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While that's all very understandable, at the very least give some kind of generic rejection. This was many years ago, but one time I did an all-day onsite inte

While that's all very understandable, at the very least give some kind of generic rejection. This was many years ago, but one time I did an all-day onsite interview (~6 hours long) and I was ghosted and never heard from the company again. That infuriates me even to this day. At least give me some kind of news that it was a no.

wgerard 7y ago
Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual. Sometimes they'll dangle candidates if they're waiting to hear whether their first choice accepts, but even then it's rare not to communicate at all once you've done an on-site.
- kstenerud 7y ago
  It happens a lot. Even Google ghosted me after an all-day onsite interview in Mountain View in 2015.
  - throw_7893456 7y ago
    Microsoft did the same to me, the same year. Product owner/manager position.
    - zcw100 7y ago
      Bloomberg did it to me. Even blocked my phone number. I figured that out when I changed my caller id. It was back in the day when VoIP was new and they didn't expect that someone could do that. It was worth hearing the panic on the voice when they realized who it was. The only reason I called was because they stiffed my the reimbursement for travel expenses which they had agreed to pay for. The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement.
      - reificator 7y ago
        > The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement. Clearly things went your way if you didn't get the job in that environment.
      - boring_twenties 7y ago
        Interesting, when I worked at Bloomberg we had a standard form letter for rejections that was sent every time. (Email) Funny story about that, I'd set up a macro to fire off said email with one keypress. Finishing up a phone screen that went horribly, I thanked him for his time and all the other niceties, and pressed the key right as I was about to hang up. "But wait! I have some questions for you, too!" Cue the longest 5 minutes of my life.
        NullPrefix 7y ago
        Couldn't you just say the same thing over the phone? Or do you need to keep the mask on during the call? As if the rejection is only possible in the next turn.
        boring_twenties 7y ago
        24-year-old me didn't create the process, I just followed it. Well except for the part about waiting until the call is really over ;) After reading some of the comments here about candidates who want to debate the interviewer's decision, it seems to make sense.
  - ticmasta 7y ago
    Indeed did this to me after I completed and presented a 2-day paid project. Ironically for a role with their new assessment acqui-hire company...
- avip 7y ago
  I did 2 remote coding interviews for aws, years apart, and was ghosted twice.
- RockIslandLine 7y ago
  "Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual." It's probably at least 50% of my interviews. Roughly 1/4 of my interviews have any kind of follow up at all. It doesn't hurt to tell people that someone else was hired. Closure is important to job seekers.
  - adamredwoods 7y ago
    My stats from my latest job hunt sprint are about 50% as well.
- nisse72 7y ago
  Aviat Networks flew me to Wellington for a whole day interview a few years ago. I was expected to prepare (in advance) a number of things including a technical presentation and detailed answers to a large number of questions, which took me several evenings and most of a weekend. I flew there on a monday for what was an exhausting full day of interviews before my return flight that evening. The recruiter phoned me the following day to say they were very impressed and would be making an offer, but there were some other people who wanted to meet me. So a few days later I took another day off work to fly down for a second round of meetings. At the end of this second day I was told that the senior manager was abroad and they would finalise the offer when he returned. I flew back home and waited a week or 10 days before emailing to hear how things were progressing. The recruiter responded "to recap, we are waiting for $manager to return before finalising the offer". That was about 7 years ago, and it was the last thing I heard from them. I get that employers can't be bothered responding to every CV that crosses their desk, but this was a demanding process that cost me several days effort and 2 days salary. Maybe they lied when they said they liked me, I have no idea and don't really care. But I certainly didn't expect to be ghosted after all that. A year or two later I had a new colleague who had been working there around the time of my interview, and I told him this story. His response? "You dodged a bullet".
jan_g 7y ago
Yeah, that's the worst. Going through 5+ interviews and then not getting any communication afterwards. Just send a simple 'No', is that so hard?
- adamredwoods 7y ago
  My thought is that they don't say "no" because they are waiting for their top pick to confirm or deny. When I did hiring, I had several top candidates take a different position, so I had to go to a second or even third choice.
- kbr2000 7y ago
  They don't see that as part of their job. On the short term that behaviour probably doesn't create problems for them. On the long term, they likely will be responding to job adverts themselves :) Anyway, no answer is sometimes preferable to some of the nonsensical standard doublespeak letters you might receive ("niet weerhouden..."). Respect is far to be found in these HR practices, in my experience. It usually reflects in the business who took them on board. Once you see through all these efforts to make people behave exactly like they want, I doubt there will be much workplaces left considering.
kova12 7y ago
