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Tip to shiny new CEOs: Ghosting a job candidate is not only grossly unprofessional, it's extremely rude at a personal level. The candidate went to all the trou
by pjlegato 10y ago
Tip to shiny new CEOs: Ghosting a job candidate is not only grossly unprofessional, it's extremely rude at a personal level.
The candidate went to all the trouble of engaging with you; you owe them (at the very least) a timely and professional rejection email if you don't want to proceed.
Yes, a rejection letter, because that's what you're doing -- rejecting them. Ghosting is still a rejection; it's just a rude rejection. There is no way to candy coat that, and you shouldn't try. Grow a spine, and write that rejection letter in the kindest way you can.
- rhizome 10y agoLinkedIn and Apple both ghosted me, it's not just new CEOs.
- busterarm 10y agoWith Apple at least it depends on the group. I've been ghosted by one department and actively sought after with months-later followups from others. I can imagine it's likely the manager had someone in mind for the position but the company's policy required a posting. And there's always H1-B requirements to fill...
- pjlegato 10y agoMaybe I should've written, "shiny new managers".
- kafkaesq 10y agoAh, but it's the CEO (or at least someone at the director of engineering level) who sets the tone, and sets priorities and guidelines for their underlings to follow. So when you get ghosted, it's not the engineers who fizz-buzzed you who "did" it... and it's certainly not the office manager (and/or "talent specialist") who's doing it. As with everything else a company does, "message"-wise -- it's coming from the top.
- cyorir 10y agoI was ghosted by Google.
- Tempest1981 10y agoIf their recruiters are contractors, it's possible the recruiter quit/left, and didn't transfer their list of candidates to a new recruiter. Recruiting seems like a high turnover job. It's still bad, but possibly not intentional.
- bsbechtel 10y agoI was actually told by one company I worked for previously to not respond to candidates I interviewed. Needless to say I'm not working for them anymore.
- deedubaya 10y agoAs someone who has hired, I have Ghosted candidates to my everlasting shame. It's _a lot_ to keep track of and fire off emails to non-good candidates. Especially if you're having applicants apply to jobs@example.com. Software can solve this problem....
- Benjammer 10y agoSurely anyone for whom one takes the effort to reach out to for a phone screen can be sent an email, no? I don't understand how that's hard to keep track of. Even using pencil and paper. A generic, form-email consisting of It was great to meet you, and we appreciate your interest in <COMPANY, INC>. Unfortunately, we've decided not to move forward with you in our <JOB> candidate process. Thanks, <EMPLOYER> would still be better than ghosting...
- deedubaya 10y agoYeah, you'd think. But when you get hundreds of emails, along with other day-to-day tasks to keep on top of... it's easy to let fall by the wayside.
- inimino 10y agoDisciplined use of an Excel spreadsheet can solve this problem.
- brbsix 10y agoSometimes in dating, it seems that giving an explicit rejection early on can open yourself up to further undesired communication and wasted time/energy (i.e. rather than accept it and move on, they take it as an opportunity to engage further). I wonder if the same sort of thing happens in the job market? Perhaps this is the rationale (a subconscious one even) behind some of this "ghosting"?
- user5994461 10y agoDating and job hunting work the same.
- endur 10y agoI was taken out to dinner and drinks, referred to as a new hire, and then ghosted. I had been interviewing for a while so it was fairly painful.