The title of this post may sound backward, because, for obvious reasons, the goal of any business is to energize potential employees (like potential clients, which they are) - not to turn them off. But many HR/marketing/leadership team members would and should be surprised to learn that their company regularly does exactly this. There is, in fact, a single surefire way to turn someone against your brand - and that is to treat (intentionally or not) job applicants with contempt, disrespect, and rudeness. How? By failing to send a rejection letter. Broad personal experience as well as the experiences of too many friends and family show me that without a doubt this is a consistent and widespread issue. So how can a company - especially one whose mission is theoretically to ‘attract top talent’ - ensure that they do not negatively impact their reputation through their poor treatment of candidates? The answer, again, is simple: send one timely, sincere, and empathetic email. As anyone who has been a job hunter has experienced, there is often already a lack of good-faith communication in the search/interview/hiring process. The system in general needs significant improvement. But for the scope of this article, let’s focus on this one. The issue - the fact that candidates who have engaged in the hiring process are simply left hanging with no communication - is, I believe, partly due to process issues (for example, having a disorganized approach to interviewing and interview follow-up), but I suspect that it is has a good deal more to do with the uncomfortable nature of saying ‘no.’ If this is the case, it is time to address that discomfort within your organization, no matter what size. Big or small, if your company is not proactively treating ALL candidates with respect and reasonably transparent communication, especially in issuing rejections, it is unequivocally harming your business.