"Dear Sandeep,
Thank you for your recent application expressing interest in opportunities with SIHT.
We have carefully reviewed your application with interest. Unfortunately you have not been successful on this occasion. Should you wish to reapply you will need to wait for a period of twelve months before submitting another application.
We would like to thank you for the interest you have shown in SIHT and for the time taken completing the application form and submitting your CV. We wish you every success for the future.
At SIHT we are committed to the continuous improvement of our recruitment process and would be grateful if you would take a few moments of your time to fill in our "Candidate Experience Survey". The survey is managed by a third party supplier and is completely anonymous. Your individual responses will not be made available to SIHT.
Your feedback on this extremely valuable to us and we appreciate your time given.
Please click here to access the survey
Kind regards,
SIHT"
Ok, at first look, there doesn’t appear to be much to critique. The letter looks perfectly written and seems to get a tick against every one of the seven Cs.
Let’s start with Courtesy. The salutations and complimentary close are appropriately chosen and courteous. There also seems to be a conscious effort to focus on the reader by avoiding the word ‘We’ at the start of the sentence. Wherever the sentences begin with a ‘we’, it seems to be a good trade-off for overall conciseness, clarity and coherence. I also think that the nature of relationships and exchanges between applicants and the employers permits more lenient use of ‘We’s, unlike one between a salesperson and his/her customer, where the balance of power is not so well shared. Also noteworthy is the positive tone used and good wishes conveyed to the reader (That none of it may be sincerely meant, we shall pass).
Next, we consider the correctness of the draft. After closely worming my way through the letter and every single word in it, I discovered a grammatical error in paragraph five. The word ‘is’ has been left out in the line, “Your feedback on this (is) extremely valuable to us” (Oh, and before you suspect that I have deliberately deleted the word while reproducing the letter .. No, I haven’t. This is the original.) The general tone of the letter is perfect, however, formal without sounding forbidding, gracious without sounding easy. The simple sentence structures adopted also discounts extensive use of modifiers and connectors.
As far as Conciseness, Clarity, Coherence and Cohesion go, this letter scores full marks in my book. It is smooth, with no trite or unnecessary phrases, and is structured very efficiently.
Considering the Concreteness ‘C’, I did find one little bit of information confusing. This company accepts applications for not full-time jobs alone, but internships and project training programs as well. This letter does not tell me whether I must wait 12 months for submitting an application for internship, or other opportunities, as well. And if were to be difficult, I’d point out the use of the word ‘recent’ in the first line. They do know when I sent my application in. But since this is a definitely a computer-generated mail, I let it pass.
Completeness: Fair enough.
So that’s my neat little critique of the business letter.
One last comment: It is funny when I think back to it now, but certainly wasn’t funny then. I opened the mail in great anticipation of landing at a job at SIHT. SIHT not just told me I was rejected, but went on to wish me every “success” for the future. Perhaps they meant it well, but at that moment, the words seemed coated with a thick layer of temerity. And then they had the nerve to ask me to fill up their survey form!
