Lever (YC S12) is a modern Talent Acquisition Suite, and we hear from our customers that writing rejection emails is really difficult, especially when you want to leave a good impression. Here are some tips we wrote up: https://www.lever.co/blog/how-to-write-human-rejection-lette...
Tip 3 is really a bad advice. It's not a good idea to say why you rejected the candidate, you have no idea how it could be taken, especially if you are facing a litigious person.
Best to write some "you were not an exact match for our needs" reply.
Agree this is definitely true in many cases, especially with applicants. Where it can be OK to give candidates feedback tends to be when you have gotten to later in the process with them and built more of a relationship. The article was meant more for the general case. I totally agree a lot of judgement is needed.
Best to write some "you were not an exact match for our needs" reply.