12 ms·

Did they ghost you?

484 points by mooreds 3mo ago

jagged-chisel 3mo ago
“Yes”
- jedimastert 3mo ago
  Yeah I thought it was gonna be a static page
nekusar 3mo ago
The real answer is that many jobbads are fraudulent. And fraudulent job ads should be handled the same way a fraudulent advertisement for a good is handled: you either make good and prove hiring, or you're tried for felony fraud.
- rzzzt 3mo ago
  What is your proposed time limit (when someone has to be hired to fill the position) and "cooldown period" (when hiring can re-open after someone does not meet expectations in practice)?
  - orphereus 3mo ago
    What does this have to do with the original comment?
  - ryandrake 3mo ago
    It's obviously a difficult problem to write rules around, and there are so many ways for companies to weasel out of any rule you write. The general principle is that you should not advertise a job if you don't actually intend to fill it. But you should also not do it if you have some "theoretical job" you can create and are just fishing for candidates. Any rules I write down here will have trivial ways to work around them though.
    - rzzzt 3mo ago
      But this is an issue with all legislation (or tabletop game design), right? You also don't want to fall on the opposite end of the scale where the people tasked with prosecuting these violations are allowed to go just by feel.
      - harimau777 3mo ago
        At this point I'd be completely fine with just going by feel. It would be better than what we have now.
    - nekusar 3mo ago
      > It's obviously a difficult problem to write rules around Bull-fucking-shit Companies claim all the time that "if you give us a 10 year abatement we will bring X jobs to the area" Well, time to quantify that, asshole. We pay for it. And if you can't, I want C level blood. Id be OK with 100% of all taxes, with a 30% yearly interest, payable, to prevent jailing of the whole C level board.
- derektank 3mo ago
  What do you mean by “make good” and “prove hiring” operationally? Say for example, a company posts 10 job openings, fills 9 of them, but for the tenth, they don’t receive good candidates initially, the hiring manager has to go back to their leadership and negotiate a higher salary for the position, it goes through HR, they update the PD, they do a round of interviews with two good candidates, but then the hiring manager has a death in the family and takes leave, one candidate accepts a different position in that time, and then when presented with the offer, the second candidate backs out because they were expecting a salary at the higher end of the range in the PD despite having limited experience, then after 6 months and the team prepping for another interview round, the financial situation has changed and executive leadership freezes all hiring indefinitely and the job gets taken down. Has the company made good in this case? If not, and this was an example of fraud, what is the mechanism for detecting it as such? Are there law enforcement officers actively scrubbing for possible violations? How much does that cost? Is it worth pulling a prosecuting attorney from a civil rights lawsuit over? Or, if the company has made good, what compliance could a company do to prove that they haven’t committed fraud? How many man hours do we expect the company to spend on that compliance? I don’t ask these questions just to poke holes, I think there would be a lot of benefits to the job market for both employers and employees if everyone applying to a job could be confident that the position was open. But I am skeptical that anyone has done a serious cost benefit analysis to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze.
  - wombatpm 3mo ago
    Then should be a paper trail of the position, and a final decision by a person to not fill the position. I feel that as part of unemployment insurance all job postings should tie back to a canonical job position registered with the state with mandatory reporting of applications received,number of interviews conducted,date hired or date position withdrawn, and final dispensation: external hire, internal hire, contract hire, or position withdrawn. If HR isn’t bullshitting everyone, they should have that data. State agencies and nonprofits already tract the information.
    - derektank 3mo ago
      As far as it goes, I think that alone is a fairly reasonable ask (though a heavier touch than I personally would feel comfortable legislating without serious consideration). But I’m not sure it really solves the problem if all you need to do is have someone sign off and say, hey, we didn’t find any good candidates. It seems susceptible to pencil whipping. So, what’s the next step. What is the trigger for prosecution? Where’s the line drawn between a fraudulent job posting and the merely poorly managed? Or, if they’re the same, what’s the definition? Are there a minimum number of interviews that need to be conducted each week?
jasonjmcghee 3mo ago
Based on the strange emoji use in place of some buttons, I'm guessing this is vibe coded- and a lot of this is really nice looking front end - great color, topography, border styles... Would be interested to know how much intervention there was or if this is where we are
- ls-a 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - malfist 3mo ago
    Clearly, they care
    - ls-a 3mo ago
      [flagged]
  - speerer 3mo ago
    He's responding _positively_ to the design and querying if this is accessible to everyone.
