I've returned to MI after the holiday break and finally collected the month's worth of mail that had piled up at the post office. Given the timing, it was no surprise to find a number of rejection letters in the pile (I applied for more than 40 jobs and hope for 1...there's gonna be alot of rejection in my future). Most of these letters follow a similar format:
Dear candidate,
Thank you for your interest in our position. Unfortunately, we didn't pick you. Many also include some "it's not you, it's me" statement designed to soften the blow.
One of the many letters, however, stood out from the rest. A school in Georgia had this to say:
"It is one of my saddest duties as a department chair to inform worthy people who would make sterling colleagues that they are no longer in consideration for a job in our department. As one who has opened his share of rejection letters, I want you to know that our decision to take our search in other directions should not be considered a rejection of you or a negative comment on your qualifications...Thank you blahblahblah...We are very much intent upon humanizing as much as possible an inherently difficult search process."
This is certainly the most heartfelt rejection I've ever seen, and it had me literally laughing out loud at it's strange sincerity. I must say, that people really are kinder in the south! However, it's also so over-the-top as to seem more than a little ridiculous. I'm happy to have been humanized.. and a letter like this after, say, a campus interview would be greatly appreciated, but before the first round of interviews? and from a school that, realistically, isn't a dream job for a girl from the Big 10 Midwest seems... just silly.
Hope you all got as big a chuckle from this as I did!
