Kelly Blazek's harsh LinkedIn rejection note earns rebuke

A US woman's harsh response to a young jobseeker who sought to connect on networking site LinkedIn has earned her widespread rebuke since it went viral.

Diana Mekota circulated the email she got from Kelly Blazek, who manages a top list of marketing jobs in Ohio.

In it, Ms Blazek excoriates her for her "inappropriate" and "tacky" request, adding she will enjoy rejecting her.

Ms Blazek has since apologised, saying her note was "rude, unwelcoming, unprofessional and wrong".

Ms Mekota, who was relocating to the Cleveland, Ohio, area, emailed Ms Blazek's job board and followed up with a note on LinkedIn explaining her qualifications.

In the response email, which Ms Mekota first shared on Twitter last week, Ms Blazek wrote: "We have never met. We have never worked together.

"Apparently you have heard that I produce a Job Bank, and decided it would be stunningly helpful for your career prospects if I shared my 960+ LinkedIn connections with you - a total stranger who has nothing to offer me."

"Your invite to connect is inappropriate, beneficial only to you, and tacky," the email continues.

"Wow, I cannot wait to let every 26-year-old jobseeker mine my top-tier marketing connections to help them land a job. Love the sense of entitlement in your generation."

Ms Blazek also said she would deny Ms Mekota's request to receive the job bank emails. "I suggest you join the other Job Bank in town. Oh wait - there isn't one."

"Don't ever write me again," the email ends.

Ms Mekota told the Cleveland Plain Dealer she posted Ms Blazek's email online only after her subsequent email trying to explain herself did not receive a reply.

Since the email went viral a few days ago, Ms Blazek has deleted the Twitter account of her job bank listings.

The Plain Dealer reported that commenters on the website of a local business group that named Ms Blazek "Communicator of the Year" called for her to be stripped of the title.

A parody twitter account of Ms Blazek appeared while other Cleveland residents took to Twitter to offer support for Ms Mekota.

In a statement to the BBC, Ms Blazek said she was "very sorry to the people I have hurt".

She said the job bank listings had started as a "labor of love for the marketing industry, but somehow it also became a labor, and I vented my frustrations on the very people I set out to help.

"The note I sent to Diana was rude, unwelcoming, unprofessional and wrong. I have apologized to her, and to others, for my actions which were wrong."