- yallpendantools 3mo ago
  Is https://didtheyghostyou.com/companies/robert-half https://didtheyghostyou.com/companies/robert-half an artifact of vibe coding you think? Robert Half is apparently an HR consulting firm but in TFA it links to a very sus `https://www.google.com/aclk https://www.google.com/aclk`. What an oversight given the assurances that submissions are reviewed and moderated. Or is Google outsourcing HiRing to Robert Half now?
  - kotaKat 3mo ago
    ... and Robert Half is like a massive temp staffing firm on top of that (I've seen them working call center contracted remote support gigs before), so there's certain scales of companies being involved in 'ghosting' candidates from both top-level positions and super low-level positions, so...
orphereus 3mo ago
My anegdotal experience in EU is that ghosting AFTER the company responds to your application is very, very rare. I would always get the usual "Unfortunately, we have decided..." charades. At least no ghosting. I can think of only one situation, and it was kinda peculiar in its own right (they called me 8 months after my application because they were in a jam and I said I won't be able to start in such a short notice they wanted, and they warned me in advance they would ghost me because the HR was I presume in a crunch). As for the ghostings BEFORE they even respond to the job application, I'd say that it is around 40% of job applications that I never get a response after "We have received your job application yada yada yada". Again, this is just my anegdotal experience. Maybe my experience in EU job market is a rarity.
- throw-the-towel 3mo ago
  My experience in France was that almost everyone ghosts you, including after three rounds of interviews.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    It's probably because they don't want to be liable for giving a reason.
    - danek_szy 3mo ago
      Well, then they might just respond: Thank you, but no thank you… No liability, but at least they wouldn’t leave the person hanging…
    - OptionOfT 3mo ago
      Which should be illegal. You should be able to formulate why you prefer someone. And it would prevent companies from ghosting people.
      - matchbok3 3mo ago
        Making this "illegal" does not solve the problem at all. People really need to stop providing this knee jerk outlawing reaction to things they don't like. I assume you'd also make it illegal for a person to turn down a company without a reason, right? How about we make that 6 months in prison.
thousand_nights 3mo ago
for a moment i thought this was a commentary about my relationships
arcade79 3mo ago
Anecdotal, I know, but I was ghosted by Google back in 2004-2005 or thereabouts. Back and forth with a recruiter, who promised me that she would book phone screens. Then heard nothing. Pinged her repeatedly. Nothing. A few years later got another Google recruiter after me. Ended up getting hired in 2008. Looked up the previous recruiter. Her last day at the company was the day she promised she would book phone screens, or the day after (can't remember exactly, this is quite a few years ago). I can only assume she was suddenly let go. Ever since, I keep wondering how many ghostings happen because the person holding the strings disappears for some reason, and there's a lack of system to follow up on that.
- com2kid 3mo ago
  > Ever since, I keep wondering how many ghostings happen because the person holding the strings disappears for some reason, and there's a lack of system to follow up on that. This has happened to be more than once. At various points in time Microsoft has used external vendors for its recruiting/hiring pipeline (which, IMHO, is a bad idea, you want people with a vested interest in the company doing all of the recruiting and hiring...). So yeah, working with a recruiter, wait awhile, nothing, message "oh sorry she left, but the company wants to go forward." Ugh. It wasn't any better when I was a hiring manager at Microsoft trying to hire people. :( Flip side of this is I stopped giving honest feedback after I interviewed a candidate who, on paper, was a stretch for the role. They generally interviewed well but had obvious gaps in their knowledge from being self taught. At the end of the interview they asked me if I had any recommendations for what they could study up on, I emailed some suggested reading (popular tech blogs, probably something by Petzold as well) and got an angry letter back accusing me of being sexist and some other stuff.
  - jimnotgym 3mo ago
    >which, IMHO, is a bad idea, you want people with a vested interest in the company doing all of the recruiting and hiring For engineers at a large software company perhaps. But if you were a distribution company that hires one developer per year, then it is hard to maintain the network required to get good candidates
- deleted 3mo ago
mathisfun123 3mo ago
this is pointless because different teams/different recruiters within the same company operate differently (surprise surprise humans are different).
zem 3mo ago
wonder if this would count as sousveillance [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance]
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
rubylimetea 3mo ago
Is ghosting really such a big deal? Wait until you get an overly smug rejection letter that the author seemed too eager to write, and took too much joy in writing. Some people love to reject, and would never miss an opportunity. Another angle is - If you've been ghosted, you still have not been told no. That means there's no record of you ever getting denied for the position. (and maybe you really haven't been) It's kinda better IMO
- cableshaft 3mo ago
  You could be waiting to hear back from one company before telling another company that may have extended an offer yes or no, and it can take a while before you determine if you're ghosted or if they're just busy and haven't made a decision yet.
