Mass Rejection Email Accidentally Includes Company CEO

A recruiter at a rapidly growing fintech startup sent out a bulk rejection email to 200 unsuccessful candidates last Thursday. Unfortunately, the email list also included their own CEO, who had apparently been added to the ATS as a "test candidate" eight months ago and never removed.

The Email

The message was your standard warm-but-firm rejection:

"Thank you for your interest in joining our team. After careful consideration, we've decided to move forward with other candidates whose qualifications more closely match our current needs. We encourage you to apply for future positions that align with your background."

Professional. Appropriate. Completely devastating when sent to the person who signs your paychecks.

The Discovery

The CEO, seeing an email from their own recruiting team, opened it out of curiosity. They spent about 30 seconds confused, then another 30 seconds annoyed, then approximately 10 minutes laughing before forwarding it to the entire executive team with the subject line: "I've been rejected by my own company."

The recruiter discovered the mistake when their Slack blew up with messages from the Head of People, who had been CC'd on the CEO's forward. The exact message was "please come see me immediately" followed by three skull emojis.

How This Happened

Eight months prior, during the ATS implementation, the Head of People asked the CEO to test the application flow. The CEO dutifully filled out an application, uploaded a resume from 2003 that still listed "proficient in Microsoft Word" as a skill, and submitted it.

The CEO was never marked as "hired" (technically accurate - they founded the company) or removed from the candidate pool. They just sat there in the ATS database with a status of "phone screen completed" for eight months, waiting for someone to make a decision.

When the recruiter ran a query for "all candidates in pipeline for more than 90 days with no recent activity," the CEO was on that list. The recruiter, trying to clean up the database before year-end, sent the bulk rejection without reviewing the individual names.

The Aftermath

The CEO found it hilarious. They updated their LinkedIn headline to "Rejected by my own company" for approximately four hours before the communications team had a collective panic attack and begged them to change it back.

The recruiter, after a brief moment of existential dread, kept their job. The CEO sent them a Slack message: "I guess I need to work on my resume. Do you have any feedback on where I fell short?"

The Head of People has implemented a new rule: executive team members are no longer allowed in the ATS as test candidates. They now use fake profiles with names like "Test McTesterson" like normal people.

The Silver Lining

The CEO did have some notes on the rejection email. "A bit generic," they commented in the next all-hands meeting. "Could use more specific feedback. Also, I'm pretty sure my 2003 resume should have been an instant hire. I listed 'synergy' three times."

The recruiting team has since revised their rejection email template to be more personalized. They're also implementing a multi-step verification process before sending bulk emails, which probably should have existed already.

The CEO's test application remains in the ATS, but now it's flagged with a big red note: "DO NOT REJECT - ACTUAL CEO - SERIOUSLY THOUGH."

Apparently, once you're in the system, you're in it forever. Kind of like Hotel California, but with more tracking of candidate source attribution.

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The CEO's 2003 resume also listed "expert at Palm Pilot" and "proficient in Netscape Navigator." The ATS gave it a 23% match for the role.