Rejecting a candidate with care

Every rejection is a chance to leave someone with a decent impression of your company, or a bad one. This article covers how to reject a candidate thoughtfully in Kula — picking the right reason, sending (or scheduling) a considerate email — and, just as importantly, how to make sure your automatic rejection paths aren't leaving candidates in the dark.

Reject with a message, not silence

When you reject a candidate manually, you pick a reason from your organisation's rejection reasons list, and you have the option to check Send email and choose a template. Sending an email isn't required — but skipping it means the candidate never hears back from you at all.

If you want to soften the timing (say, avoid a Friday-night rejection email), you can schedule it for a specific date, time, and time zone instead of sending immediately. The full mechanics of that are covered in Schedule Candidate Rejection Email (support.kula.ai) — this article won't repeat those steps.

Make sure automatic rejections don't go silent

Kula can auto-reject candidates through more than one path, and each has its own, separate email setting — turning one on doesn't turn the others on:

• Auto-Rejection Rules / Knockout Questions (evaluates application-form answers) can send a rejection email as part of the rule.

• AI-scoring auto-reject (candidates below your score threshold) can also send a rejection email — this used to be missing entirely; candidates auto-rejected this way received no communication until it was added.

• Fraud detector auto-reject only triggers on a candidate's first automatic fraud-detection run — it won't fire again if a recruiter later runs a manual fraud review, or manually changes a candidate's status, so a human double-check doesn't accidentally trigger a second silent rejection.

If you want every rejected candidate to hear from you, check the email setting on each of these separately rather than assuming one covers the others.

Good to know

• Bulk-rejecting applies one reason (and one email, if you send one) to every candidate you select. Worth a second look before you bulk-reject a mixed group of candidates who don't share the same rejection reason.

• A rejected candidate only shows under the Rejected status, never under All Stages — regardless of whether a person or an automatic rule rejected them. If you're trying to find them later, filter by Rejected directly.

FAQ

How do I set up auto reject with AI scoring and email notifications?

Turn on the AI-scoring auto-reject toggle in the job's Job Information section for the score threshold, then attach a rejection email template to it the same way you would for a knockout rule — the two are configured separately, so setting up the score threshold alone won't start emailing candidates until you also add the email. For more on scheduling that email, see Schedule Candidate Rejection Email.

Need help?

If you have questions or need assistance, reach out to us at support@kula.ai or use the in-app chat.