When I first become a hiring manager I thought I'd be the exception and provide everyone with detailed and honest feedback.
I didn't last very long. Candidates would see the feedback as an invitation to prove me wrong or argue with my assessment. I got a few very angry e-mails from people who took their rejection very personally and made it clear that I was their enemy. One person (who was actually very unqualified) even went on a mini rampage across the internet, trying to "name and shame" my company and even my personally for the rejection. There were even threats of a discrimination lawsuit.
So I stopped. It's back to something like "We've decided to proceed with other candidates"
I once interviewed for a job where they admitted I was the only person in the pipeline. I was then rejected with a canned "This was a highly competitive process and we've decided to proceed with other candidates" email. Did not feel great.
That surely depends on things the company knows and sadly also on things the company doesn't know. Are the reasons things that the applicant can change (e.g. lack of relevant experience or poor presentation skill?) or things they can't change (too old, wrong gender), but also how sensitized is the applicant to rejection (due to recent experiences)?
It is better to ask your internal recruiter / HR department to inform the candidate of your feedback (if you work for a big enough company). It is also good practice to always have a panel, not just the hiring manager, doing interviews.
So the candidate gets feedback along the lines of: "Thank you for participating in our interview process. Unfortunately, our panel decided you weren't the best fit for position X at this time, because ...reasons.... Under company policy, we won't accept further applications from you for one year from today, but we would encourage you to apply for a role with us in the future".
There is a chance they will reply back to HR arguing, but it is their job to be polite but firm that the decision is already made, and that they can apply again in one year (and not pass anything back to the hiring manager).
The key is to think long term and about the company as a whole - the candidate who gets helpful feedback and is treated fairly is more likely to apply again in the future (after the mandatory cooling off period), when they might have more skills and experience working somewhere else. There is a finite qualified labour pool no matter where you are based, and having the good will even of rejected candidates is a competitive advantage. The message should be "not now", rather than "not ever" (although of course, if they do go on some kind of rampage, they could turn the not now into not ever - that's a bridge burning move). If a tiny percentage go on a rampage, but the company protects the individuals from it, and has lots of counteracting positive sentiment from prospective and actual staff, then it's still a net positive.
This happened to me when I had to reject a doctor from my research study due to his site manager being unprofessional and his site being an audit risk. I sent a brief professional two-sentence vague rejection note thanking him for his time and wishing the best in his future research and he responded with an absolutely unhinged 17-paragraph rant, threatening lawsuits, calling my vendor CRO a crazy cat lady, saying she was too old to find happiness in life, ranting about San Francisco liberals (his clinic was in NYC), threatening to sue me, threatening to sue my vendor, threatening to turn us all into the FDA for fraud and wasting his time, and on, and on. It was completely shocking to read and really opened my eyes to how viciously and crazily people can lash out when they feel rejected. I was really glad I kept my rejection brief I can't imagine what he would have latched onto and ranted about if I'd given any specifics about why we didn't select his site. The weirdest part is he came to us very highly recommended from another doc!
If I gave the last candidate I interviewed candid feedback it would be “You need to bump up your technical skills (obvious during interview) and the photos on your photography site which you added to your resume for me to click on makes me question if you are a serial killer.”
Instead I sent something akin to “we decided on another candidate”
Here's another issue, the interviewer is sometimes wrong. Or, there was a miscommunication. At least twice in my career I missed an offer because the interviewer didn't think I had experience in something, but turns out I had decades of it. But, I don't brag. Heard thru the grapevine, "oh they said you didn't have database experience," hears me using databases since the late 80s. WTF?
So I could imagine debating a point while being in the right.
> So I could imagine debating a point while being in the right.
I absolutely can. Every single time I've gotten detailed rejection note it turns out to to be over pedantry (or rather, the fact that you didn't follow the letter of the instructions perfectly, god forbid you show some creativity).
It's really hard to not send a point-by-point rebuttal of their nonsense, but it never leads to anything.
It's not about online world, I think. When I was younger, I used to call each candidate with interview results — I've heard some of the rudest words directed at me ever. Stopped forever after a few rude calls.
I didn't last very long. Candidates would see the feedback as an invitation to prove me wrong or argue with my assessment. I got a few very angry e-mails from people who took their rejection very personally and made it clear that I was their enemy. One person (who was actually very unqualified) even went on a mini rampage across the internet, trying to "name and shame" my company and even my personally for the rejection. There were even threats of a discrimination lawsuit.
So I stopped. It's back to something like "We've decided to proceed with other candidates"