Blogs

We've all known this for a long time: the way our profession closes the loop with applicants is broken. Not "needs improvement." Broken. It's the single most common candidate complaint in every candidate experience study anyone has run for the last fifteen years. And yet, when you ask most of us why we haven't fixed it, the answer usually involves application volume, system limitations, or something a vendor told us wasn't technically possible.

That answer is no longer good enough. This week, the CXR Foundation published version 2.0 of the Baseline Standard for Applicant Closure. It's a working document, developed by the Foundation's Industry Standards Committee, that says out loud what most of us already believe: every applicant deserves to be told when they're no longer under consideration. All of them. Not just the ones who interviewed. Not just the ones we felt bad about ignoring. All of them.

I want you to read it, and I want you to sign it.

What the Standard actually says

The core obligation is straightforward. Employers should issue a clear closure notification to 100% of applicants for every requisition, regardless of stage or volume. No exceptions on the basis of application volume, system constraints, or resourcing. Silence is not closure. "We will contact you if we are interested" is not closure. Automated rejections fired the moment someone submits are not closure either - the Standard is explicit about that.

What does count? A clear, unambiguous, documented communication that identifies the specific role, thanks the applicant, and (this part matters) discloses if AI screening, publicly sourced data, or third-party assessments informed the decision.

There's also a recordkeeping expectation for organizations claiming conformance. Your system of record should be able to produce five timestamps on any closed requisition: when the applicant submitted, when automated screening or AI evaluation happened, when a human reviewed the record, when the final disposition decision was made, and when the closure communication actually went out.

That last part is where I think this gets teeth. Most modern ATS platforms can already do this. Whether they're configured to is a different question and that's exactly the conversation this Standard is designed to start.

Who this is aimed at

Three audiences, on purpose.

The first is recruiting technology. Most ATS platforms already ship bulk closure tools. But most also let organizations configure workflows where applicants sit unresolved indefinitely - a "state" no one is accountable for. If we as a profession say the operational norm is 100% closure with documented timestamps, that changes what vendors get asked to demonstrate in RFPs. It changes what "table stakes" means.

The second is the profession itself. Peer accountability. If you're training a new recruiter, ghosting cannot be presented as an unavoidable byproduct of high-volume hiring. It's a choice. It should be taught, and expected, that closing the loop is part of the job.

The third is government. Ontario, Canada already legislated a version of this in its Working for Workers Five Act - as of January 2026, employers with 25 or more employees are required to notify interviewed candidates within 45 days of a final interview. That's a narrow floor, and it only covers people who made it to an interview. Other jurisdictions are watching. If the profession doesn't define a workable baseline, someone else will define it for us - and the version that arrives with a fine attached will not be the one we would have written for ourselves.

How this came together

This is the first published output of the CXR Foundation's Industry Standards program - one of several active program areas alongside our Scholarships work (INSPIRE and the Russ Mountain Memorial,) The History of Recruiting, and the DC Policy Delegation.

The Standard is the product of the Foundation's Industry Standards Committee. @Gerry Crispin, our Foundation Vice President, chairs the Committee and has led the effort to stress-test this document with practitioners across six iterations in the first half of 2026. @Brad Cook led the standards work alongside Gerry from Australia as a co-chair, and a broader practitioner working group of volunteers put real pressure on the drafts - adding considerations and language, pushing back on scope, wording, timing, and the burden any of it would place on operating teams. That process is why the language reads the way it does. It's not aspirational. It reflects what a working group of senior TA leaders believes is actually doable at scale.

The Foundation board - including @Barb Ruess as Secretary, and the rest of leadership - is backing this work publicly. The pipeline behind it includes standards under development on neurodiversity, AI transparency, and pay transparency, all in the same practitioner-led drafting model.

What we need from you

Read the Standard. All of it. It's not long, and the language is deliberate.

Then, if you agree with the principle - that every applicant deserves closure, and that our profession is ready to hold itself to that - add your name to the signatory list at the bottom of the page.

I'll be direct about the goal. We want 100 signatures by the end of July 2026, and 1,000 by year end. The number matters. A Standard with a hundred names behind it is a proposal. A Standard with a thousand names behind it is a professional norm, and vendors, RPOs, and regulators respond to professional norms.

Whether this becomes the operating baseline for our industry or stays a good idea sitting on a page, depends on how many of you decide to sign on.

Read it. Sign it. Send it to a peer.

Read the Baseline Standard for Applicant Closure and add your name →