SPECIAL EDITION: Ghosting

If you’ve had to look for a job recently, you’ve likely wasted time on ghost jobs, and with employers that ghost you. Ghosting is when a company stops communicating even after it solicited you to apply for a job and attend interviews (sometimes many!). Ghost jobs are the ones currently advertised that you apply to, only to learn they’ve already been filled or are not actually open. We need laws that protect job applicants from abusive employer practices like ghosting.

Ghosting

ghostingGhosting is a widespread, irresponsible, cruel practice. It has already done serious damage to many employers’ reputations. Companies that ghost are widely excoriated by their victims online and have drawn the attention of the media. The Employment System — human resources (HR), recruiters, job boards, Applicant Tracking System (ATS) vendors and “video interview” vendors — actively supports these abhorrent practices.

HR technology is supposed to match workers to jobs more accurately, easily and quickly. But judging by the experiences reported by job seekers across industries, ghosting and ghost jobs waste their time and earn their ire. It’s worth considering how the companies that design and operate this technology make more money: when jobs are not filled and employers and job seekers alike keep returning to search again and again. HR technology enables employers to retain all power in the hiring process — and because employers on the whole abuse their power, we need laws to protect job applicants from ghosting.

The New Jersey anti-ghosting bill

In the last edition, we discussed a proposed law working its way through the New Jersey legislature, Assembly Bill A-4625, which deals with making job postings more transparent and the interviewing and hiring process more fair to job applicants. It is sponsored by Assemblyman Joe Danielsen. While job seekers applaud this bill for truth in hiring, New Jersey employers oppose it, taking the same tack they did when they opposed the $15 minimum wage (which is now law), claiming it’s impractical and unnecessary, and that it will force employers to stop hiring and move out of state.

This New Jersey bill is seen as a test of the public’s willingness to fight for transparency in hiring. If it is approved as law, it will undoubtedly stoke similar laws elsewhere for truth in recruitment advertising and in hiring practices.

To understand why this law is so important and so necessary, we will look at the mostly spurious objections presented at the bill’s public hearing by the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA). The NJBIA represents and advocates for “every industry in the State.”

Read no further: We’re giving employers the answer

The NJBIA could save itself a lot of trouble and legal expense. I’m going to give away the easy way out of A-4625: Tell your member businesses:

  • Do the right thing
  • Show common courtesy to job applicants
  • Treat job applicants with common decency and respect
  • Be forthcoming
  • Make your hiring process responsible, transparent, and one that reflects good employer values.

If you’d done these simple things already, New Jersey Assemblyman Joe Danielsen wouldn’t have had to codify what’s obvious: common decency. He’s giving employers the answer:

“Having some certainty as to whether you have gotten the job or not is not only the bare minimum a company should be doing in the hiring process: it’s just common courtesy. The fact it is necessary for this bill to force companies to do the right thing is deeply disappointing.” – Assemblyman Joe Danielsen

Any employer that takes Danielsen’s advice probably doesn’t have to worry about violations and fines because job applicants will have no complaints to the job-posting cops. Others should keep reading.

Business: We don’t need more regulation

In 2016, NJBIA President and CEO Michele Siekerka, warned that increasing the minimum wage “will result in unprecedented increases in the cost of doing business” and “cut employees’ hours and jobs.” But the new law was needed because New Jersey businesses refused to pay a living wage. The law passed, and today New Jersey’s economy and its businesses thrive — while workers, who are also consumers and job seekers, are still being hired, but at something closer to a living wage.

In September 2024, NJBIA Vice President of Government Affairs Elissa Frank filed an equally ill-conceived protest to A-4625. Let’s take it apart to learn why it’s really just a feeble attempt to keep power in the hands of business while workers looking for new jobs continue to suffer at the hands of an Employment System gone berserk. To follow along, please refer to NJBIA Opposition A4625, from which I will excerpt key claims below.

Gratuitous protest

The NJBIA launched a protest against protections for job applicants that’s as gratuitous as its protests against the $15 minimum wage.

Our members have shared that it would be extraordinarily difficult to comply with this legislation given its sheer impracticality, vagueness, and costs.

What’s impractical is for job applicants to continue applying for jobs that employers have already filled or that are non-existent, and to invest hours interviewing with robots and HR without getting useful feedback or a timely decision. On what business planet is it okay to vanish like a ghost after asking someone to apply for a job in your company?