But the company too spent at least 6 man/hours to interviewing you. Whatever reason they had to not call you back, they didn't come out of it unscathed, interviewing someone is not cheap.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  likely far more than 6 hours, probably more like 50+ with all the people and tasks involved. But they also cost this as part of their model - I don't think it's fair for individuals to eat the cost of the hiring process dictated by prospective employers; that's why in-demand candidates won't put up with their nonsense.
- lostapathy 7y ago
  That in no way absolves them of the responsibility to treat you like a human and give you a simple "no thanks." This attitude it toxic and feels like you're looking to turn an interview into a lose-lose situation. It doesn't have to be.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    I feel like people have forgotten the golden rule... everything has become transactional.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      Even if it is transactional it still makes sense. People talk and if a company gets a bad reputation it will be harder for them to recruit and retain which translates into a cash cost.
- ElFitz 7y ago
  Sure, but they moved on, have stopped wasting their time and missing opportunities. You, on the other hand, are quite possibly still thinking about it every day, and turning down or delaying (and missing) other offers.
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
This happened to me with RedHat. They were my first choice, so being ghosted by them delayed my job search by several weeks. It was a serious problem for me.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  I fail to see why. (Shouldn’t stop looking around, ever.)
  - MereInterest 7y ago
    You interview at two companies. Your first choice rejects you. Your second choice says yes immediately, then gives you time to decide. If the first company rejects you and tells you so, you can immediately accept the second choice. If the first company rejects you and ghosts you, you instead wait a month hoping the first company will get back to you, then accept the second choice. If you are willing to completely burn bridges, you could accept the second choice, with the intention of immediately leaving should you hear back from the first choice. While possible, I'd have some qualms about doing so.
    - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
      Exactly this.
    - kazinator 7y ago
      It's very simple. Contact the first choice, ABC, and tell them "Looks like things may be moving forward with XYZ. I have a preference for ABC, but we have fallen out of touch. If I don't hear from ABC in the next day or two, I will likely be signing with XYZ." Be specific with the details, to make it clear there is no bluff. (If they are so inclined, they could call XYZ and confirm everything you said.) And if they don't respond, then go through with XYZ. Anyway, unless the first versus second choice thing is about something concrete like compensation/benefits, or work location, a lot of it is just in your head; you have not actually worked at either place.
beezle 7y ago
This is a societal problem and not just employer/jobseeker. "Friends" and aquaintances do it now. Vendors/contractors/trades people do it. Only a matter of time before our pets ghost us too.
- milesvp 7y ago
  Have you ever owned a cat? Growing up, my family consistently was adopted by neighborhood cats. It was bad enough that owners would knock on our door and ask us to not be so nice to their pets so they'd come home.
- adamredwoods 7y ago
  With all the means to communicate with one another, are we getting better or worse at it?
  - conductr 7y ago
    All the means reinforce impersonal interaction
awinder 7y ago
The asymmetry is actually pretty funny if you think about what happens when a candidate declines an offer or ghosts a company. If you ghost, they’re likely going to continue to contact over multiple channels. Because they want an answer so that they can take next steps. Same as a candidate. If you say thanks but no thanks, they’re going to want to know why, is there anything they could have done differently, or try to convince you that you have it wrong. There’s basic human reasons for these very common reactions, we just put a construct in front of one of those groups and tried to explain it away as being acceptable.
- Jagat 7y ago
  Yeah, but it's not likely they're going to sue you regardless of what reason you give for not accepting their offer. There's asymmetry from the other side too.
  - zymhan 7y ago
    Can people just drop "fear of being sued" as a catch-all reason for any behavior? It is incredibly expensive and time consuming to file a lawsuit. The average person doesn't go around suing other folks regularly.
    - Jagat 7y ago
      Filing a lawsuit can be quite profitable for the lawyers involved. What's preventing someone from trying to extract $3M in settlement money from a rich company that doesn't want its reputation tarnished in a long running discrimination lawsuit? And $3M is a lot of money that lawyers would eagerly represent someone that has an evidence of discrimination.
      - awinder 7y ago
        The time it would take out of your life (just because you hire lawyers doesn’t mean you’re spending no time on the lawsuit). And once you file that lawsuit it’s going to become public record that you sued a company you interviewed for, so there’s a lot of downside risk for the rest of your career. I understand the fear but I don’t think there’s realistically a lot of downside risk for employers to responsibly share some feedback. And certainly there’s no legal risk to just letting candidates know they went in a different direction.
r_c_a_d 7y ago
A similar thing happened to me too; it was a 3 hour onsite. No news at all... until about 2 weeks later I got an automated request from the agent asking me to fill in a feedback form on how they did. I had fun filling in that form!

