Definition
A rejected candidate is a candidate control that testing ruled out, with the reason recorded.
A rejection with a clear reason is a finding, not a failure. The record keeps the learning — what was tried, what the test showed, and why the team chose differently — and the next candidate builds on it. Rejected candidates move to the Archive alongside retired controls: set aside from the active jigsaw, never erased.
Why This Matters
Rejections are evidence that testing does real work. A team whose candidates sometimes fail testing is finding out, in practice, what fits its organization — and the recorded reasons become organizational knowledge that outlasts the people who learned them.