Candidate publishes sloppy rejection letter
Thrillist Media Group is a digital media company with a popular website geared towards men that emphasizes food, drink, and technology. Sounds like a cool gig. Journalist Megan Mester must have thought so too when she applied for an Assistant Editor position with the company. Things took a sour turn when Thrillist Media responded to Mester with a poorly worded rejection email.
The email had some pretty serious grammar issues and Mester took it upon herself to respond to the rejection email by correcting it, emailing it back to Thrillist Media, and subsequently posting it on Twitter for all to see. Ouch. Thrillist Media Group has yet to respond publicly on the matter.
Her post (below) has received mixed reviews. Some find her persnickety reply hilarious. The application process is tough and receiving such a sloppy response for a job requiring the very skills lacking in the company email would be annoying. On the other hand, at least she got a reply. That’s more than most get.
On the left, rejection letter from @Thrillist re: my application Editorial Assistant. On the right, my response #IJS pic.twitter.com/YrB4rS5LvF
— Amanda Mester (@caneye_kickit) January 9, 2015
Media companies should “take pride” in their communications
There are others who wonder if Mester would have responded the same if the email had been offering her the job. Mester has spoken out to ABC News about the email saying, “I wanted to share it because of the humor and the irony of it. I don’t see anything detrimental about encouraging an organization to instill pride in their employees in terms of how they respond to others. It’s important to teach grammatical rules, especially if you’re in a media company.”
This opens up a whole host of questions regarding grammar and style usage in our new age of communication. If you understand the message the writer is trying to convey, does a grammar error really get in the way? Technology is designed to move quickly and communication is often short and to the point. With things moving so swiftly, there will not be someone behind every company email examining each line with a fine toothed comb. There will be errors.
It’s never a good look to publicly insult someone’s intelligence over grammatical errors in an email. It’s also important for companies to know that they will be judged if they send out such sloppy writing. What do you think? Did Mester take it too far or did Thrillist Media Group deserve the grammar hammer?
#GrammarHammer
Karl
February 18, 2015 at 12:58 pm
I think it’s great what Mester did! What is the company telling her? Basically, that her skillset and experience wasn’t as good as someone else’s. Well, she’s resposnding that their communication leaves a lot to be desired, too. The company clearly needs to work on and improve their grammar. Turnabout is fair play.
Staceyb
February 19, 2015 at 5:24 pm
As a former HR professional and recruiter (who no longer works in the field due to declining pay, increased dangers and increased demands for speed and quantity of candidate selection over quality), I really do think that she was justified in sending the correction to the company and in posting it. However the posting should have omitted the actual company in question. The important thing was to start a conversation about declining standards even in media not about humiliating the company. The last was less than professional and is now permanently plastered on the internet.
The reality is though that they probably subcontract the recruiting for the company. They probably don’t care. The letter is probably a badly designed email template that has been uploaded into the HRMS system and is rarely used by the more careful recruiters. She was lucky to get a response and she is lucky not to be working for an organization that doesn’t care what impression it makes on potential hires and competitors. On the other hand..she needs to take a close look at ethics, professionalism and the importance of presenting the larger picture if she is to be successful in media.
I wish her the best with her career path.
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