&gt; At the other end of the spectrum are companies or teams that don&#x27;t even bother notifying candidates they&#x27;ve been rejected. I&#x27;m sure they have good reasons, but to me that sends a negative signal.<p>As someone who&#x27;s done that before, it&#x27;s because my plate is too full (my own fault), which is why I&#x27;m looking for candidates, and I&#x27;m busy dealing with everybody who is still in the pipeline or getting used to working with the person who got through the pipeline.<p>Then I tell myself &quot;Fuck, I really should send those people an email explaining my decision. But I don&#x27;t know what to say or how to not sound like a dick. Fuck it, I&#x27;ll do it tomorrow&quot;.<p>Then this repeats for a week. Then two weeks. Then three weeks.<p>Then I tell myself &quot;Fuck, if I do it now, I&#x27;m just going to look like an even bigger dick for not having done it yet. Best never contact this person ever again and if they happen to bump into me in real life, pretend I didn&#x27;t see them and hope they don&#x27;t recognise me.&quot;<p>That said, big companies have professionals whose job it is to make sure this doesn&#x27;t happen.