Bengaluru startup founder says job rejection isn't personal after candidate returns

A Bengaluru startup founder said a candidate who declined the company's offer last year has returned and is now in the final hiring rounds. He said the episode shows why companies should not take rejections personally.A startup founder shared an important lesson on hiring candidates. (Photos: LinkedIn/Abhishek Vijayvergiya)A candidate rejected a Bengaluru startup’s job offer last year and chose another company instead. A year later, after that company shut down, he returned to the same startup looking for work.Abhishek Vijayvergiya, co-founder of AI hiring platform Fabric, shared the story in a LinkedIn post, recalling how the company had really wanted to hire the candidate last year. When he declined the offer to join another company, Vijayvergiya said he tried to convince him to reconsider, but the two sides parted on good terms.A year later, the same candidate reached out again, this time looking for a job after his previous company shut down.“I remembered him immediately because we had really wanted him at Fabric,” Vijayvergiya wrote. As it turned out, Fabric was hiring for a similar role, and the candidate is now in the company’s final rounds.The founder said the experience reinforced his belief that employers should not take it personally when candidates reject their offers. Companies routinely turn down applicants in favour of someone they consider a better fit, he pointed out, but a candidate making the same choice is often labelled disloyal. “When he declined our offer last year, I tried to convince him to reconsider. He still chose the other company, and we left things on good terms,” he wrote.See the post:Vijayvergiya also shared a screenshot of the candidate’s original email, in which he politely declined the offer and explained that he had chosen another opportunity.“Unfortunately, I will not be able to accept the same. I'm moving forward with another opportunity, and I didn't want to keep you guys hanging,” the candidate wrote.He also praised Fabric’s hiring process, calling the interview experience “extremely fast” and saying the AI interview “felt pretty real”.For Vijayvergiya, the episode was less about whether the candidate eventually joins Fabric and more about what happened in between.“I don't know yet whether we'll end up working together. But this whole thing reinforced something I already believed,” he wrote.“If you meet someone genuinely good, you should want to find a way to work with them eventually.”The post struck a chord with LinkedIn users, many of whom appreciated the founder’s approach to rejection, hiring and second chances.And while Fabric uses AI to streamline hiring, Vijayvergiya said there is one thing even technology cannot replace: human relationships.- EndsPublished By: Srimoyee ChowdhuryPublished On: Aug 25, 2026 16:36 IST