Any good way to tell a faculty candidate "We don't want you"? I serve on a faculty search committee at a large university here in the US.  The part of the job none of us enjoys is informing a candidate who's visited and given a teaching demonstration that we've decided not to recommend a hire.  We do it in three pretty bare sentences thanking them for coming, telling them that unfortunately, we cannot offer a position (without giving any reasons), and wishing them well.  This is the best we could come up with.

Is there any better/best way to do this?  How do other search committees communicate rejections?  How much, if anything, do they tell the applicant about the reasons for the rejection?  Do they try to do more to soften the bad news?  And would they send the rejection by mail or email (including PDF attachment)?
Getting a rejection sucks. There is not much you can do about it. My wife and I have talked about this a lot and as candidates the only thing we wanted to know was how close we were and how we stacked up against the people who beat us. When sitting on search committess we have had various levels of success trying to inform candidates in the rejection letter about how many applicants, how many first round interviews, how many campus visits, how many offers, and was the position filled.

The other thing we do is make sure the letter starts off with we cannot offer you a position and then includes all the other information.