Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Can't beat that (rejection letter)

They won't give up. Back in September I saw one of those "anticipated vacancy" postings that mentions the department and the barest minimum of expectations. I wrote to the best contact I could find, the Dean to ask for a full job description. He replied, saying that he'd forwarded my inquiry to the department chair.

T'make a long story short: I never applied! After reading the full description, I decided it wasn't for me.

Today's mail brought the following:
Dear [FirstName LastName]:
We are pleased to announce that ____ ____ has accepted the position of Assistant Professor in ____ at [YouDidn'tEvenApplyTo U.] ...Thank you for your interest in the position, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Note to self: don't include your mailing address in such inquiries in the future. Who knows what mailing lists you may wind up on.

3 comments:

Ahistoricality said...

I suspect that their over-zealousness has more to do with the vagaries of filing and the fear of violating EEO procedures by failing to notify everyone of everything. If the EEO/AA Officer isn't satisfied that everyone got a fair chance and timely feedback, etc., they can void the search. They're not stupid; they know you didn't really apply. But they can't have any gaps in the record-keeping, either.

BrightStar (B*) said...

how weird! but at least they contacted people... some never even give the applicants that courtesy.

ArticulateDad said...

Ahi, yeah that makes sense.
B*, yes, courtesy is nice.