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[wolfe275]

this was a difficult rejection because it means that my academic career will not continue past this year. If pigs fly, I might be successful next cycle, but I cannot imagine being a desirable candidate if I am unemployed or working at a big box store.

After the economic crash last year, I could not find another one-year position.  Not only that, but the local universities and colleges (at least, the ones that pay enough for me to be willing to teach at them), stopped hiring course-by-course adjuncts. 

Initially, I thought the world was ending.  But then I found a very cheap place to live, near family members for support, went on unemployment, and started working on my book.  I've had interviews and one on-campus this year.  I've got one chapter written, one revised, and I'm working on another.  I've got an article revision in and organized two panels for next year, and designed new sample syllabi.  I'm going to be a much stronger candidate next year thanks to this unwelcome 'sabbatical'.

If nothing comes through for you (and here's hoping something does)--if you can in any way collect unemployment and financially survive, do it and get cracking on your research.  It's not the end of your academic life.

[dtermine]

Make it as impersonal as possible - email is perfect - and make sure it sounds like you sent it out to many, many, qualified applicants. A letter would be acceptable but only after so many months have passed that it is perfectly obvious that the job is not mine. A phone call - shudder - you might as well take me out to dinner in my best dress and dump me in front of all my friends - leave me a few shreds of dignity and the ability to curse your poor poor judgement properly and immediately.

[compdoc]

I have only received rejection phone calls. I don't mind. I know they know I'm disappointed, but at least I know where I stand. I really hate it when I get through an interview and I don't know how I did until the job position lists "filled" on the website.

[friendlyfire]

Echo offthemarket, icicles, malcha, red-queen, alleyoxenfree, watermarkup, mdwlark, mad_doctor, and sagitta.

Phoned rejections are cruel; just send me a letter in the mail -- or email me if you want to show how economically strapped your school/dept is that you can't afford $0.44.

[sootgirl]

I don't care if you call me or email me - PLEASE just tell me something!!!!!!!

[compdoc]

I got my first email rejection notice yesterday. Honestly, even when they didn't tell me anything else, I preferred the phone call. It's not still sitting there in my inbox staring at me.

[paulsa]

You can't really ask people in advance: "Would you rather have a letter, an email or a phone call if we don't hire you?" but I suppose it might be helpful to let people know how you'll do it. 

And why can't you? If you've got three or four people campus-visiting, this shouldn't be something difficult to keep track of at all.  It could be asked as how they'd prefer to be notified of the results of the search--not necessarily as how they'd like to be rejected. Obviously, if an offer is made, that will happen however the dean/provost decides to do it, but I doubt a candidate is going to care about the medium in that case.

[alleyoxenfree]

A phone call - shudder - you might as well take me out to dinner in my best dress and dump me in front of all my friends - leave me a few shreds of dignity and the ability to curse your poor poor judgement properly and immediately.

Priceless.

[babbinacara]

Back in the Dark Ages when I was job hunting, I didn't receive a single rejection by phone, email or letter. No, I didn't receive offers everywhere, I just didn't hear anything, from anywhere. The one offer I got was, slightly weirdly, made in person (it's the UK, things are a bit odd).

But I've recently received a very classy and informative rejection by email. The problem is that I did not apply to this job but had sent a reference for a former PhD student. The sender wished me luck in my future career (thanks!) and hoped I would not be too disappointed at not getting the job (no, not at all! cheers!).

[lerasmus]

I'd rather get the phone call rejection than not get notice of the rejection at all... but the paper letter, personally written (well, at the minimum taking advantage of MS Word's Mail Merge feature), is unequivocally the most appreciated by this perennial job searcher.

[ea15792]

I want to be notified of rejection via email or snail mail.  Not a phone call.   And luckily, I've only ever received one rejection phone call.  And it came after a voice mail message that just indicated that the search committee chair wanted to talk to me about the position.  Until that point, I had only ever been contacted by phone when I had gotten the job, so I assumed the best.  So I returned the call under the false assumption that I would be getting an offer.  It was crushing, and it took a great deal of control for me to keep myself together during the call.  Of course I won't ever make the same assumption again.

I think the problem with phone calls is that it does get an applicants hopes up, because typically the successful applicant is contacted with a phone call, and unsuccessful candidates contacted via another method.    I appreciate the intention behind the phone call.  I guess I would rather be able to digest the news in private. 

However, I will take a phone call over not ever hearing again.

I'm still waiting to hear from a few positions I applied for back in 2005 (one of which I was one of two finalists).  I'm pretty sure that I'm out of the running now ;)