wgerard 7y ago

Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual. Sometimes they'll dangle candidates if they're waiting to hear whether their first choice accepts, but even then it's rare not to communicate at all once you've done an on-site.

kstenerud 7y ago
It happens a lot. Even Google ghosted me after an all-day onsite interview in Mountain View in 2015.
- throw_7893456 7y ago
  Microsoft did the same to me, the same year. Product owner/manager position.
  - zcw100 7y ago
    Bloomberg did it to me. Even blocked my phone number. I figured that out when I changed my caller id. It was back in the day when VoIP was new and they didn't expect that someone could do that. It was worth hearing the panic on the voice when they realized who it was. The only reason I called was because they stiffed my the reimbursement for travel expenses which they had agreed to pay for. The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement.
    - reificator 7y ago
      > The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement. Clearly things went your way if you didn't get the job in that environment.
    - boring_twenties 7y ago
      Interesting, when I worked at Bloomberg we had a standard form letter for rejections that was sent every time. (Email) Funny story about that, I'd set up a macro to fire off said email with one keypress. Finishing up a phone screen that went horribly, I thanked him for his time and all the other niceties, and pressed the key right as I was about to hang up. "But wait! I have some questions for you, too!" Cue the longest 5 minutes of my life.
      - NullPrefix 7y ago
        Couldn't you just say the same thing over the phone? Or do you need to keep the mask on during the call? As if the rejection is only possible in the next turn.
        boring_twenties 7y ago
        24-year-old me didn't create the process, I just followed it. Well except for the part about waiting until the call is really over ;) After reading some of the comments here about candidates who want to debate the interviewer's decision, it seems to make sense.
- ticmasta 7y ago
  Indeed did this to me after I completed and presented a 2-day paid project. Ironically for a role with their new assessment acqui-hire company...
avip 7y ago
I did 2 remote coding interviews for aws, years apart, and was ghosted twice.
RockIslandLine 7y ago
"Not too many places will straight up ghost candidates that have done on-sites, that's pretty unusual." It's probably at least 50% of my interviews. Roughly 1/4 of my interviews have any kind of follow up at all. It doesn't hurt to tell people that someone else was hired. Closure is important to job seekers.
- adamredwoods 7y ago
  My stats from my latest job hunt sprint are about 50% as well.
nisse72 7y ago
Aviat Networks flew me to Wellington for a whole day interview a few years ago. I was expected to prepare (in advance) a number of things including a technical presentation and detailed answers to a large number of questions, which took me several evenings and most of a weekend. I flew there on a monday for what was an exhausting full day of interviews before my return flight that evening. The recruiter phoned me the following day to say they were very impressed and would be making an offer, but there were some other people who wanted to meet me. So a few days later I took another day off work to fly down for a second round of meetings. At the end of this second day I was told that the senior manager was abroad and they would finalise the offer when he returned. I flew back home and waited a week or 10 days before emailing to hear how things were progressing. The recruiter responded "to recap, we are waiting for $manager to return before finalising the offer". That was about 7 years ago, and it was the last thing I heard from them. I get that employers can't be bothered responding to every CV that crosses their desk, but this was a demanding process that cost me several days effort and 2 days salary. Maybe they lied when they said they liked me, I have no idea and don't really care. But I certainly didn't expect to be ghosted after all that. A year or two later I had a new colleague who had been working there around the time of my interview, and I told him this story. His response? "You dodged a bullet".

jan_g 7y ago

Yeah, that's the worst. Going through 5+ interviews and then not getting any communication afterwards. Just send a simple 'No', is that so hard?

adamredwoods 7y ago
My thought is that they don't say "no" because they are waiting for their top pick to confirm or deny. When I did hiring, I had several top candidates take a different position, so I had to go to a second or even third choice.
kbr2000 7y ago
They don't see that as part of their job. On the short term that behaviour probably doesn't create problems for them. On the long term, they likely will be responding to job adverts themselves :) Anyway, no answer is sometimes preferable to some of the nonsensical standard doublespeak letters you might receive ("niet weerhouden..."). Respect is far to be found in these HR practices, in my experience. It usually reflects in the business who took them on board. Once you see through all these efforts to make people behave exactly like they want, I doubt there will be much workplaces left considering.

kova12 7y ago

But the company too spent at least 6 man/hours to interviewing you. Whatever reason they had to not call you back, they didn't come out of it unscathed, interviewing someone is not cheap.

