{"id":487545,"date":"2026-05-16T10:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487545\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T10:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:19:10","slug":"it-pro-reached-out-to-company-after-receiving-quick-job-rejection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487545\/","title":{"rendered":"IT Pro Reached Out to Company After Receiving Quick Job Rejection"},"content":{"rendered":"

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tony Tellez, a 49-year-old IT professional <\/strong>based in Indianapolis. This story has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

\n Loading audio narration…\n <\/p>\n

I started my career at the entry level and worked my way up to essentially running IT companies in the managed-services <\/strong>space, overseeing IT operations for multiple clients. Recently, I found myself on the job market for the first time in 10 years. It’s changed a lot.<\/p>\n

I got some interviews right away, but I also got a lot of rejections. Nobody likes to be rejected. I’ve got children, rent, and animals to take care of, and those responsibilities start to weigh on you.<\/p>\n

One Sunday night, my frustrations reached a breaking point. I had applied for a senior position at a managed-services firm that I was more than qualified for around 11:15 p.m. About six minutes later, I received an email that simply said, “We have declined your application.” The company didn’t even provide a reason like, “we’re pursuing other candidates.”<\/p>\n

It didn’t make any sense. I applied at a time when no one was likely to be manually reviewing r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and rejecting them. I reread the job listing, and it clearly said that a bachelor’s degree \u2014 something I don’t have \u2014 was preferred but not required. <\/p>\n

Also, my best friend is an HR consultant, and she made sure my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 included all the necessary keywords. I even ran it through an open-source applicant-tracking system to check that it was well-optimized.<\/p>\n

So, after I saw that rejection email come in, I went to the company’s LinkedIn page, found their HR director, and sent him this message.<\/p>\n

Hi,I just applied for your Service Desk Manager role, and was immediately rejected.I have 17 years of continued growth and improvement in the IT space including the healthcare space and a lab environment.My last six years have been in service delivery and operations management. I am highly qualified for this role, but the AI that [\u2026] uses is kicking me back within minutes of my application because I do not have a Bachelors degree.Just a heads up, you are missing out on highly qualified candidates because of a reliance on AI, and while I agree AI has its place in our space, I believe I am proof of its failure.I simply would ask you to review my resume and credentials manually in order to better evaluate my candidacy.Thank you for your time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I sent it partly because it’s already frustrating for someone to lose a job and have to search for a new one. It’s even worse when you have to deal with rejection from a robot. <\/p>\n

Another reason is that I’ve developed and deployed applicant tracking systems, so I understand what it takes to configure them properly. There’s a problem here, and the company’s leadership may not know that they’re potentially missing out on quality candidates.<\/p>\n

I haven’t heard anything back, and I probably won’t. The job listing is no longer up, so I don’t know if it was filled. I just know that I’m not ready to retire anytime soon. I love working. I love fixing things.<\/p>\n

I’ve since used AI to make my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 more AI-friendly<\/a>. You’ve got to fight fire with fire. However, I’ve also started targeting companies that say in their job listings that every r\u00e9sum\u00e9 submitted is reviewed by a human. In some of my past jobs, I was responsible for hiring people, and I prided myself on reading every r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that came in. It’s crazy how much the job market has changed<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tony Tellez, a 49-year-old IT professional based in Indianapolis.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[212804,55636,2006,18,23397,28576,19,17,212803,3503,232,1599,212805,14581,763,212802,4984,3504,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-487545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-49-year-old-it-professional","9":"tag-clarity","10":"tag-company","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-email","13":"tag-first-time","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-it-pro","17":"tag-job","18":"tag-job-market","19":"tag-lot","20":"tag-managed-services-space","21":"tag-minute","22":"tag-reason","23":"tag-rejection","24":"tag-rent","25":"tag-resume","26":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116583751326032721","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}