Business can’t possibly keep track of job openings

Compliance with this legislation is impractical for most businesses in the State. This legislation requires an employer to remove a job posting when a position has been filled within two weeks. This provision does not account for larger employers proactively hiring for positions with high turnover (i.e., cashiers, cleaning staff, night crew). To hire for these positions, many of which are open indefinitely, our members may have over 1,000 job postings on any given day. Thus, it would not be practical for businesses – or helpful to applicants – to mandate that employers remove each job posting only to replace it with an identical job posting.

Most — especially large — employers use sophisticated ATSes that automate virtually every step of recruiting and hiring. They track every aspect of the process, every job and its status, and every applicant. Employers thereby have the tools to track many thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of applicants they solicited.

These high-priced ATSes deploy yet more software that notifies selected applicants (who are chosen by algorithms) of their candidacy. The ATS automatically schedules and conducts interviews by robots via online video technology, analyzes the results, draws conclusions based on interviewees’ facial expressions and eye movements, assigns personality types, and determines via algorithms whom to reject. (The A.I. involved is highly controversial and questionable.)

The automation is so sophisticated that thousands of applicants can be processed in parallel, rejected or approved for further interviews via Zoom or in person — all without the involvement of a human being from the company. It’s beyond comprehension that an employer can thus use technology to inform its own management about the intricate details of recruiting and hiring, e.g., candidate selection, screening, assessment, but cannot inform job applicants whether an advertised job has been filled or is still open, or whether an applicant is or is not judged a viable candidate.

“We have no idea how our hiring works”

Furthermore, this legislation requires an employer to provide a timeframe in the job posting as to when the position is anticipated to be filled. For many vacant positions, the timeframe as to when the position is anticipated to be filled is unpredictable given several factors (i.e., number of qualified applicants, if an offer is accepted, the length of time to get candidates through the hiring process).

This complaint is simply not believable to anyone with knowledge about running a business. Defining, managing and reporting on all these timeframes to management is part and parcel the job of every HR department.

There is no reason an employer cannot report to job applicants what they report to company managers. The information is already in the ATS.

“There are too many applicants to keep track of!”

HR departments deploy ATSes and job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed and ZipRecruiter to solicit tens of thousands of applicants with no filters, then complain they cannot possibly treat all applicants professionally and respectfully.

Given the volume of continuously open positions, it is very difficult to notify each applicant individually as to whether the position is still open and whether the candidate is still under consideration.

It’s a simple matter of notifying each applicant who has invested time, effort and sometimes money whether any specific job is still open — just like notifying them they will be screened or interviewed. And it is of course possible for an employer to ascertain whether a candidate is still under consideration. How can the company and its HR department operate otherwise?

As a reality check, does a business tell its customers it has no idea where the customer’s order is, or for that matter, whether it has adequate inventory to fill an order? In fact, it’s now common for the customer to directly access a business’s inventory database. Why is NJBIA suggesting a company’s ATS database of jobs, applicants, interview results and hiring decisions cannot provide status reports to job applicants? The HR technology certainly exists — or what does the T in ATS stand for?

Medium and larger businesses routinely shell out millions of dollars per year on sophisticated HR technology to track and report on open and filled jobs and on each applicant’s status, as well as on the status of each candidate interviewed. In the Stone Age, HR departments would send a postcard to every applicant thanking them for their time, regretfully rejecting them, and wishing them good luck elsewhere. That’s because every HR manager’s mother (in the Stone Age) taught that it’s important to always wear clean underwear, and to always send a thank-you note.

Surely somewhere in millions of lines of ATS code there’s room for polite communication with applicants that have invested their time to discuss a job. The software is certainly capable of it, but clearly lacks a mother to teach it to behave properly.

There is no excuse for ghosting a guest you invited to discuss a job, and if we’re to take employer associations like the NJBIA seriously, they’d have already fixed this problem. I have zero respect for the NJBIA’s one-sided, take-it-or-leave-it protest.

“Don’t you know it costs money to operate a good business?”

Businesses may have to invest in additional resources to ensure compliance, leading to increased operational costs.

Man, it’s hard to run a business properly. That’s why so many fail — including businesses that are not managed well enough to afford the workers their competitors recruited away.

If a business cannot invest resources to maintain its integrity and reputation with the professional communities from which it needs to recruit, then the business naturally loses to competitors that can. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, known as capitalism, where only the best survive.

If a business can afford HR technology that permits it to easily and quickly (if not accurately) solicit thousands to apply for a job, it cannot complain it lacks the resources “to notify each applicant individually as to whether the position is still open and whether the candidate is still under consideration.”

Give us a break.

