Ghosting Candidates
Are you familiar with the term ghosting? This term originated in the dating scene when an individual would cease communication with the person they were seeing. There is typically no reason given and attempts to communicate, whether by phone, text, chat, or email are ignored.
Ghosting has now entered the recruiting world. Many companies have complained about candidates ghosting them, which is a real and occurring phenomenon, but we’ve also seen an increase in companies ghosting candidates. This practice is harmful and can backfire. Imagine you’ve spent countless hours applying, studying, and interviewing with a company. You’re excited about the prospect of potentially being hired and anxiously await hearing back from the recruiter. You’ve been told a decision would be made by the end of the week. You send your thank you and follow up email and Friday comes and goes. You reach out on Monday, one more time on Wednesday, and by the next Friday, you’ve heard nothing and are livid. That scenario happened to me, and it’s happened more than once.
Rather than thanking the candidate and informing them that, unfortunately, they weren’t selected, the recruiter remained radio silent. By allowing recruiters to ghost candidates, companies are seeing the following happen:
Increase of negative reviews on sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, etc. Are you wondering why you’re suddenly receiving low marks on company review sites? Take the time to sift through the comments. Candidates who have been ghosted aren’t shy about taking to these sites and describing in detail how they’ve been treated. They feel mistreated and do not want others to have the same experience so they’ll warn them away from applying to your jobs.
Lack of interest in new job postings. If you’ve received increased negative reviews, there’s the likelihood that you’ll also see a lack of interest for new job postings. Candidates are hesitant to spend time applying for a job with a company who will not communicate effectively with them. Rather than deal with the lack of communication, candidates will avoid these job postings and move on to other companies who have better reviews and candidate experiences.
Difficulty in reaching out to previous candidates for similar job postings. Should your selected candidate drop out or ghost you, the logical step would be to reach out to the next best candidate. The next best candidate is the one who almost made the cut. You would like to extend them a job offer, rather than start the recruiting process all over again. However, the candidate no longer wants to work for you.
It’s imperative that companies reinforce to their recruiters the importance of follow up communication. Many applicant tracking systems (ATS) can send these messages on behalf of the recruiter/company. It is a simple, no-cost task that will improve the experience candidates have with your company.