  - tayo42 3mo ago
    Just send a follow up email after a few days asking for a timeline.
    - cableshaft 3mo ago
      I have done exactly that before with a company, but they hadn't ghosted me. But this is about them ghosting you. So presumably even if you ask them this they don't get back to you, otherwise they're not ghosting you.
  - SoftTalker 3mo ago
    An offer extended is better than an offer you're just hoping might come. Act on what's real.
- dofm 3mo ago
  This is to some extent a generational thing, but yes. It’s rude. If you’re not ready to politely reject numerous candidates, don’t interview them. If you get a shitty rejection letter, you should see it as a lucky escape. A rejection burns both your bridge and theirs. If it’s especially shitty, there is nothing stopping you publishing it as a signal to others that a recruiter or employer is wasting people's time. Especially if you just did a coding exercise that looks suspiciously like code they might put a value on.
strathmeyer 3mo ago
[dead]
lacunary 3mo ago
this is cool but the leaderboard is just going to converge on large companies unless it's normalized somehow
lulzury 3mo ago
I think companies that don’t even acknowledge your application also need to be in this list. Most companies ghost at the application level.
SilverElfin 3mo ago
We need this for employees too. There are many who don’t act ethically when interviewing for a job.
- nullorempty 3mo ago
  Is it already provided by the background check companies?
SystemOut 3mo ago
I think that there should be a feature of "they turned me down/declined" and have an option for whether or not they gave you useful feedback. We should also reward and encourage positive behavior by companies.
sscaryterry 3mo ago
In my personal experience, order of dodginess :) 1. Recruiter 2. Second-hand car salesman 3. Realtor 4. Mechanics 5. Lawyers
- mr_toad 3mo ago
  We’re gonna need a bigger wall.
tamimio 3mo ago
> Provide a factual account without names, What that even means? What’s a “factual account”?! The story/events? The account you used to apply? Or what That being said, ghosting and generic rejections are alike, usually when you don’t hear from a company within a week (or within the time you ask them when you would hear back), you know they went with someone else, going back at you after that time is a major redflag, either they are chaotic, or the other candidate ditched them in the negotiations because they don’t know how to negotiate and are looking for bargain not a skillsets. Also, I think instead of the company only, the recruiter/HR name should be there plus the company, public shaming is needed for those individuals, maybe other recruiters are good on following up, which is not fair for the good ones while the bad ones are hidden.
pluc 3mo ago
https://ghostjobs.net/ https://ghostjobs.net/ https://ghostjobs.io/ https://ghostjobs.io/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43853401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43853401)
ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago
Those are quite small sample sizes. I assume that this is supposed to grow? In my experience, I was usually ghosted (sometimes, rather brutally). In a couple of instances, I was able to get the companies to confirm that I was toast, but only after I bugged them.
- throw-the-towel 3mo ago
  Did follow ups ever help anyone get a job?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago
    Hard to tell, really. I doubt it would have made a difference, in my case. But treating people with respect and dignity -that’s something that helps the company (not necessarily the applicant).
  - reactordev 3mo ago
    Sometimes it can help articulate your stance after the fact. I’ve used it to thank the panel and to clarify a few of my answers so they had something to research. I have also used it to pull the emergency escape hatch and thank them for their time.
