Move the work
“Not a fit” is not a reason. It is the absence of one.
Rejection data is the most under-used asset in a recruitment business. Recorded properly it answers why a funnel leaks, which client is impossible to please, and what to tell a candidate who deserves better than silence.
What is recorded
A reason off a list, with room for the detail.
When somebody does not go forward, the reason is chosen rather than typed, with a place for the specifics underneath. That single design decision is what separates a quarter of outcomes you can read from a quarter of outcomes you can only scroll.
The application itself is the formal record — its transitions, who moved it, and where it ended. In agency work its outcome and the client's stated position are tracked separately, so we stopped and they passed are never the same row.
- Below the experience bar41
- Compensation expectation33two-thirds of these on one client
- Notice period27
- Client declined after interview19no reason recorded on 6
- Withdrew12
Where it pays off
The same field, three different arguments.
With your client. Which of their rejections had a reason on them, and which did not. A conversation about a rate card goes differently when the money objections are counted rather than remembered.
With your team. Rejection patterns are a standing analytics card, including as a coaching signal — a recruiter whose submissions fail on the same bar every month is a training conversation, not a performance one.
With the candidate. The reason recorded here is one of the inputs to their feedback letter, so a decision recorded properly does a second job without anybody writing anything.
- No reason, and it shows —
An outcome recorded without one is visible as a gap rather than hidden in a total.
- It is the pipeline row that carries it —
The structured reason is captured where the decision is made, which is why it is there for the letter and the analytics without being retyped.
Fair questions
What the data can and cannot tell you.
›Will our recruiters actually use it?
They pick from a list at the moment they are already moving the person, rather than writing prose into a box afterwards. That is the only version of this that gets filled in.
›Can we use our own reasons?
The reasons are configured for your workspace, and a reason can be set to skip the candidate letter entirely — for the ones where a personal note would be wrong.
›Does the candidate's letter quote their interview?
It is written from the reason your recruiter chose, the notes from the interview where there are any, and what the role required. It is not a scored assessment, and we would rather describe it accurately than let you imagine one.
›Can we see rejections by client?
Yes, and it is usually the first thing worth looking at. One client rejecting on compensation three times more than the rest is a commercial problem wearing a recruitment costume.
Book a demo
Bring a quarter of rejections.
However you record them today. We will show you what the aggregate would have told you — including how many had no reason at all.