with you: it came down to you and one other person. You were not the wrong candidate — there was one seat.
I expect to be hiring for [role / shift] again around [month]. Can I contact you then? If something changes on your end in the meantime, my number is below and I would rather hear from you directly than see your application come through the queue.
[Name], [Title]
[Phone]
The adverse-action pair, written out
If a background check is in the picture, these two messages replace the templates above — do not send a generic rejection and follow it with the FCRA notices afterwards, because the sequence is the point.
Pre-adverse action notice
Subject: Regarding your application — [Job title] at [Company]
Hi [First name],
We are writing to let you know that we are considering not moving forward with your application for the [job title] position, based in whole or in part on information in a background report prepared by [screening company].
A copy of that report is attached, along with a copy of A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. No final decision has been made.
If you believe anything in the report is inaccurate or incomplete, you can contact [screening company] at [phone] to dispute it. Please let us know by [date — a genuine, reasonable window] if you would like us to wait for the result of a dispute before we decide.
[Name], [Title]
Adverse action notice
Subject: Decision on your application — [Job title] at [Company]
Hi [First name],
We have decided not to move forward with your application for the [job title] position. This decision was based in whole or in part on information contained in a consumer report.
The report was supplied by [screening company], [address], [phone], [website]. [Screening company] did not make this decision and is not able to tell you why it was made.
You have the right to dispute the accuracy or completeness of any information in the report directly with [screening company], and the right to request a free copy of the report from them within 60 days.
[Name], [Title]
Email, text, or phone?
For frontline candidates, email is often the wrong channel — it is the channel they used to apply because your form demanded it, not the one they read. Match the channel to the stage.
| Stage | Channel | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Application, no contact yet | Text or email, automated | Volume makes anything hand-written impossible. Text gets read; email gets filtered. |
| After a phone screen | Text or short email | They already have your number in their phone from the screen. |
| After an in-person interview or trial shift | Phone call, email to follow | They spent real time. A call takes ninety seconds and is remembered. |
| Silver medalist | Phone call, then email | You want them to answer when you ring in three months. |
| Any FCRA adverse action | Written, with attachments | You need the report and the rights summary to travel with the message, and you want a record of it. |
If you are sending the early ones by text, the mechanics and the compliance footing are covered on our text message templates page.
Timing: faster than you think, slower than automatic
The honest guidance is a floor and a ceiling. The floor: never reject someone inside the same hour they applied, because an instant decline reads as a machine and generates the “they did not even look” review. The ceiling: nobody should be waiting more than a week after a final interview, and two weeks after an application is the point at which candidates have written you off anyway.
- Applications you are declining outright: 24 to 72 hours, batched.
- After a phone screen: within two business days.
- After an in-person interview: within three business days, and tell them at the interview when to expect it.
- Never: the silence that lasts until they stop wondering. Candidate ghosting runs both directions, and the employer side of it is the half you control.
Should you give a reason?
Most legal advice says give nothing. Most candidate-experience advice says give everything. Both are wrong at the edges, and the workable middle is this: give a reason only when it is specific, true, and about the job rather than the person.
“The role needs a Class A and you have a Class B” is safe, useful and unarguable. “We felt you were not a culture fit” is unsafe, useless, and the exact phrasing that turns into a discrimination claim, because it is unfalsifiable and it describes the person. If your reason cannot be traced back to a requirement written in the job ad or a score on a written rubric, do not put it in writing. That is the practical argument for running interviews off an interview scorecard in the first place — it gives you reasons you can say out loud.
And never volunteer feedback about anything protected. The list of questions you cannot ask is also a list of subjects you cannot cite in a rejection: see illegal interview questions.
The rejected pile is the cheapest source you have
At a median $13.88 per applicant, a hundred rejected applicants represent roughly $1,400 of advertising you have already paid for. Most employers throw that away and buy it again next quarter. The alternative takes one tag in your ATS and one honest sentence in the rejection message.
- Tag by reason, not by outcome. “No CDL yet” and “wanted $3 more” and “lost to one seat” are three completely different future prospects.
- Only promise a callback if you have a list you actually reopen. A file nobody opens is worse than no promise.
- Reopen it before you launch the next campaign, not after. Texting 30 warm silver medalists costs nothing and occasionally ends the search on day one.
This is the same logic as passive candidate recruiting, except these people already raised their hand for your company once.
Frequently asked questions
Do you have to send a rejection email?
Not as a general legal matter, no — there is no federal law requiring an employer to tell an applicant they were not selected. The exception is when the decision rested even partly on a background check: the Fair Credit Reporting Act then requires both a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and an adverse action notice afterwards. Outside that, sending one is a business decision, and at frontline volumes it is the one that decides what your reviews look like.
What should you say in a candidate rejection email?
The decision in the first line, the role and company named, brief thanks, what happens to their application, and a door if there is one. Leave out comparisons to other applicants, false encouragement, and any reason you could not point to in a job ad or a written scorecard.
How do you reject a candidate after an interview?
Call them, then send the email as the follow-up. Say the decision in the first sentence, give one specific and true reason that is about the job requirement rather than the person, confirm any pay owed for a trial shift, and if you would hire them for a future opening, say so with a month attached.
How long should you wait before sending a rejection?
24 to 72 hours for applications you are declining outright, two business days after a phone screen, three after an in-person interview. Avoid rejecting inside the first hour after someone applies — it reads as automated and generates complaints even when the decision was right.
Should you tell a candidate why they were rejected?
Only when the reason is specific, true and tied to a job requirement — a missing licence, a certification the role needs on day one, a shift they cannot work. Avoid vague or personal reasons such as culture fit, which are unfalsifiable, unhelpful to the candidate, and the phrasing most likely to appear in a complaint.
What is a pre-adverse action notice?
It is the notice you must send before declining someone based in whole or in part on a background check. It has to include a copy of the consumer report you relied on and a copy of A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and it is sent before the final decision so the person can dispute anything inaccurate in the report.
How long do you have to wait between the pre-adverse and adverse action notices?
Federal law sets no specific waiting period, and the FTC's employer guidance does not name one. Five business days is common industry practice rather than a legal requirement. Whatever you choose, it should be long enough for the person to actually read the report and start a dispute.
Do you have to keep rejected applications?
Yes. Under 29 CFR 1602.14 employers must preserve application forms and other hiring records for one year from the date the record was made or the personnel action was taken, whichever is later. If a discrimination charge is filed, everything relevant must be kept until the charge is finally resolved.
Is it better to reject candidates by text or email?
For frontline roles, text usually reaches the person and email often does not, so text works well for high-volume close-outs and for candidates you already screened by phone. Use written email for anything involving a background check, because the report and rights summary have to travel with the notice.
What is a silver-medalist candidate and how do you keep them?
Someone you would have hired if you had a second opening. Keep them by telling them that plainly, naming the month you expect to hire again, asking permission to contact them, and tagging the record by the reason rather than the outcome so you can find them later. At a median $13.88 per applicant, a list of warm runners-up is advertising you have already paid for.
Every rejection email starts with an applicant you paid to get.
We put frontline jobs in front of people who are not job hunting, and report cost per applicant with the management fee inside it. Median across 891 managed campaigns: $13.88.
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