I agree, there are very few legitimate reasons to forego responding to requests regarding the outcome of an interview. Though its probably pretty rare, there are some companies out there who keep a policy of, basically all contact is on their terms. For example, there's a large pharmaceutical company in my city that I used to work for, and reapplied to a couple of years ago. I had an interview and called to follow up. I left several messages and never got a reply. I found out later that they don't reply to any applicants whom they decide not to hire. In my opinion that's bad public relations and bad corporate citizenship, but they're powerful and will do what they want. Your friend shouldn't be blaming himself or feeling guilty for any of it. You go into an interview and do your best. Nobody at the company is better than you or worth more than you. They build their company with good people, like you. My mindset is, any company I apply to work at would be lucky to have me, and if they're smart they'll hire me :D Naturally I don't say those words in an interview but I try to communicate confidence. Lately my stuttering has been extreme and its hard to face it, since I had such a long stretch of a high rate of fluency in speaking. But I think part of it is that I made up my mind that I no longer want to be covert. I want to live 100% honestly and make no apologies or excuses. I stuttered all the way through an interview that lasted and hour and 45 minutes, a few days ago. It was tough but I'm proud I did it.