You were offered to join a company but for some reason, you can not join there. Write a letter to the HR Manager of the company. In your letter: - explain the reason why you are declining the offer - express your gratitude - explain why you like your current job so much
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing in response to the offer letter, you on behalf of the DesignCrowd, have mailed me recently. I would like to thank you for the opportunitychance to join your company as a System Analyst. Unfortunately, I am unable to accept the offer at this timeright now and would like you to consider me for future rolesconsider me in the future. Before explaining my decisionBefore citing my reasons for not accepting the offer, I would first like to thank you for giving me such a great opportunity. Due to my commitment to my current employerpersonal commitment to my current employer, I cannot accept your offer. DeleteKindly note that I joined my current employer a year ago and when I informed them that I wasam planning to leave, my manager arranged a face-to-face meeting and convinced me to continue with them for at least another year. I love the way this company treats its employeesemployee and offers fair performance appraisals and a healthy work environmenton top of the performance appraisal and a healthy work environment. Thus, considering my manager's confidence in meconsidering his faith in me, it would be too early to change jobschange the job. I hope you will understand my reasons for staying in my current rolecontinuing my current job, and please allow me to be considered for future opportunitiesremain in your good books. I look forward to hearingLooking forward to hearing from you soon. Yours faithfully, Ria Nagpal
Why this response received Band 6.5
The letter clearly declines the offer, expresses gratitude, and explains the decision to remain with a supportive current employer, while maintaining an appropriately formal tone. Its main limitations are repetitive thanks, single-block organisation, and several awkward or inaccurate expressions that reduce professional polish. Prioritise structuring the three requested points into focused paragraphs and expressing the current job’s attractions with more natural workplace language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear and all three bullet points are addressed with relevant reasons, although gratitude is repeated and the request to remain in good books sounds overly personal.
Develop the positive features of the current job more concretely while thanking the prospective employer once and leaving the door open professionally.
Coherence and Cohesion
The reasoning follows a logical sequence, but the single dense block and repeated gratitude interrupt the progression.
Use separate paragraphs for appreciation and refusal, the reason for staying, and a concise professional closing.
Lexical Resource
There is sufficient workplace vocabulary to explain the decision, but collocations such as mailed me, treats its employee, and remain in your good books are awkward.
Use sent me, treats its employees well, positive appraisal system, and consider me for future opportunities.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of structures is attempted, but comma placement, agreement, article use, and sentence construction errors recur.
Rewrite the opening as I am writing in response to the offer letter that you recently sent me and check plural agreement throughout.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You were offered to join a company but for some reason, you can not join there. Write a letter to the HR Manager of the company. In your letter:
- explain the reason why you are declining the offer
- express your gratitude
- explain why you like your current job so much
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.