Not surprisingly, a recent article from CNN.com and Careerbuilder.com indicates that many job seekers become frustrated after having a face to face interview, only to find out from others that they were rejected and the position was filled.

In many cases I would suspect that it is not the fact that they were rejected but simply that they were not given closure on the position. Their application entered a Black Hole and never came out.

In their defence some HR people suggest that many candidates in China have not experienced a professional hiring process so they approach the hiring process with low expectations anyway. Plus they have little understanding of what is supposed to happen.

But you can’t rely on low expectations to keep you out of trouble. Rising expectations have a habit of changing things drastically, and suddenly. More and more candidates in China are experiencing a positive experience when they apply for jobs, and if this is at the hands of your competitors then you clearly have hiring and retention difficulties looming on the horizon.

A more reasonable ‘excuse’ for the lack of response is the issue of HR being overworked and short staffed. This is totally valid and you can see HR teams collapsing in China all the time. So it is understandable that routine issues would be pushed aside as people lurch from crisis to crisis. Responding to rejected candidates does not constitute a crisis and gets put way, way down on the list of things to do.

In other cases it is a personality issue. Some people simply don’t know how to deal with the issue of rejecting others. They rationalize that if they can’t do it well then they shouldn’t do it all, because it will only make things worse. This will make them feel bad, and I mean the HR professional, not the candidate.

After many years of having to reject candidates for positions I can only tell you that my solution is to be both specific and vague. You have to be upfront about what is going to happen in the hiring process. This is specific part. Communications about interviews and phone screens need to specify who, what, when, where and how. Possibly even why.

But at the same time you have to be vague about what is actually going to happen in the process because you simply don’t know. So make no commitments about exactly when candidates can expect a response, only that they can expect one at the different stages.

When you finally have to close off the position give them something to take away for their ‘face’. Tell them that your company was very interested in them, that their profile was excellent, that it was just a matter of ‘fit’ with the role, that you have continued interest in their candidacy with your company, that their file will be kept on record for a more suitable position, and so on.

If you find yourself out of your depth, and the process is not going as well as you might like, you can always tell them that they were a bit overqualified for the position and that it was felt that they would not be challenged by it. The odd white lie will not disqualify you from calling yourself a HR professional. It can be seen as a form of finessing and part of your repertoire of skills.

Above all avoid using anything that even closely resembles the word reject.