How did you feel the last time a rejection notice was communicated to you after applying for a job? Did it inspire you to try again, or did it make you feel even more deflated?
Chances are that it was the latter, which according to a new study from Temple University faculty member Sunil Wattal does not exactly encourage a person to follow the age-old notion of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Recently accepted for publication in the scholarly journal Management Science, “Not Good Enough, but Try Again! The Impact of Improved Rejection Communications on Contributor Retention and Performance in Open Knowledge Collaboration” outlines how the way that rejections are communicated when people post on an online forum makes a substantial difference as it relates to whether newcomers will try again after an initial rejection. The piece was co-authored by Aleksi Aaltonen, an associate professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
“We really wanted to study the effect of how you communicate rejection and why that matters,” said Wattal, who serves as the associate dean of research and doctoral programs at Temple’s Fox School of Business. “It can be extended into so many different contexts, too. So, think of job applications, for instance. If an employer ghosts somebody or just rejects them with one line, then they’re never going to apply to the company again, even though they might have been better suited for a different role, so there are so many different contexts for where we thought this study could be useful.”
In compiling the study, Wattal and Aaltonen looked at rejections in Stack Overflow, an open question-and-answer website for computer programmers that essentially depends on voluntary contributions from its users. Together, they used a framework to survey potential users by showing them different examples of potential rejections to see how users respond to the different types of rejections.
What they found was that the type of rejection response a user receives is key, as the results show that users who receive a rejection that better explains the rationale are much more likely to contribute to the platform again. The results show that responses that better explain the reason for rejecting a contributor’s initial question—therefore reducing uncertainty about the outcome should the user try again—increase retention on the platform by approximately 21.7 percentage points.
“What our results really show us is how even simple things can make a difference in terms of how a rejection is received. Just being more friendly or being more informative can make a difference. It is also important to let a person know why they were rejected,” Wattal said. “No one likes being rejected. That goes without saying, but there are certainly steps that can be taken to mitigate the negative consequences that come from communicating rejection.”
While the study was focused on Stack Overflow, Wattal said the applications are endless.
“Specifically, think about how this can be applied to the hiring process,” he said. “On so many occasions, companies will send simple, one to two sentence emails to let a candidate know that they will not be getting a job. How likely is that candidate going to be to apply for a job in the future? And that is a shame, because there are certainly instances where a person might not be a good fit for the job they applied to but would be perfect for another role.”
He added that the same principle applies across industries.
“On e-commerce or content platforms like Etsy, for instance, sellers often have their listings rejected with little explanation. Offering clear, friendly feedback can encourage them to refine and resubmit. The same goes for customers whose refund requests are denied or users whose posts are removed for policy reasons—when handled constructively, these interactions can actually strengthen trust, loyalty and long-term engagement.”