Application acknowledgement letter

Regardless of the outcome of your recruitment process for a job position, it is a common practice to send all the job applicants that took the time and effort to send a job application an acknowledgement of receipt notification by letter or email.

How do you acknowledge receipt of application?

Acknowledgment letters are written to confirm that a company has received a formal job application, and they are sent to the job applicants.  In the recruitment process, such letters play an important role as they indicate that you as a company value the time and effort invested by the sender in providing motivation and resume for the vacancy. The best letters to job candidates are professionally and formally written.

When responding to the job applicants to confirm receipt of the job application cover letter and/or resume, consider to include the following:

• Use proper address and salutation for the candidate;
• Start by congratulating the candidate for his/her time;
  
• Inform the applicants of the receipt of the resume/cover letter;
• Confirm a date before they will receive the response;
• Make the letter short, clear, and to the point avoid providing unnecessary details;
• Provide more information about the position;
• Include important information which the sender may need to know such as the most important job criteria;
• Wish the job applicants good luck and thank them for the time and effort spent;
• Make a reassurance that he or she will get a response from you as soon as possible.
• End on a positive note;
  
• Send receipts as soon as the application has been received., which can help in building goodwill and trust.

See an example job application acknowledgment letter:

Heading

• {{Address Sender}}
• {{Name Recipient}}
• Subject: {{Subject}}
  

Salutation

• Dear Sir/Madam {{Name}},

Introduction

• Thank you for applying for the {{job title}} position at {{company name}}.
• This is to confirm that we received your application, which will undergo a screening process among other applications to select the best candidate.
  
• We acknowledge the receipt of your application for the {{job title}} position at the {{Company Name}}.

Body

• The search committee will review all completed applications after the announced deadline.
• In the event of the acceptance of your application, we will notify you accordingly.
• A decision regarding your application will be made by {{date}}.
• We will call for an interview if you will be shortlisted for the position.
• Due to the large volume of applications that we receive, it is not possible for us to reply to the ones that failed the screening process.
• Regretfully, we will not be able to contact you if your application did not make it to the next stage. 

Closing

• If you don't hear from us by {{some date}}, then most probably your application was not shortlisted, and we encourage you to try and apply a later time.
  
• Thank you for your interest in {{company name}}.
• We wish you the best of luck regardless of the outcome.
  
• Yours sincerely,

Signature

• Provide a handwritten signature
• Write the Formal Name and Job title

Download this Application acknowledgment letter that you can send directly to those job candidates that applied for the job position.