Fri, 17 Oct 2014
Maria Jones, a recruiter at specialist media and marketing communications agency Aspire, has complied a list of 10 “ridiculous rejections”.

These are the reasons hiring managers have given for turning down candidates. They include:

• “He smelt like cigarettes” – about a candidate who was going for a packaging design role at a cigarette company

• “He has a picture of himself on his portfolio and he looks a bit annoying”

•  “I don’t like the font on his CV”

• “Unfortunately, she isn’t skinny enough to work for our brand”

•  “Because she had a fear of lifts” – the candidate refused to take the lift to the 15th floor for her interview. The hiring manager was concerned that starting the day that way would affect her performance

The list, which landed in Recruiter’s Twitter inbox this week, was recently published as a blog on the company’s website.

While most rejections from companies who Aspire put candidates forward to came with general feedback such as “not quite got the right experience”, others were downright ridiculous, Jones said.

Recruiter would love to hear of your “ridiculous rejections”. Do drop us a line.

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