The title really should be: How to reject when you're rejecting. Lately there has been a deluge of email in my inbox with questions about rejection: not just how to deal with it, but also how to do it to someone else. The academic-rejection season is mostly over for undergrads and grads, and applicants for faculty positions, but it is more of a year-round event for postdocs, researchers submitting grant proposals, and a few other academic citizens, so the issue never really goes away.
It is important to note that rejection doesn't only involve those higher on the academic food chain rejecting those below; of course applicants for various academic things can have multiple offers and reject some of those who are offering them.
Anyway, it is clearly a year-round topic, and maybe I need to subdivide my "criticism or rejection or failure" blog-label (20 posts so far; for example: Writing the Perfect Rejection Letter, 2007), but here goes: as usual, the answer to the how to reject question is.. it depends, but it seems to me that an all-purpose approach is the obvious one:
It is important to note that rejection doesn't only involve those higher on the academic food chain rejecting those below; of course applicants for various academic things can have multiple offers and reject some of those who are offering them.
Anyway, it is clearly a year-round topic, and maybe I need to subdivide my "criticism or rejection or failure" blog-label (20 posts so far; for example: Writing the Perfect Rejection Letter, 2007), but here goes: as usual, the answer to the how to reject question is.. it depends, but it seems to me that an all-purpose approach is the obvious one:
- just do it (don't leave people hanging longer than necessary even if you have what might be unwelcome news),
- don't go overboard with verbose explanations of why it is painful for you to send this rejection letter -- be professional and respectful, and
- provide additional information if relevant (number of applicants for number of positions etc.), and (mostly) sincere; I know that it is tempting to give a rejectee an inkling of how close they came to being not rejected (assuming that they did come close); for example, "You were a close second." Does/would that make you feel better, not better, worse?