“We don’t speak your language so we’re not subject to your laws”

Lastly, this legislation is vague, such that compliance is nearly impossible. For example, this legislation…does not define what constitutes an “employer”…”  does not define what constitutes “awareness”… [or a] “third-party job posting company.” NJBIA respectfully requests clarification of these ambiguities, so that businesses can properly plan… For these reasons, we respectfully request that you vote NO on A-4625.

This is the classic “straw man” argument: a logical fallacy that misrepresents bill A-4625 as unclear and extreme, then argues against the extreme version it concocted, and refuses to offer useful input to improve the bill. Any law, contract or agreement can be criticized, sometimes justifiably, because it does not define its terms clearly. Serious criticism would acknowledge the intent of the law, suggest reasonable definitions and constraints, and provide useful input. The NJBIA does none of this.

Certainly such a wide-ranging job-applicant protection law that’s akin to consumer protection and truth in advertising laws, can be improved upon and shaped to fit the goal of transparency in recruitment advertising and in the hiring process. But the bill’s opponents pretend that thousands of job applicants who’ve been ghosted and abused have no complaint. One protester claimed: “This bill does not solve any legitimate problem out there. This is not an issue.”

How business fights laws that protect job applicants from ghosting

The NJBIA fails to acknowledge the costs job applicants pay in time, effort, money, frustration and emotional and physical distress when they are ghosted. (See comment from LighthouseKeeper1138: “[Ghosting] is one of the primary things that drove me to clinical depression after I lost my 30-year job in 2009.”).

This is how lobbyists like the NJBIA fail to acknowledge that they are defending a deeply broken Employment System, and ignore the obligations of employers to conduct recruitment and hiring with transparency and respect.

This is how business fights laws that protect job applicants from ghosting.

Bill A-4625 can be negotiated to make it better. But because businesses don’t take it upon themselves to protect the very people they need to recruit, now we need a law.

A challenge to the NJBIA

Does the NJBIA have the balls to tell its member companies to do what Assemblyman Danielsen asks? Show common courtesy.

A challenge to all readers

Whether you’re in New Jersey or in another state, send a link to this column to your state and federal legislators, and to employers that have ghosted you or a friend. Demand they bring back common courtesy to job applicants — or legislate it.

How would you address the claims and arguments the NJBIA uses to reject a new law to protect job applicants from ghosting?

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13 Comments
  1. Nick, I have been a reader, subscriber, fan, and paying customer for around two decades, and between your last posting, “New Jersey moves to outlaw ghost jobs, ghosting of job seekers” (October 7, 2024), and this one, these are among your most agent posts, ever, which several of my fellow readers can attest is saying something.

    Like others here, and I hasten to mention that my stories are likely not the worst, I have been ghosted more than once, most insultingly by a panel of professionals in the county office. Think about that: they can’t be bothered with the garden-variety courtesies you spell out, and still I’m compelled to pay them.

    I decided after learning the hard way that when the interviewer asks if you have any questions, my first question should be, “Do you have already someone standing by, waiting to take this position?” The awkwardness that follows should tell us everything.

    Even as I began reading your October 7 post, I resolved to press the case in my state, county, and city to adopt something like New Jersey Assembly Bill A-4625. Then you advised it. Great minds.

    “Ghosting is a widespread, irresponsible, cruel practice.” Yes it is. An emblem of the lonely, isolating, socially atomizing world we’re living through. It’s most wrong with people trying to obtain employment. It’s still wrong with dates and friendships and acquaintances.

    • @Lawrence: Thanks for your long-time support, and for your very kind words.

      Your suggested interview question is excellent! One I’ve never encountered. If anyone else tries it, I’d love feedback on the outcome!

  2. In an ideal world, some good employers want to lead the way with best-in-class recruitment practices, gain the benefits and public recognition they deserve and shine a light on those stuck in the dark ages. Alas, this route can be the longest and hardest/ So I will at least wish good luck to all those pushing hard for this to happen.

  3. All over the Internet we can find comments, videos, and coaching advice telling us that employers will ghost applicants, and that they will spam job boards with jobs that don’t exist, and barely if ever interview candidates. Sometimes the candidate is processed, chewed and spat out without a single glance from a real human being, other times they get to participate in an assembly line of group interviews, and then get ghosted. The solution we’re given is to just accept the grind and apply hundreds of times, preferably by using scripted, automated application bots that can shotgun hundreds of applications a day, until the sheer number of applications overwhelm the negligible odds of the ghost lottery and finally land you, a Job(TM).