ticmasta 7y ago
likely far more than 6 hours, probably more like 50+ with all the people and tasks involved. But they also cost this as part of their model - I don't think it's fair for individuals to eat the cost of the hiring process dictated by prospective employers; that's why in-demand candidates won't put up with their nonsense.
lostapathy 7y ago
That in no way absolves them of the responsibility to treat you like a human and give you a simple "no thanks." This attitude it toxic and feels like you're looking to turn an interview into a lose-lose situation. It doesn't have to be.
- sjg007 7y ago
  I feel like people have forgotten the golden rule... everything has become transactional.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Even if it is transactional it still makes sense. People talk and if a company gets a bad reputation it will be harder for them to recruit and retain which translates into a cash cost.
ElFitz 7y ago
Sure, but they moved on, have stopped wasting their time and missing opportunities. You, on the other hand, are quite possibly still thinking about it every day, and turning down or delaying (and missing) other offers.

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago

This happened to me with RedHat. They were my first choice, so being ghosted by them delayed my job search by several weeks. It was a serious problem for me.

Koshkin 7y ago
I fail to see why. (Shouldn’t stop looking around, ever.)
- MereInterest 7y ago
  You interview at two companies. Your first choice rejects you. Your second choice says yes immediately, then gives you time to decide. If the first company rejects you and tells you so, you can immediately accept the second choice. If the first company rejects you and ghosts you, you instead wait a month hoping the first company will get back to you, then accept the second choice. If you are willing to completely burn bridges, you could accept the second choice, with the intention of immediately leaving should you hear back from the first choice. While possible, I'd have some qualms about doing so.
  - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
    Exactly this.
  - kazinator 7y ago
    It's very simple. Contact the first choice, ABC, and tell them "Looks like things may be moving forward with XYZ. I have a preference for ABC, but we have fallen out of touch. If I don't hear from ABC in the next day or two, I will likely be signing with XYZ." Be specific with the details, to make it clear there is no bluff. (If they are so inclined, they could call XYZ and confirm everything you said.) And if they don't respond, then go through with XYZ. Anyway, unless the first versus second choice thing is about something concrete like compensation/benefits, or work location, a lot of it is just in your head; you have not actually worked at either place.

beezle 7y ago

This is a societal problem and not just employer/jobseeker. "Friends" and aquaintances do it now. Vendors/contractors/trades people do it. Only a matter of time before our pets ghost us too.

milesvp 7y ago
Have you ever owned a cat? Growing up, my family consistently was adopted by neighborhood cats. It was bad enough that owners would knock on our door and ask us to not be so nice to their pets so they'd come home.
adamredwoods 7y ago
With all the means to communicate with one another, are we getting better or worse at it?
- conductr 7y ago
  All the means reinforce impersonal interaction

awinder 7y ago

The asymmetry is actually pretty funny if you think about what happens when a candidate declines an offer or ghosts a company. If you ghost, they’re likely going to continue to contact over multiple channels. Because they want an answer so that they can take next steps. Same as a candidate. If you say thanks but no thanks, they’re going to want to know why, is there anything they could have done differently, or try to convince you that you have it wrong. There’s basic human reasons for these very common reactions, we just put a construct in front of one of those groups and tried to explain it away as being acceptable.

Jagat 7y ago
Yeah, but it's not likely they're going to sue you regardless of what reason you give for not accepting their offer. There's asymmetry from the other side too.
- zymhan 7y ago
  Can people just drop "fear of being sued" as a catch-all reason for any behavior? It is incredibly expensive and time consuming to file a lawsuit. The average person doesn't go around suing other folks regularly.
  - Jagat 7y ago
    Filing a lawsuit can be quite profitable for the lawyers involved. What's preventing someone from trying to extract $3M in settlement money from a rich company that doesn't want its reputation tarnished in a long running discrimination lawsuit? And $3M is a lot of money that lawyers would eagerly represent someone that has an evidence of discrimination.
    - awinder 7y ago
      The time it would take out of your life (just because you hire lawyers doesn’t mean you’re spending no time on the lawsuit). And once you file that lawsuit it’s going to become public record that you sued a company you interviewed for, so there’s a lot of downside risk for the rest of your career. I understand the fear but I don’t think there’s realistically a lot of downside risk for employers to responsibly share some feedback. And certainly there’s no legal risk to just letting candidates know they went in a different direction.

r_c_a_d 7y ago

A similar thing happened to me too; it was a 3 hour onsite. No news at all... until about 2 weeks later I got an automated request from the agent asking me to fill in a feedback form on how they did. I had fun filling in that form!