Job seeker prompts debate after sharing the ‘worst rejection’ letter they ever received

‘Thanks for patronising me into a rage,’ they write on TikTok.

(@pur_purblock/TikTok)

A job seeker has sparked a debate after revealing the “worst job rejection letter” that they have ever received.

In a recent video posted to their TikTok, Tamsyn, @pur_purblock, did a “dramatic reading” of an awful rejection letter that they received from a job.

In the caption, they wrote that the letter “patronised [her] into a rage that can only be described as ‘firey’”.

The email began with the employer saying that Tamsyn’s application “wasn’t successful,” before making references to famous people who didn’t reach success right off the bat.

“We’ll cut to the chase: your application wasn’t successful,” they read from the screenshot of the email. “And who knows, maybe we’ve made a big mistake? Albert Einstein couldn’t land a job as a maths tutor for kids, and Spielberg got rejected from film school. Crazy right!”

The letter went on to express that a person may have to manage “a little failure” before reaching success in their life. The company also noted it doesn’t know “what the future holds” and that Tamsyn could join its team down the line.

“Guess the point is: Every great success story begins with little failure. We’ve had our fair share of failure too. Even though you won’t be joining us just yet, who knows what the future holds?” the letter continued, before concluding: “Perhaps you’ll prove us wrong (we certainly hope so). Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

As of 13 July, Tamsyn’s clip has more than 77,000 views, with TikTok users in the comments saying that they’d have rather been ghosted from a job than receive that rejection letter. Others noted that Tamsyn was better off not working at the company.

“I think I’d prefer just no answer oh my god,” one wrote.

“Dodged a bullet honestly,” another added. In response, Tamsyn wrote: “Literally, part of me couldn’t be happier they rejected me.”

Many viewers agreed that the email was “patronising” and even made jokes about the company. Some also shared their similar experiences with job rejections.

“Why does it feel like an elder millennial wrote this,” one person wrote.

“Urgh they sound like they do team building exercises and family bbqs,” another added.

A third viewer said: “This is more patronising than an email I got from a coffee shop company that basically said, ‘it’s the six month anniversary of us rejecting you.”

In the Reddit forum r/MakeMeSmile, Reddit user @effineeuphoria also shared a rejection letter, which had the same template as the one that Tamsyn. However, for @effineeuphoria, that email was the “most heartwarming rejection” that they have ever received.

In the comments of that Reddit post, which has over 72,700 upvotes, some people found the letter “condescending” while others said that it was better than getting “no response” from an employer at all.

Speaking to The Independent, Tamsyn addressed how angry they felt when they read the email, as it felt like they were being “talked down” to.

“It felt like they thought this was my first ever job rejection when I’ve been searching since finding out I was going to be losing my job in January, so I’ve been rejected from a LOT of stuff. I’ve had my fair share of rubbish job rejections but nothing even came close to this,” they said.

They went on the criticse the letter’s structure, as the “wording” of it seemed strange and there a decent amount of “grammatical errors” within it.

“The thing I found so inappropriate about the email was the wording of it considering things like the cost of living crisis in the UK at the moment. Signing off with ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish ??,’” they continued. “I also think the sheer amount of spelling and grammatical errors just made me feel even worse, like my application was so bad that my rejection email didn’t even need a proofread.”

Tamsyn also noted how the job was for a sound designer at a games company. And while they said that they were bummed when they didn’t get the position, they ultimately came to the conclusion they were better off.

“I was crossing my fingers that I’d at least be taken forward for an interview, since so many jobs I’ve been applying for haven’t been in my field but this one was,” Tamsyn added. “But then I got this job rejection email and I realised that I might have dodged a bullet by not getting it.”