How To Reject Candidates Well, And Why It Matters.
Rejecting candidates well is one of the most underrated skills in AEC hiring. Most firms treat it as an afterthought or skip the rejection process entirely. Ontario's 2026 Employment Standards Act update has made that approach a compliance risk. It has also created an opportunity for firms that are willing to do this well.
This post is the short version of how to reject candidates in a way that satisfies the new rule, protects the firm's reputation, and keeps the relationship with the candidate healthy if there’s a role thats a better fit in the future.
Why most rejections go badly
The candidate interviews, the firm decides not to move forward, and nobody tells the candidate. This is now a compliance issue on top of a reputational one. The candidate eventually assumes rejection and carries the experience with them. In a small professional community like AEC, this can harm the firm’s reputation with other candidates.
The auto-reject email three weeks later. Generic, unsigned, and sent into the candidate's inbox from the ATS with no acknowledgment that a human conversation occurred. The candidate reads it as dismissive, which it is.
The rejection that comes with fake feedback. "We are moving forward with a candidate whose profile more closely aligns with our needs." This tells the candidate nothing and reads as exactly the evasion it is. Candidates often prefer no feedback to fake feedback.
The rejection delivered by the wrong person. An HR coordinator emailing a senior candidate to reject them after the candidate spent three hours with the firm's principal sends a clear signal about how the firm values time and relationships.
What a good rejection is
A good rejection is timely. Within 10 days of the final interview is the right window for most situations. That puts the firm comfortably inside the 45-day requirement and respects the candidate's ability to plan their next steps.
It is delivered by the right person. For senior or finalist-stage candidates, the rejection should come from the hiring manager, not from an HR coordinator. A 10-minute call is the gold standard. A personalized email from the hiring manager is the minimum a senior candidate would expect.
It says something useful. Firms should not feel obligated to provide a detailed critique, and in some situations that is legally inadvisable. But "we moved forward with another candidate whose recent healthcare project delivery experience was a closer fit" is specific enough to be useful and general enough to be safe.
A template for the 45-day notification
For cases where a call is not appropriate or feasible, a written notification that satisfies the rule and respects the candidate looks something like this.
"[Candidate first name], thank you again for the time you spent with our team on [date of final interview]. After careful consideration, we have decided to move forward with another candidate for the [role title] position. We appreciated [specific thing from their interview, for example: your portfolio presentation on the adaptive reuse project, or your approach to the stakeholder coordination question]. We will keep your information on file and will be in touch directly if a role opens that fits your background more closely. Best regards, [hiring manager first and last name]."
This template is:
1) Signed by the hiring manager, not a coordinator.
2) It acknowledges the candidate's specific contribution.
3) It is honest about the outcome.
4) It leaves the door open without overpromising.
The secondary benefits
1) Candidates they rejected come back. Someone who was a strong second choice this month may be the right fit six months from now, and if they felt respected in the earlier process, they will answer the call. Axis has placed multiple candidates who were previously rejected by the same firm, usually for roles with different requirements, and the relationship held because the earlier rejection was handled well.
2) Rejected candidates who feel respected refer their colleagues and friends to the firm. Rejected candidates who feel dismissed do the opposite.
3) AEC is a small community. Every senior architect, engineer, and PM talks to colleagues. A firm's reputation as a hiring partner is the aggregate of hundreds of small interactions, and the rejection conversation carries more weight than most firms assume.
What to do this quarter
First, audit your current rejection process. Pick five recent closed postings and check whether every interviewed candidate received a notification. Most firms discover a gap somewhere.
Second, add a 45-day follow-up step to your hiring workflow. If you use an ATS, configure your system to notify you in an automated manner. If you do not, assign someone to own it.
Third, write a default rejection template that a hiring manager can personalize in two minutes. Given that many firms will not spend the time to let candidates know at all, the bar is lower than firms think. A decent personalized email is a significant upgrade over most firms' current practice.
Rejection is not a compliance chore. It is one of the few moments in a hiring process where a firm gets to show a candidate who they are when nothing is at stake. The firms that take it seriously are building the kind of reputation that makes the next hire easier.
The Ontario 45-day rule
Under Ontario's updated ESA, effective January 1, 2026, employers with 25 or more employees must notify anyone who has interviewed for a publicly advertised role within 45 days of their final interview whether a hiring decision has been made. The notification can be delivered in person, in writing, or through technology.
The rule is not onerous; however, it does require a workflow change. Firms that manage hiring through email threads and spreadsheets are the most at risk of missing the 45-day window unintentionally. Firms using an applicant tracking system need to confirm the follow-up step is configured and that someone owns it.
The penalty for a missed notification is modest in most individual cases, but the broader ESA penalty ceiling doubled to $100,000 per corporation per violation in 2026. Routine non-compliance becomes more exposed at the same time that candidates are more aware of their rights.
Sources
Axis Recruitment, "Ontario changed its hiring rules this year. Here's what AEC employers need to do."
Axis Recruitment, "The candidate experience: Why it's the most important part of the hiring process." https://www.axisrecruitment.ca/blog/the-candidate-experience-why-its-the-most-important-part-of-the-hiring-process
Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, Employment Standards Act updates, 2026.
McCarthy Tétrault, "Ontario Employers Need to Know: Employment Standards Act Updates," 2026. https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/canadian-employer-advisor/ontario-employers-need-to-know-employment-standards-act-updates-whats-new-for-2026-and-what-changed-in-2025
