Question
A news article reports that in just one year the number of job applicants that say employers ghosted them jumped from 30% to 40%. The tariffs and economic uncertainty suggest that employers are very nervous about hiring, but then why do they post jobs and then ghost us when we apply? If one in every two or three jobs I apply for are going to ghost me, what’s the best way to avoid this? It wastes a lot of time! I’ve gone on two or three interviews for jobs that are a perfect fit. The interviews go very well and they tell me I’ll hear back in a week or two. But I hear nothing back ever. I wind up waiting sometimes weeks for a resolution so I can move on with my job search. What should I do?
Nick’s Reply
I really get fed up with “career experts,” personnel jockeys and news pundits that try to pin the failures of employers on job seekers — or that suggest job seekers need to improve their behavior. Ghosting is on employers.
We’ve discussed ghosting before more than once (Ghosting: Hard lessons about recruiters & employers). When the economy shows weakness, it seems to lead to more ghosting. In this column, I’d like to discuss why job seekers seem to make ghosting their problem and why news pundits suggest job seekers need to change their behavior to deal with ghosting.
This may sound harsh, but the best thing you can do when an employer that interviewed you ghosts you is to disappear! Move on immediately and don’t look back!
Let’s start at the baseline
The fact is — and has always been — that most interviews go south, no matter how well anyone thinks they went. That’s the baseline — what we expect from any randomly selected interview. (I think you know that, but wishful thinking tends to cloud a job seeker’s judgment. How often does a job seeker get a job after an interview?) When that happens it’s incumbent on the employer to notify the applicant what the outcome is. Ghosting, or ignoring the applicant and not following up, is unforgivable. It’s rude and irresponsible.
Ghosted and wasting time
Being ghosted means you’ve wasted your time interviewing and preparing for that interview. If you’re an Ask The Headhunter regular, you know how much preparation I recommend, and this means you have wasted a lot of time.
But here’s my bigger concern, which you already alluded to: “I wind up waiting sometimes weeks for a resolution so I can move on with my job search.”
I find that most ghosted job seekers are incorrigible optimists whether they admit it or not. They make excuses for the errant employer: “The interviews really went well and I think I’m getting an offer!” and “The employer’s delay is understandable! I just have to wait it out!”
BUT… “Waiting…for a resolution” keeps you from the crucial step of immediately moving on to the next opportunity and working immediately on that instead!
Ghosted? Don’t wait to be un-ghosted
When I confront employers about ghosting, their explanation is that the selection process takes longer than expected so they have nothing to tell the applicant “yet.” This unforgivable excuse infects the entire employment system with false hope and anticipation. Job applicants understandably hope for the best and expect an answer — so they wait.
Don’t wait to be un-ghosted.
If you believe you’re being ghosted, the most prudent next step is to… disappear. Get it out of your head that a “decision” is forthcoming from the employer. You saw what I said about most interviews: they go south. The baseline odds of getting an offer are already low! If we add the low probability that you’ll ever get an offer to the fact that they have chosen to ignore you, it’s easy to understand my advice: disappear. Don’t waste your valuable time.
Ghosted: What’s the protocol?
I read the article you referred to by Michelle Singletary in the Washington Post. She offers five tips if you’ve been ghosted:
- Don’t stop communicating
- Keep it professional
- Ask for a timeline
- Don’t take it personally
- Move on
I think she’s got it backwards.
- Move on immediately! As soon as the employer breaks its promise to get back to you “in a week” (or whatever), move on immediately. Don’t “wait weeks for a resolution.”
- Don’t make a bad bet worse. When the employer started ghosting you, any further bet you made on their professionalism was a bad bet.
- If they failed to communicate when they said they would, stop signaling back, or you’re wasting time, energy, and emotion — which means you’re taking your eyes off the ball. The ball is your job search, not the employer that’s dissing you.
- All business is personal. If the specific people that interviewed you expressed an interest and gave you a timeline, but then ghosted you, take it personally. All business is personal. That’s why we follow certain rules of conduct when we do business. It’s why we show customers “a personal touch.” It’s why employers test you for “cultural fit.” It’s why they administer personality tests.
To quote my mentor, Gene Webb, this means “Never work with jerks.” Any employer that fails to take a personal interest in you and to treat you professionally is a jerk. Don’t rationalize jerks because, if you take a job with one, you’ll be looking for another job soon.
Move on quickly
I do agree with Singletary’s advice to move on. I just think you need to move as soon as the employer fails at (1.) and (2.). If they ghost you, disappear. And don’t worry — if they realize they blew it, they will come chasing you with apologies. That gives you an unexpected negotiating edge!
Worse case, you’ll be weeks ahead on an opportunity with another employer.
Are job seekers being ghosted more today? Why? How do you avoid getting ghosted? What should you do if you are ghosted? What advice do you want to give to employers?
