Vague Candidate Rejections

You can’t fix feedback you never got. So you guess, send the next candidate, and hope.

Every guess drags the search out. Each miss tells the client you don’t understand what they need, even when the real problem is that they don’t know yet.

The longer it goes, the more likely the search ends with someone else’s candidate, or with the role put on hold.

“Not quite the right fit” sounds like a verdict on your candidate. Usually it’s a sign the hiring manager hasn’t settled what they need.

Think about how the search started: with a job description and nothing else. It lists skills and years of experience. It never says what this person has to accomplish, what they’ll be compared against, or what would make the hiring manager say no.

So the hiring manager is comparing your candidate to a picture in their head: the last person in the role, someone they worked with years ago, or a mix of both. Your candidate doesn’t match the picture. Because the picture was never put into words, they can’t tell you what’s missing.

They can tell your candidate isn’t it. They can’t tell you why, because nobody ever decided what “it” is.

• The feedback is about feel (“fit,” “presence,” “something missing”), not about skills or experience.
• Two candidates were turned down for opposite reasons.
• The hiring manager can’t describe the ideal candidate in a sentence or two.
• The job description hasn’t changed since the search opened, but the feedback keeps changing.

• It really is the candidate. The hiring manager spotted a real gap and didn’t want to spell it out.
• The send-out didn’t make the case. The candidate fits, but the write-up didn’t show why.
• The search changed. Budget, an internal candidate, or a reorganization nobody told you about.