Am I Not Worth 5 Minutes of Your Time?

Dear company which I applied to a year ago,

Why do you insist on ignoring me? I understand, the job is certainly filled by now, and I did not get it. However, that’s not permission for you to be so rude. Everybody that applies wants the job, and is a person, the same as you. You ask prospective employees to go through all this work, filling out applications, coming to you to pick up or drop off forms and sometimes coming in for an interview, but what do they get in return? Nothing. They get to sit around, applying at more places, checking their mail and/or email to see if they’ve gotten that job, which they might even need, only to assume the employer has rejected or forgotten about them after the first couple months of not receiving anything in the mail. Never so much as a kind “We’re sorry, but you’re not right for the job” letter.

I must ask, how is is that employees must jump through all of your hoops and always be perfectly kind and respectable, but society allows you to lack the decency to even give these kind people a response? We come to interviews at your timing, and often our expense. We come to you to get applications and see jobs available, but rarely get to talk a minute with someone, if we get to talk at all. We have to tell you everything about ourselves, from what we’ve done for work, to our personalities, while you just listen expectingly. Sometimes we will even take drug tests for you, because we are obviously untrustworthy crack addicts. The only thing you do for us, is leave out help wanted signs, sometimes even for months after help stopped being wanted. You do  not come close to equaling the effort we put into your jobs. Compared, you give nothing in return, and often say that you just don’t have the time to send out a letter saying the job has been filled. Really? We all know they wouldn’t be personally writing up a new letter for every person that applied. It could take them 10 minutes to write up a mass email. Then change the names to send them out to the masses of waiting applicants. That is if they want to, it would still be better than being ignored to get an obvious, nameless mass email addressed to “Prospective employee.” Some other companies say that they can’t send this letters because it’s “dangerous.” They say they will get vicious hate mail and offensive responses. They might… if they send rejection letters from their home addresses, or personal emails, which no business would ever think of or make an employee do. With the technology we have today, they could easy send emails from some no-reply@bigfacelesscompanyInc. And honestly, even if you choose to send physical letters, if they are polite enough, not many people would send terrible responses, they would understand and be happy to at least get a response. If people still respond aggressively, I’d bet there’s a way to send a letter from an address that can’t be replied to. Or just ignore all return mail, which you probably already do.

All excuses aside, what is the real reason you often times refuse to answer? Well, as far as I can see, you’re just lazy and arrogant. You consider your time worth so much more than anyone else’s. You feel you can’t spend a few minutes of your time to send a kind, mass email. By not doing this, you steal the considerable time of checking mail countless times hopefully from those who hoped for your job. If an employee of yours refused to answer you when you ask them a question, would you just assume his answer and say “This is okay, he’s important and surely his time is worth more than mine.” No? More likely than not, you’d fire him for being rude, in not responding, arrogant, in feeling he’s worth more than you, and lazy, for not bothering to take the time to do what you asked. So, if all of these traits would get someone lower down fired, how are they “moneysaving virtues” when in the higher-ups of a company? Think about it. Stop the double standards and treat your applicants like people too. Just because they aren’t as rich as you or as high up in a company doesn’t mean they are worthless.

I’d thank you for your time, but I know you won’t waste it on reading or responding to this,

A once prospective employee