[NOTE: The original version of this column misspelled Michelle Singletary’s name.]: :
I’ve said it over and over. If you get ghosted, walk away and communicate this on job boards, review sites, etc. Glassdoor, Indeed, Linkedin even. Make their reputation known. If people think they’re going to get ghosted, they won’t even put in the effort. Companies do not like the kind of reputational hit it brings and will either correct or continue the course which inevitably leads to a bad outcome for the company.
Name and shame is the name of the game.
@David: Unfortunately, you’re right. Ghosting is so endemic that it’s expected. Job seekers can put an end to it.
So newsworthy that ghosting has increased? Did reporter Rip Van Winkle finally wake up and notice the obvious? But just 40% of employers ghost?
Pardon the sarcasm, but ghosting has been the norm for several decades. Even after one or more interviews, feedback of any kind is very much the exception. Learned long ago to assume nothing, and that following up rarely helped. Including for supposedly high demand fields like tech.
I said as much in a prior posting. Rather amusing how some long term trends keep getting reposted by mainstream media like a recent discovery, as if history started five years ago.
Of course Nick is right, never stall your search waiting for an employer. Even job hunting books I read in the 1980’s said this. Back when on average it took just seven interviews to secure an offer, and feedback still existed (sort of).
@Stevie: That ghosting still goes on is shameful. I like to bring it up regularly.
Disclaimer 1: In five years of post-COVID job hunting, I have never received a job offer after an interview. Think about that for a moment.
I take a somewhat different approach. As soon as the interview is over, and especially if it is a Zoom call from my home office, I’ve already moved on to my job hunt sources. To be fair, those are thin these days, as I put a good bit of effort into avoiding employers who practice ageism, sexism, and DEI-driven raceism.
Disclaimer 2: I’m part Native American, but do I want to work for a racist? No.
It’s my way of discovering those companies that would be a good fit, either as an employee or as a contractor with my business.
We have discussed the utter lack of corporate etiquette in the 21st century before. Apparently, it has gotten no better.
Back when it was difficult, the hiring manager had to have one of the secretaries come in, take dictation on her steno pad. Then one of the room full of typists would type up the letter, proofread it, and arrange for the mailroom to (snail) mail it out. But the response got done.
Now it’s a few keystrokes in the email program, and the recruiter in HR is just too lazy or ill-mannered to do that. If you DO get the position, you know what type of company you are working for.
I have discussed with a few executive level talent acquisition-types.
The response always begins with “What you have to understand…”
What chaps my hide is creating an automatic “Thanks, but no thanks.” email after a couple weeks of inactivity is a trivial endeavor. The only thing necessary to implement it is to give a damn.
@Gregory: You’re right. What’s as sickening as the practice is the “explanations.”
The Linked IN era has spawned ghost employers. HR drones who think they’re ‘au Courant’ by using internet search for applicants, and organizations that actually encourage that idiocy.
If your “interview” is via ZOOM, why would you expect a rational human response? What form of personal connection would you have made in any “interview” that was via Zoom, with only HR present, and not the hiring manager?
Personally, I would not leave a virtual interview without a specific appointment to follow up with the hiring manager within a few days.
Pushy? Yes. But your time is valuable, and if they don’t care enough to put a little skin in the game, why should you be surprised when they ghost you?
If they’re keeping score internally…”we’ve had over 50 applicants for this job”… then you’re just a meaningless number.
If they’re brainlessly collecting numbers… why help them? Why take your psychic bandwidth expecting a drone to behave rationally?
Perhaps try something like…” If you feel that my qualifications make me a good fit, let’s schedule a meeting with the hiring manager,
so I can determine if we’d be a good fit on a personal level. What day in the next week would work for a 15 minute meeting with him or her?”
If they won’t or can’t do that, you’re not dealing with an honest broker; why would you want to work for them?
Frankly, if it were me, and they failed to schedule, I’d send a polite but informative letter to the organization’s CEO.
Similarly, if they DID schedule the meeting, I would be quick to send both an email and a letter to the hiring manager,
thanking them for their time. And perhaps expressing explicit interest in the job…or observing that it might not be a good fit.
It IS supposed to be a two way street, after all…
@James: Writing to the CEO is anathema to some, but I’m with you. I’m convinced executive management and boards of directors are blissfully ignorant of their company’s HR practices, largely because they consider HR “yucky.” They don’t look closely enough at it. They don’t realize that, next to their sales force, HR has the biggest impact on a company’s success. Sales tends to the customer constituency. PR tends to the investor constituency. But it seems the professional community the company needs to recruit from gets short shrift. When job applicants have bad experiences with an employer, word quickly spreads, making it hard to attract the best candidates.
So I agree: Consider sending a polite, professional tip-off to the CEO.