- cookiengineer 3mo ago
  > but only after I bugged them working as a Redteamer/Purpleteamer, I read this as you physically planting a (listening) bug in the HR office to get that info :D
- johnnyanmac 3mo ago
  I always follow up because it's honestly how I got my 2nd job. I got a generic recruiter response and did your normal call. Then nothing. Followed up in a few weeks and it was clear they simply forgot to report back to the team. Then they scheduled me for a call with my future lead. On the other hand, it's hard to forget when I went 5 stages into an interview, then did 3 follow ups: 3 days later, a week after that, then 2 weeks after that. I got a response each time pretty quickly saying "yeah, your're still in consideration", and then nothing. Not even a generic rejection. I just cut my losses because if they can give weekly interviews for a month but need more than a month to consider me, it's not happening.
bogwog 3mo ago
This would probably be more effective (and controversial) if the reports included the linkedin profiles of the recruiters/employees involved in the ghosting. I can imagine a lot of situations where it'd be unfair, so maybe giving them an opportunity to explain their side before it goes up might be important... but also fuck you if you ghost someone trying to find a job.
nexus2045 3mo ago
I very much advocate for this, but only if you're past the HR/recruiter screen. Onsites, coding screen, second round, etc.
lschueller 3mo ago
An API for reporting would be nice. Besides that: hope this page came to stay. It's nicely done. Couple of years ago there was a very similar project here on hn, which came to a halt after only a couple of days it got posted
firefoxd 3mo ago
During the pandemic, my Amazon recruiter became sort of a friend. We communicated maybe over a period of a month, I joined multiple Amazon online panels and got to meet some employees. Everything was going well until it stopped abruptly. Covid was going full force, so I assumed something happened to her, especially since she was older. Emails and text went unanswered. I was worried... Until I checked LinkedIn and saw that she was posting daily. Full story: https://idiallo.com/blog/dont-ghost-me https://idiallo.com/blog/dont-ghost-me
- sirsinsalot 3mo ago
  Recruiters are never your friend. Ever.
  - FireBeyond 3mo ago
    Yup. Recently I had one all buddy buddy with me, even to the point of unprofessionalism, in hindsight. After the final rounds, there was a little delay but he wanted to reassure me that they'd be finalizing things and would have exciting news... ... that turned out to be that I'd been the runner up candidate. Wow, thanks.
  - RajT88 3mo ago
    I have had many poor experiences with recruiters. You have heard all the same stories I have to tell. The ones you may not have heard is the odd post on LinkedIn from a recruiter which suggests that the role is so cutthroat that you have to ghost most candidates. The one person I know from college who became a tech recruiter was someone who was not technical (English/philosophy double major) who loved telling people how stupid and wrong they were about things. He bemoaned once to me candidates that applied for job x which required experience x and not y which the candidate had, and how dumb they were for thinking it was equivalent. (They were mostly equivalent, which I knew having had a year of both under my belt; he never asked what I was doing at work in that conversation) You can draw your own conclusions. I have met recruiters I felt were under enormous pressure to find the best candidates. I have met some who were the scum of the earth. Mostly, unless they were on the payroll of the company they were hiring for, I have just felt they were lazy.
syntaxing 3mo ago
I had a Meta recruiter talking to me a while back (maybe 5 years) and she ghosted me. Found her obituary online a couple weeks later. Recently, had another Meta recruiter ghost me but that’s because of the Meta layoff round robin. Probably for the better since FRL has more or less been gutted due to AI focus.
- wewewedxfgdf 3mo ago
  The most literal ghosting possible.
- zippyman55 3mo ago
  I had an interview and no response. The interviewer got into a horrible car accident. Bad stuff happens.
Animats 3mo ago
"1 of 1 would interview with them again" is too small a sample. This site needs more data before they post recommendations.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
kilroy123 3mo ago
Sadly, not a new phenomenon. It does seem to have gotten a lot worse. One time, way back in ~2012, I did an all-day onsite interview with several people, lunch with the team, and everything. A full 8-hour gauntlet, and they ghosted me after it.
dasil003 3mo ago
As a hiring manager I take candidate experience seriously because I know it’s easy to get wrong and leave people with a really bad taste in their mouth at a sensitive time. As a candidate, though, I have learned not to take offense to being ghosted or the million other indignities that one is subjected to in a modern interview pipeline. It’s just a part of the modern economy, and far from the worst one. As terrible as it is, it’s not a hill worth dying on, suck it up and just move on with your search.
JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
This should include the hiring manager, recruiter or other point of contact. Particularly at large companies. That aligns individual incentives with the goal of reducing this behavior.
ethagnawl 3mo ago
I've been meaning to write something up about this myself but, suffice it to say, I've been asking myself this question a lot lately.
enos_feedler 3mo ago
[flagged]
- throw-the-towel 3mo ago
  Only the site-making people would make a site? No shit Sherlock.
