Candidate communications

Everyone who applied hears back. Drafted in the owner's voice, sent only with approval.

Read the shared voice profile before drafting. A hiring email that sounds like a corporate HR department from a four-truck company reads as fake, and candidates notice.

Why every candidate gets a reply

For an SMB this is reputation management, not courtesy. The candidate who never heard back tells people. In a trade in a mid-size town, that reaches the exact person the owner wants to hire next year.

It is also cheap. Three drafted messages cover the entire field.

Invite to interview

Short. The point is to get a time on the calendar, not to sell the job yet.

Carries: that they are moving forward, what the interview is (who, how long, in person or call), two or three specific time options, and anything to bring — license, references, tools.

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for applying for the commercial service tech role. I'd like to talk.

It's about 45 minutes with me at the shop on Vernon. Any of these work?
  Tue Jul 29, 8am
  Tue Jul 29, 2pm
  Thu Jul 31, 8am

Bring your 608 card if you have it handy.

Thanks, Ray

Hold

For strong candidates who are not first in line. Honest that they are still in it, with a date.

Carries: that they are under consideration, roughly where things stand, and a specific date by which they will hear. The date is the whole value of the message.

Hi Dana,

Wanted to update you rather than leave you hanging. You're still in
consideration for the service tech role — I'm talking to a couple of people
this week and will know by Friday Aug 8.

I'll let you know either way by then.

Thanks, Ray

Then actually follow up on that date. A hold message with a broken promise is worse than no message. Put the date on the calendar as part of sending it.

Decline

Kind, prompt, honest. In that order.

Carries: a clear no, thanks for the time they spent, and nothing else. It does not need a reason and it should not have an invented one.

Hi Sam,

Thanks for applying for the service tech role, and for taking the time.

We're moving forward with other candidates for this one. I appreciate you
putting your name in.

Thanks, Ray

Fast beats gentle. Two weeks of silence costs the owner far more goodwill than a clear no on day three. Send declines as soon as the decision is real.

Reasons in a decline

Do not invent one. "We went with someone with more experience" when that is not what happened is a lie the candidate may be able to check, and it is the kind that circulates.

A true, specific reason is a gift when it is genuinely useful and factual:

For what it's worth: the 608 Universal is the piece that ruled it out for
this role. If you get it, send me a note — we hire a couple of times a year.

That is honest, actionable, and it keeps a good person available.

When the reason is a judgment call rather than a fact, stay general. Kind and vague beats specific and arguable. Never write a reason that touches anything from the off-limits list, even as a compliment.

Special cases

The internal or referred candidate. The owner may want to make that call personally. Ask before drafting anything.

The overqualified applicant. Not a rejection reason on its own — it is a conversation. Flag it for the owner rather than deciding it.

The candidate who applied before. Note it. Someone applying a second time is showing real interest, and the owner will want to know.

The angry reply to a decline. Draft nothing automatically. Show it to the owner and let them decide whether to respond at all.

Approval

Every message and every calendar invite is shown before it sends. No exceptions and no batching past the owner's eyes.

Present them grouped, with counts, so approving forty is one decision and not forty:

Ready to send, pending your yes:
  3 interview invites — Marcus R., Dana W., Priya S. (times below)
  2 holds — through Aug 8 — Luis T., Ana G.
  31 declines — Alvarez, Brennan, Cho, Deng, Ferro, … (full list below)
  4 question emails — the "cannot assess" group — Kim, Osei, Vance, Whitlock

Want to read any of them before I send?

Name every recipient, including the declines. A bare count of 31 is unauditable, and the whole point of the approval step is that the owner can spot the name that is in the wrong group.

A misdirected rejection cannot be recalled, and a decline sent to someone who was supposed to get an invite is the kind of mistake an owner remembers for years.

Without a mail connector, the same grouped list is the deliverable: every message in full, labelled with its recipient, ready for the owner to paste and send. Nothing about that is degraded — the writing and the sorting were the work.