In the previous millennium when most people still wrote résumés and rejection letters, on typewriters, I found an envelope in my mailbox from a company to which I’d sent my rez a few weeks prior.
I bounded up the stairs to my apartment and ripped open the seal before I’d even closed the door. Inside the envelope was the cover letter that I’d written and signed. Somebody had written “No openings,” with a ball-point pen at the top of the letter.
At that moment, I was infuriated. However, I later realized that they had made an actual effort to reply: writing the two words, addressing an envelope to me and getting it stamped and mailed. So many other organizations didn’t do jack shit.
In the past couple of years, I’ve read the agonizing stories of people who have applied for dozens and dozens of job postings and have received only a few replies, if any at all.
I know that there are many companies using AI to make (or influence) staffing decisions and I get why they are doing that. Though stop the damn ghosting. If you are a recruiter, hiring manager, etc. and your candidate-selection methods are AI-reliant, you absolutely should use said AI to provide candidates with timely, meaningful updates about their status in the hiring process.
Though in this modern era, you should strive for something more elegant than “No Openings.”