Ghosting… a term which is becoming increasingly used in modern day recruitment.
You are currently on a job hunt and wanting to commence the next step of your career. You’ve just applied for a job; the job description is ideal for your current situation. They’ve asked you for an interview – GREAT! You prepare yourself for several days covering all ground on the questions you might be asked. You may even practice an interview with a friend or family member. At this point, you’re so focused on getting this job that you’ve completely dropped your job hunt and you dedicate 100% of your time making sure you land this one.
You attend the interview, get on really well with the interviewer. You leave the interview in high hopes. One week has passed, you’ve checked your emails every day, you even check your junk mail every day. Two weeks have passed, you decide to call into the office – the interviewer isn’t available! At this point, you’re not even mad you didn’t get the job, you just want to get feedback on what you did wrong or what you could do better. What could you do better next time? How can you get this feedback? Being ghosted after interview can be the worst.
Now, let’s flip the scenario. You’re an employer, you’ve just interviewed the PERFECT candidate and you’re spending a lot of your time getting the pieces together for this applicant to start as soon as possible. You ask them for the correct right-to-work documents so they can finally start work – they don’t answer your phone call, so you leave a message and hope they call back. Three days have passed, and you still haven’t heard back.
You’ve already sent two emails, but you don’t want to send a third and scare them away. It has now been three weeks and you still haven’t heard back. You’ve found someone else to fill the role but you’re kicking yourself as the perfect candidate was right there before you!! What did you do wrong? Why did this person ignore you?
Ghosting is happening to everyone in a recruitment relationship, why is everyone doing it? Is there a way we can stop it?
A survey of 1,000 UK employees, all of whom had been job hunting in the last 18 months, found that a whopping 76% of applicants admit to have ghosted a prospective or current employer, while 56% of them claimed to have been ghosted by the employer after interview.
The same survey also states that the most common reason cited for employee ghosting was a negative first impression of the employer, with 25% reporting that this had led them to ghost a potential or current employer. 24% said that the main reason they had ghosted was because of an inaccurate job description, while the same percentage said that a lower salary than advertised had prompted them to ignore the employer. Other reasons included: Receiving a more attractive job offer (22%); a company’s bad reputation (19%); and concerns about company culture (20%).
Claire McCartney, senior resourcing and inclusion adviser at the CIPD, said to keep candidates engaged during recruitment, employers need to demonstrate they are following a fair and inclusive process.
“Employers should not wait to start the onboarding process on a new starter’s first day. Instead, they should be providing information about the role and wider organisation beforehand” she added. “Their new line manager should be in touch on an informal basis and make it clear they are happy to answer any questions.”
So, why are employers ghosting job applicants? This article suggests that it’s due to the new, digital recruitment processes – making it hard for employers to respond to every job applicant as they get hundreds of applicants at times. Yuletta Pringle, of the Society for Human Resource Management, based in Virginia, US, says, “Labour shortages have left employers pinched and desperate to hire, meaning they have to push out a ton of feelers online and may not be able to respond to everyone”. I think it’s justified to say that many applicants are being ghosted purely due to the ease it is for employers to ghost them. But is this fair?
There can be ways we can fix the ‘ghosting pandemic’, to ensure that all parties remain happy in the recruitment relationship. A Forbes article explains several ways an applicant can avoid ghosting: ask for a timeline at the end of your interview; follow-up with a call or email after the interview; reach out to someone else in the organisation; don’t focus on one job; leave honest and polite feedback. In summary, applicants should approach an interview with a structured plan on ensuring they get the feedback they desire – successful or unsuccessful – and most importantly, avoid ghosting!
An interviewee needs to end the interview asking when the employer intends on getting back in touch with them, while also providing the interviewer with feedback on how their experience was. After the interview, don’t be scared to be the first person getting back in touch, and if you still can’t get through to them – ask someone else in the organisation (someone else can sometimes be more helpful!). And remember, don’t focus purely on one job! Having multiple options can be your greatest tool when job-hunting.
On the flip side, ways that an employer can avoid being ghosted include: being transparent with candidates; asking candidates to be honest; develop a tailored and personal relationship (reduce spam); create a welcoming atmosphere; make the recruitment process more efficient to avoid wasted time. In essence, what this means is that employers should focus purely on having an open attitude to recruitment, where they focus thoroughly on promoting a trusting relationship through honesty, professionalism and a positive approach when bringing on new members of staff. Your attitude towards the candidate can often result in the same actions being reciprocated by them.
While these may be things you have actively done – but to no avail – we believe that Rekkruut can help you in other ways to avoid being ghosted. Our app is looking at implementing specific tools to reduce the likeliness of all users being ignored.
For example, our technology will generate an automatic pop-up for both participants after a video call interview has taken place (asking for several comments on the experience from both the interviewer and interviewee). We believe that by doing this, it will help each participant understand how the other felt upon finishing the interview – in a less pressured setting.
We also promote a trusting, more personalised relationship through reducing spam emails and cold calling. We will facilitate all communication on our app, so agencies cannot contact jobseekers outside of the platform. This means that the only way for communicating is through instant messaging and video calling.
This helps promote a more personal experience, through allowing users to interact with each other through a more social method – alternative to leaving voicemails or emailing. We also promote this personalisation through profile creation, allowing users to get a more in-depth understanding of one another. Through creating a more personal experience, we know that this can help avoid ghosting.
Not only does our instant messaging service promote a tailored relationship, but it also increases efficiency – which helps avoid time wasted by both interviewer and interviewee (mitigating the negative impact of ghosting). Instant messaging is a faster alternative to emailing or calling in to a busy office, and thus increasing the speed and ease for users to provide feedback.
While we understand that users may still decide to ghost, it certainly makes it easier for an employer, recruiter or jobseeker to move on to the next potential opportunity faster. This means it’s also easier for applicants to look at multiple jobs at once, and for employers to look at multiple candidates at once – avoiding the “all your eggs in one basket” scenario.
Ghosting is just a hurdle to achieving your career goals, and Rekkruut will be helping hand over the hurdle that can help you get to the finish line first. Ghosting will be a thing of the past!
We make recruitment easy. We make recruitment fast. We are Rekkruut.
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