Not too long ago, we had some kind of an “all hands” meeting and the frustration I have had is we have a lot of work coming in but we have not been allowed to hire without a very thorough justification. So I asked the question about when we can start hiring again. (My boss also appreciated me asking the question.). This executive pretty much answered a different question such that this individual did not have a clue. They do not know what is happening in our company. In another round, we have someone in charge of a large contract and often does not know what is going on in the program. That program has a lot of problems.
Both my manager and I enjoy people leadership as much as we do the technical side of our work. We want to care for our people. That said, it is also our job to get the information to higher levels so they understand what is going on at our level.
When first contacted, if by email ask them to email you direct if thru a job board box to get their true email address. Then when they do, have them give you their phone number for you to call at a mutually convenient time. Do not bother with zoom/video interviews. Ask to do an in-person interview. This weeds out a lot of chaff.
@Eddie, I think it’s always worth suggesting exactly that. If they don’t get it, you must ask yourself how they run their business.
I haven’t searched in a while, but when I did no matter “how well the interview went” or “how good the fit” I didn’t stop my search. You’ll hear back in a week meant another week of looking. Until you have an offer in hand, and if you do, you keep on working at it.
I’m a hiring manager currently starting some hiring. Here are some brutal truths. (1) If I reject someone for any reason I am not allowed to communicate that via company policy due to legalities (our high tech company as a lawyer for a CEO, but we were like this before). (2) If I am enthusiastic about hiring somebody I waste no time letting Talent Acquisition (not HR) know about my decision. (3) If you tell me you are applying and I think you are a good fit, I will let Talent Acquisition know that I want to see your resume. (4) Even if I think you are good, others at the company may not.
Let me give you an example: I hired two new people over a year ago that not everyone was keen on – one since left (and his job is with a company that is a household name, and chances are you have this company’s product in your pocket). The other person took longer to make productive but I am one of those managers who will not give up on a person. Program managers are now asking for this individual by name. That said, it is expected that I hire people who will hit the ground running. Program managers are very particular as to who gets to work on their projects although we hope we add a voice of reason.
Sadly at our location, people behave like it’s a high school. There are definite cliques, and you are either in or out. My boss is 100 miles away from me and we have an excellent working relationship. (We both love being engineering managers, and yes, we both get very frustrated at times, but that is part and parcel of what we do – we are there to care for our people and help them do their very best.).
We would do much better as a company if people would grow up (and yes, I have some growing up to do myself even though I turn 60 in a few days).
I can only respond to points 1 and 4.
1: I don’t think many people are asking for reasons why, but a simple yes/no is the bare minimum being done after taking up so much of a person’s time. When you get ghosted, you aren’t even getting that. Even the barest shred of decency isn’t being shown, which is immensely disrespectful. Obviously feedback would be good, and even something generic like ‘not meeting company culture’ is helpful.
4: Quite frankly, who cares what others think? If the manager I’d be working under wants me, who the hell cares what anyone else thinks? It’s the manager’s responsibility to vet those coming in, and their performance while there.
@David: This manager would agree with you:
https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/5391/hiring-manager-hr-is-the-problem-you-are-the-solution
/back in the 80’s (last job hunts except for passive), almost everyone I interviewed I never heard back from, although I do agree with 2, because sometimes they do eventually decide to hire you (admittedly I had already taken another job I just retired from), but would have taken the job if I was still looking. Some of the interviews did end with a clear rejection, and a couple with being hired. The more recent interviews had a much better response, with reasons for rejection coming from 2, and I did not give the recruiter a response to requested salary for the other since I knew it would much too high.
I am not on board with ignoring companies that ghost. If the specified time frame when they committed to a response passes, I will reach out and ask for an update. If I dont receive a response within about ten to fourteen days, I send an email asking them to kindly remove my resume from their data base for current or future positions stating that I fully believe responsive communication is a cornerstone of solid professional practices and if this is not something their company can offer, we would not be a good fit.Copying it to the CEO or other appropriate exec’s is worthwhile as well. Unfortunately one of the reason’s ghosting has become so pervasive is because there is so little pushback. I agree there should be an ‘open source’ that tracks companies, recruiters, etc. that ghost job candidates. We should always be looking for our next opportunity regardless of our employment status. Good Luck to All !
One time I came in to an interview three times (it was a local company). After the second they said they were highly interested and planned to move forward. After the third interview…..nothing. Weeks later I saw the HR person in the grocery store and before I could say hello a look of fear appeared in her face and she started walking away with her cart very fast. I later learned that company would not have been so great to work for anyway. So what was going on with the HR person? I am an adult – I can deal with rejection. My current position is much better than that one would have been.
Agreed, Lisa. Doing nothing as a ghosted candidate doesn’t correct anything. That’s one reason this bad behavior prevales.