What If Every Recruiter Told You the REAL Reason You Were Rejected?" A thought experiment that reveals uncomfortable truths about modern hiring

#MoreThanCareer Edition 1

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of #MoreThanCareer. I'm genuinely thankful you've subscribed, and I'd be enormously grateful if you'd consider reposting, forwarding, or saving this newsletter for later reading. Your feedback on this first edition would mean the world to me.

I would like to dedicate this first edition of my newsletter to Vaclav Sulista who is a Pharma business veteran himself and since many years very successfully coaches people who want to begin or advance their career in the Pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland. Thank you, Vaclav, for all your great advice that you have given me!

Please consider following Vaclav: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sulista-consulting/

This newsletter was born from a comment exchange with a fellow recruiter about the absurdity of "overqualified" as a rejection reason. That conversation spiralled into a mental exercise I couldn't shake: What would happen if every candidate—yes, every single one—received completely honest feedback for every application and interview? Not the sanitised corporate speak we've all mastered, but the real reasons. The uncomfortable ones. The legally precarious ones. The ones we whisper about in closed-door meetings but would never commit to writing.

Let me paint the scenario properly. In this theoretical universe, discrimination lawsuits don't exist. Companies must provide genuine feedback every single time, regardless of how uncomfortable the truth might be. Whether you weren't hired because of your ethnicity, your age, your accent, your weight, the gaps in your CV, or simply because the hiring manager had a bad lunch that day—you'd know.

Sounds utopian for candidates, doesn't it? But is it?

THE CURRENT STATE OF FEEDBACK (OR RATHER, ITS ABSENCE)

The numbers are quite sobering. Research shows 61% of candidates report being ghosted after interviews—no update, no rejection, no closure. A further 34% feel abandoned after just one week of silence. And here's the particularly brutal part: only 3% of applicants ever receive an interview invitation. That means 97% of your applications disappear into the void, never to be acknowledged again.

Meanwhile, 79% of candidates say they would consider reapplying to a company if they received feedback after rejection. Nearly eight in ten people are willing to try again—if only someone would tell them what went wrong.

But companies won't. And there are reasons for that silence beyond mere laziness.

THE LEGAL FORTRESS AROUND SILENCE

In Germany, the Federal Labour Court (BAG) has explicitly ruled that companies have no obligation to explain why they rejected an applicant. This isn't bureaucratic oversight—it's deliberate protection. One employment lawyer I know in Frankfurt described rejection emails as documents "written not by HR, but by the legal department after much deliberation." Every word is scrutinised for potential liability.

The logic is straightforward: honest feedback is ammunition for discrimination lawsuits. If you tell someone they weren't hired because they seemed "too old" or "wouldn't fit our young, dynamic team culture," you've just handed them evidence. The corporate solution? Say nothing meaningful at all.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS THAT WOULD EMERGE

Let's examine what radical transparency would actually reveal. Research data tells us what companies think but rarely say:

On age: 70% of workers over 40 believe they've experienced age discrimination during hiring. Studies show 42% of hiring managers actively consider age when evaluating CVs, and 33% have explicit concerns about hiring older applicants. The term "overqualified" is frequently—perhaps predominantly—a proxy for "too old." A meta-analysis of hiring discrimination found that bias against older candidates is as severe as racial discrimination.

On ethnicity: Despite improvements, applicants with names perceived as ethnically distinct still face measurable disadvantage. Recent research shows a 9% callback gap based on name perception alone. In France, candidates from perceived minority backgrounds have 2.5 times less chance of positive callbacks than their counterparts.

On mental health: Candidates who disclose mental health conditions face a 27% lower probability of receiving an interview invitation. The same research found a 22% reduction in any positive employer response.

On "cultural fit": This phrase has become perhaps the most elastic rejection excuse in modern recruitment. It can mean anything from "you wouldn't enjoy our foosball table environment" to "we're uncomfortable with difference." Studies on hiring in Sweden found that living in a neighbourhood requiring more than 90 minutes commute resulted in fewer callbacks—before any interview occurred.

On overqualification: The research is blunt here. "Overqualified" almost never means what it says. It typically masks concerns about salary expectations, fears that you'll leave quickly, manager insecurity about supervising someone more experienced, or—most commonly—age bias dressed in more acceptable clothing. One HR expert put it plainly: "If we couldn't reject a 7ft 4 basketball player for being 'too tall,' why would we reject someone for being 'too qualified'?"

THE CASE FOR RADICAL HONESTY

Imagine, for a moment, this alternative reality worked. What might improve?

Candidates could finally address actual gaps. If you knew your technical skills were genuinely insufficient—not that you were rejected for "other candidates more closely matching our needs"—you could pursue targeted development. The current system forces guesswork. You send fifty applications, receive forty-nine template rejections, and have no data to iterate upon.

Discrimination might decrease through exposure. When biased decision-making must be documented and communicated, it becomes harder to sustain. The correspondence experiments that revealed hiring discrimination worked precisely because they made invisible bias visible. Systematic honesty might achieve similar effects over time.

