Criticising people's a pretty risky thing to do, and your letter's a decent example of why. People are gonna have a lot going on around how they perceive things that are so intensely personal.
For example, my reactions to:
'Unfortunately this is our interview process and we have to abide by it'?
That's not misfortune, that's you dodging what responsibility's rightfully yours. You're a startup, you could not abide by it if you wanted to.
'It's difficult for me to say this and I don't know how to say it properly, but we think you're pretty good but doesn't quite clear the bar for us.'
Don't quite clear the bar? You're potentially making an absolute measure of someone's ability there as not good enough. They may very well have good skills in some areas not relevant to you, or just interview poorly - or you might be a cruddy interviewer. Stay away from making absolute statements about people as unified individuals. We can accept, sometimes, some unlovely facts about ourselves - it's difficult to accept that as an entire person we're not good enough.
#
I suppose I might write a similar letter as something like -
-----------------------
Dear X
Thank you for spending the time to interview with us on DAY. On this occasion there was a more qualified candidate. However, if you further developed X Y Z, your skills would be a better fit for the hiring profile.
If you'd like to be kept aware of our vacancies in the future please sign up for our hiring list ....
Yours sincerely,
Ms First-name Second-name
-----------------------
Again though, you probably feel differently about a lot of that than I would.
Telling someone their faults can be either a nice thing to do or a nasty thing to do, but it's difficult to do it either way without the risk of hurting someone.
Some of that's in how you phrase it - 'you fail here' is generally worse than 'you could do better here.' Cloaking it in apologies, even when they're true, rarely goes well though IME. Someone who's just been hurt is rarely going to care that much that you're sorry unless they care a lot about you. (Might give them a target though if you're admitting fault.) They're gonna be caring about themselves, that's where their attention's just been directed after all. So, talk about that if you want to be nice. What's in it for them? How can you make them feel better about the whole thing?
Tricky to know how to do that without knowing the person fairly well.
Generally, I wouldn't give feedback unless asked for it. It feels too presumptuous on such a fragile relationship.
For example, my reactions to:
'Unfortunately this is our interview process and we have to abide by it'?
That's not misfortune, that's you dodging what responsibility's rightfully yours. You're a startup, you could not abide by it if you wanted to.
'It's difficult for me to say this and I don't know how to say it properly, but we think you're pretty good but doesn't quite clear the bar for us.'
Don't quite clear the bar? You're potentially making an absolute measure of someone's ability there as not good enough. They may very well have good skills in some areas not relevant to you, or just interview poorly - or you might be a cruddy interviewer. Stay away from making absolute statements about people as unified individuals. We can accept, sometimes, some unlovely facts about ourselves - it's difficult to accept that as an entire person we're not good enough.
#
I suppose I might write a similar letter as something like -
-----------------------
Dear X
Thank you for spending the time to interview with us on DAY. On this occasion there was a more qualified candidate. However, if you further developed X Y Z, your skills would be a better fit for the hiring profile.
If you'd like to be kept aware of our vacancies in the future please sign up for our hiring list ....
Yours sincerely,
Ms First-name Second-name
-----------------------
Again though, you probably feel differently about a lot of that than I would.
Telling someone their faults can be either a nice thing to do or a nasty thing to do, but it's difficult to do it either way without the risk of hurting someone.
Some of that's in how you phrase it - 'you fail here' is generally worse than 'you could do better here.' Cloaking it in apologies, even when they're true, rarely goes well though IME. Someone who's just been hurt is rarely going to care that much that you're sorry unless they care a lot about you. (Might give them a target though if you're admitting fault.) They're gonna be caring about themselves, that's where their attention's just been directed after all. So, talk about that if you want to be nice. What's in it for them? How can you make them feel better about the whole thing?
Tricky to know how to do that without knowing the person fairly well.
Generally, I wouldn't give feedback unless asked for it. It feels too presumptuous on such a fragile relationship.