    Putting an end to this absurd arms race of automating human interaction has to start with the employers (they started this), and this legislation is a huge step in the right direction. Other states in the US and other countries would greatly benefit from following suit, as we all know this is not just a problem in New Jersey, it’s more of a worldwide phenomenon. A detestable spam war that’s lasted for far too long (and now superpowered by LLMs creating fake applications for fake employers to review)

    Thank you for drawing attention to this important legislation and the debate that comes with it, and thank you for your excellent arguments in favor of what really should be common sense!

  4. The worst part for those of us in more technical fields, even if not techies, is that the screeners are being used for contract as well as perm jobs–and are being pitched as ‘skill tests’ to even be submitted.

    Contract is always a race to the post to 1) get the truth about the job, 2) the best rate, and 3) get submitted early with people for whom English is generally Language #2. Yesterday, I had to drop everything working remotely and get cleaned up for a screener that was mainly simple questions about product marketing with one video section talking about what I did for one product intro. You also don’t get redos. Now these screeners (this one for enGen, part of a major Blue, Highmark) are being used to rule submissions in or out. God really only knows if it judged my looking down or up, or side by side, as a rule out. Or analyzed my age. The sad part is, is that the fit is near perfect and my prior experience and expertise is exactly a rule in.

    I can’t say that human screeners are much better, though. Most of them don’t know much about their company nor about my field, marketing. And, I strongly believe, I’m ruled out on age and my lack of a ‘desirable’ heritage.

    The future of work feels like a boot stamping on a human face, forever. (Orwell, 1984)

  5. I lost count of the number of times I was ghosted in my job searches. I just accepted that response meant no interest and I moved on. It was hard enough to search as an older woman without getting tied up in mental knots analyzing lack of response.

    There were two situations that did linger mentally. One was an agency asked me to interview with them before they sent me on to the employer. The position was spot on for my background. However, as soon as they saw an older woman wwith -gasp!- grey hair, they turned icy. They never responded to any e-mail or message. Age discrimination is very real.

    The other situation was in early 2007 when I was interviewed with Fannie Mae and was all but offered the job on the spot. Despite my following up, I never heard from them again. Two years later I learned from news reports about Fannie’s disclosures to Congress that a “secret” job freeze came down the day after my interview in an attempt to shore up the company, facing the collapse of the mortgage markets, without alarming the stock markets. As it turns out, I likely would have been laid off anyway when the sehd thousands of employees.

  6. Two points.

    1. NJBIA’s stance seems to be that compliance with the law will require effort, and they don’t’ wanna’. While understandable, it’s not the best look.

    2. I haven’t switched jobs in a while, but my last attempt changed my attitude. Even an in-person interview means nothing. After an interview, I’d either get an offer or ghosted. Rejection letters have gone the way of the dinosaur. No point in getting upset, that is the standard procedure now.

  7. Thank you, NJBIA, for listing your membership (euphemistically referred to as “partners”) on your website. You’ve just empowered hundreds of thousands of job seekers in New Jersey to blacklist these employers for your asinine advocacy of Opposition A4625.

    “Power to the people.”
    – John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band (1971)

    • Do you think they really care if workers blacklist them? Hiring is all in their favor now until and unless business improves and we get back to real hiring of anyone with a decent brain.

  8. Shame them. HANDILY.

    List their names.
    Companies AND individuals.

    Here.

    NOW.

  9. What makes my brain hurt is the technology to address this (ghost jobs, ghosting) is 1990s-level (let us be generous and say 2010-level).

    For jobs that have been filled, an automatic removal.
    24 hours before removal time, an email is sent to someone with the authority to extend the posting by clicking on a link.

    For candidates, after ten days of no activity with the candidate’s file, an email is sent to someone with authority to extend consideration. They click on a link to keep it open. Otherwise, and automatic “Thanks, but no thanks.” email is sent to the candidate.

    This is not rocket science.

    • Gregory,

      It’s almost intentional hostility for the sake of hostility. Apparently, we are not dealing with sophisticated grownups.

    • @Gregory: THAT. It’s why I emphasized that the ATSes employers use and the HireVue-type robo-interview systems they rely on (see Hilke Schellmann’s book, Algorithm, which blows that to smithereens), track EVERYTHING and generate reports up the yin-yang, but they cannot accomplish all the important applicant-relations tasks Danielsen’s bill addresses? Give us all a break!

      The technology to do what the bill requires has been around a long time! Maybe the better question is, why aren’t they using it?

      I’ve often thought HR should report to a company’s PR dept — you know, the people responsible for the company’s reputation! I mean, this is really stupid stuff!

      Not only do we need a law to protect job applicants; we need stiff penalties for HR departments that pretend this isn’t a problem.