Trust in institutions could grow. Research consistently shows candidate experience significantly impacts employer brand and future applications. The companies that do provide genuine feedback—even difficult feedback—report stronger talent pipelines and better relationships with rejected candidates. Honesty, it seems, builds loyalty even in rejection.

THE CASE AGAINST (AND IT'S SUBSTANTIAL)

But here's where the thought experiment becomes darker.

Psychological harm could escalate dramatically. Job searching already damages mental health at alarming rates—55% of candidates identify waiting for feedback as their primary stressor, and rejection contributes to anxiety, depression, and what psychologists call "rejection sensitivity." Now imagine receiving confirmation that you weren't hired because someone found you physically unattractive, too fat, too foreign-sounding, or simply unlikeable. Research on workplace rejection shows that such explicit feedback can trigger lasting psychological effects including chronic self-doubt and heightened sensitivity to future rejection.

Gaming would replace honesty. In any system where discrimination is exposed, rational actors learn to hide it. Interviewers would simply construct skills-based justifications for decisions actually made on other grounds. The dishonesty would become more sophisticated, not eliminated.

The burden falls unevenly. Those already disadvantaged by hiring bias would now receive confirmation of that bias repeatedly. A 55-year-old professional doesn't need written documentation that she was rejected for "lacking cultural fit with our energetic team." She already suspects. Having it confirmed dozens of times wouldn't empower her—it would demoralise her.

Some truths genuinely cannot help. If you weren't hired because the CEO's nephew needed a position, or because the hiring manager was in a foul mood during your interview, or because someone else had an internal connection—how does knowing this improve your candidacy? Some rejections are entirely divorced from merit. Transparency about randomness may be worse than silence.

WHAT THIS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ACTUALLY TEACHES US

The fantasy of radical feedback honesty reveals several uncomfortable realities about our current system.

First, silence protects companies far more than it protects candidates. The absence of feedback isn't a neutral administrative choice—it's active protection against legal and reputational risk. Candidates bear the entire cost of this protection.

Second, much hiring remains depressingly subjective. Studies confirm that opinions form within 90 seconds, that names influence callbacks, that attractiveness affects perceived competence, that accent triggers bias. The veneer of objective assessment often masks fundamentally human—and therefore flawed—judgement.

Third, the feedback candidates most want is often the feedback that would harm them most to receive. We ask for honesty while simultaneously hoping the truth will be something fixable, something within our control. Sometimes it isn't.

PRACTICAL WISDOM FROM AN IMPRACTICAL SCENARIO

So what can you actually do, given that we inhabit the real world rather than this transparent alternative?

Assume the stated reason is rarely the complete reason. "Overqualified" might mean salary concerns, age bias, or genuine worry about retention. "Cultural fit" might mean anything from communication style to unconscious bias. Treat corporate language as code requiring interpretation.

Seek feedback through relationships, not processes. The official channel will deliver template responses. A five-minute coffee with someone who interviewed you might deliver actual insight. Cultivate contacts willing to speak honestly outside formal communications.

Protect your psychological resilience deliberately. If 32% of job seekers report exhaustion and rejection sensitivity increases with each "no," self-care isn't indulgence—it's strategy. Set application limits, take breaks, separate identity from outcomes.

Document patterns rather than obsessing over individual rejections. If you're consistently rejected at final interview stages, that suggests different issues than being filtered out during initial screening. Patterns are data; individual rejections are often noise.

For those over 50: The data confirms what many of you experience—age bias is real, widespread, and often disguised. Focus applications where your experience is genuinely valued, consider consulting arrangements that bypass traditional hiring bias, and remember that one employer's "overqualified" is another's "exactly what we need."

FINAL THOUGHTS

The radical feedback fantasy appeals because job searching feels like navigating in darkness. We want someone to turn on the lights, even if what we see might be painful. But perhaps the better analogy is sonar rather than illumination—we must learn to interpret echoes and patterns rather than expecting direct vision.

What remains certain is this: the current system serves candidates poorly. Whether radical honesty would serve them better is genuinely uncertain. What would definitely help is more humanity in rejection—acknowledgement that someone applied, gratitude for their interest, and genuine consideration before silence becomes the default.

Until then, we navigate the darkness together.

What do YOU think?

1. If you could receive brutally honest feedback on your last rejection, would you actually want it? Why or why not?

2. Have you ever received genuinely useful rejection feedback? What made it valuable rather than harmful?

3. Recruiters and hiring managers: What's stopping you from providing more honest feedback? I'd genuinely love to hear the constraints you face.

If this newsletter was forwarded to you - please consider followng me for actionable, efficient career advice from someone who has recruited in for 16 years—13 of those with global pharmaceutical company Bayer and two Top 5 Global CROs. My advice is tailored for pharmaceutical careers, but the principles typically apply far beyond.

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