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How to Reject a Rejection Letter

Published: Mar 10, 2009

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FROM THE LAW (student) OFFICES OF

JOHN, WILLIAM, & FERRIE LLP
Managing Partner: John Ferrie
Recruiting Chair: John Ferrie
Director: John Ferrie
Associate: John Ferrie
Chief Paralegal: John Ferrie
Administrative Assistant: John Ferrie
40 East Oak Apt #0 1/2B
Corner Suite, Basement floor
Chicago, IL 60611
With offices in
Chicago, IL

Parents' House, OH
Girlfriend's Studio, NY

April 20, 2001

Dear [insert name of desired law firm here] LLP:

Thank you for your letter of October 20th, 2001, inquiring into the possibility of not hiring John W. Ferrie to work for your law firm this summer. He sincerely appreciates the interest you expressed in not hiring him.

Although he was favorably impressed with your rejection letter, he regrets to inform you of his inability to extend an acceptance of your non-offer at this time. Unfortunately, due to the great number of offers of non-employment from other highly qualified law firms, he can only accommodate a limited number of rejections this year.

John, William, & Ferrie LLP spent a lengthy period of time reviewing your credentials as presented in the non-offer letter. Special note was made of your vital quantitative statistics, such as your NWTR ("Number of Words To Reject") and your TTR ("Time to Reject"). Your NWTR did not, unfortunately, meet his current standard. For instance, a non-offer letter from a New York firm, Crevasse, Watchout, & Lipbalm LLP, had a near-perfect NWTR of 4.0. In other words, it only took four words to reject him ("You. Must. Be. Kidding."). Your non-offer letter, on the other hand, had a NWTR of 45. Most unimpressive.

In your non-offer letter, you also mention that John W. Ferrie should inquire again about openings at your firm "perhaps sometime in the future." These words betray a major weakness on your part. A more convincing rejection can be found in a letter from Boston's Testtheropes & Goodhoar LLP, which efficiently noted receipt of his cover letter with resume and then proceeded to wish him a nice life.

~Even more egregiously, you took the time to give him an answer in a mere seven days. This hasty action ultimately cast doubt on the sincerity of your lack of interest. In contrast, your competitor on the West Coast, Wilsoninni, Mobuck, & Culotte LLP, left no question as to its non-interest by actually first dispatching the rejection letter by cargo ship with a pack of diarrhetic llamas to Capetown, South Africa, and then having the letter hand-carried back through the Middle East by camel. This took an impressive one hundred and thirty eight days. In addition, the letter was barely legible upon receipt (it appears that the Saudi Arabian Bedouin to whom it had been entrusted decided, at some part during the journey, to use it as toilet paper).

Finally, the fact you even bother to reply is, to say the least, troubling. One New York firm, Scammem & Poke LLP, actually chose not to even accept inquiries by letter or phone. In fact, it went so far as to send a rejection letter before John W. Ferrie even applied. This pre-emptive letter simply stated, "Some day you may consider applying to us. Don't." This, dear sirs, is true disinterest.

For all the foregoing reasons, John, William, & Ferrie LLP is forced to construe your offer of non-employment as being, on a relative scale, a sign of actual interest. Thus, he gladly accepts your offer of summer employment and looks forward to beginning work on May 20th of next year. In addition, he would appreciate it if you could pencil in his name for your annual summer associate boondoggle, wherever it may be. (No shellfish, please.)

On a side note, he hopes this will not discourage you from seeking to not hire John W. Ferrie next year. Perhaps you will be able to make a more persuasive offer of non-employment at this later date. You can then meet him and, after several rounds of watered down drinks and awkward conversation, attempt to reject him in person.

With best wishes for your continued world domination,John W. Ferrie

Recruiting Coordinator,
John, William, & Ferrie, LLP

"John Ferrie moonlights as a humor writer when he's not pretending to be a JD/MBA student at Northwestern University. He is currently at work on ascreenplay about the absurdities of life as a young professional.All hate mail, story suggestions, and random naked pictures can be sent to"john@nakedprofessional.com"

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