AI Engineer applicant rejected with email thanking them for their interest in ‘[Company Name]’

A rejection email for an AI Engineer role has drawn laughs and groans on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell after the employer forgot to fill in one crucial detail: its own name.

The email followed a familiar script applicants have probably seen hundreds of times: it thanked the applicant for their time, said the company had made its decision “after careful consideration,” described the choice as “not an easy one” given “many strong applicants,” and promised to keep the resume on file for future openings.

Then came the final line: “Thank you once again for your interest in [Company Name].”

“So let me get this straight: ‘careful consideration’ of my application, but not even careful enough to proofread a five-paragraph email?” the original poster wrote.

They pointed to the effort candidates put in, from tailoring resumes and writing cover letters to completing take-home assessments and preparing for technical interviews, while “the other side can’t spend 10 seconds checking that the company name is actually in the email.”

“Honestly, I’d respect a one-line ‘No thanks’ more than this fake-personal template,” they added. “The irony of an AI Engineer rejection being sent by a broken AI prompt is not lost on me.”

What Reddit said

Some commenters wanted the company exposed. “Name and shame. NAME AND SHAME,” one wrote.

Others pushed back on the AI angle. “This isn’t an AI prompt. This is just plain ol’ filler template which has been in place for 20+ years,” one commenter said. “Don’t waste so much energy on them. Just move on.”

Another pointed out why the error is especially odd: “There is zero reason to use a token for their company’s name. That is static.” Placeholders are normally used for details that change from email to email, such as the candidate’s name or the role, not the sender’s own identity.

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