  - enos_feedler 3mo ago
    you mean you make a site using people? that's like a baby's toy
fHr 3mo ago
Nice name and shame
pbgcp2026 3mo ago
Cease and desist letters from lawyers piling in 3 .. 2 ... 1 ... They should've done it in a form of .onion service.
- zelphirkalt 3mo ago
  Maybe we also need a site, that tracks /that/. Spineless companies, in which people don't want to take responsibility for the way they treat others.
chrismarlow9 3mo ago
Ghosted by Apple here. Devops or SRE job for services teams if I'm remembering right. Did a months worth of rounds. Was told the offer letter would be coming within the next week. Turned down other companies on the gamble that it was actually coming. Never came. Pinged recruiter and finally after a month was told they stopped hiring and would reach back out in a few months when it started back. Never happened. That was 3 years ago. It was character building to say the least.
- heddhunter 3mo ago
  Sorry you went through that. I've been on the other side of it. I had interviewed a bunch of people, found a good candidate, had an offer ready to go. It was pulled at the last second by higher ups who decided they needed the headcount more than my department did. It sucks for everybody.
  - chrismarlow9 3mo ago
    Yeah it was the lack of communication on it that killed me. If something had just been said I would have signed the other offer and moved on. But I went from 2 prospects to zero because of the lack of communication, that was the part that hurt. Anyway things happen, people lost bitcoins, people quit Google early on, blah blah, Pete best left. Life happens, move on.
  - butterNaN 3mo ago
    > It sucks for everybody Sure but it sucks more for some than others
- uberduper 3mo ago
  I got ghosted by Apple after traveling to Cupertino to do some phone interviews from an Apple conf room. I'm pretty sure I've been blacklisted there for reasons unknown. Their recruiters reach out from time to time and after a couple messages back and forth, they too ghost. I've even been referred by friends which results in a conversation with a recruiter that ghosts me shortly after. I'm pretty good at what I do and I'm not weird. All the conversations seemed to go well so I have no idea what happened.
Paddywack 3mo ago
A few years ago I was considering setting up something like this for B2B startups that get stuffed around / dragged along / ghosted by corporates to try and change behaviour. Including positive reviews…
drfuzzy89 3mo ago
I've never actually been ghosted but in my early 20s, I had applied to a company doing something to do with processing geographic data from for NASA as a contractor. It sounded really cool and I heard about it from a guy who worked there who was the brother of an acquaintance and reached out to me to ask if I was interested. We went out to lunch, talked it over, and then followed up by email, and he put me in touch with their HR department. They asked my availability over the next couple weeks for an interview and I gave it to them, and they never responded. I followed up and got nothing. Then about a month later, they emailed me apologizing and explaining that they had just been so busy. I wrote back and again got nothing in return. This happened over and over for about 6 months. They'd email apologizing, I'd respond, and they'd ignore me. Then there was another six month pause before I got one last big apology and request for availability which I never responded to. In hindsight, I probably should have politely told them I was no longer interested after the first gap but I was young and really wanted to say I did work for NASA. Anyway, I never attributed any kind of malice to it, just poor management and poor candidate handling. I suspect that's often the case, especially with smaller start ups with likely overwhelmed employees wearing many hats. If anything, it's good signal that it's maybe not a great place to work. Imagine how they treat the people who work there if that's how they treat candidates.
sohrob 3mo ago
I know more than a few people looking for a job right now and this is their number 1 complaint.
lvl155 3mo ago
I was once ghosted mid interview day. They left me in conference room and completely forgot. I was going to walk out after 30 minutes but I just wanted to see how long I could stay there. It took them five hours. And this was in a “highly secure” building so not sure how they invite someone to interview and let them just hangout inside the building for five hours.
- stephenhuey 3mo ago
  Did you get an offer????
- GJim 3mo ago
  > It took them five hours. Presumably the Yucca plant in the corner put on a spurt of growth after your visit?
atum47 3mo ago
There were two companies posting on hn some time ago that I suspect was just gathering training data (asking for a code challenge or to answer 2 questions about 60 seconds long answering some bs). I feel like we should denounce those as well. Posting jobs that don't actually exists. Specially those that post month after month.
- FireBeyond 3mo ago
  Let's take a moment to talk about Wellfound, formerly AngelList. I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing something similar. The jobs advertised on there are real... I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn. It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market. Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads.I'm pretty certain that whatever Wellfound/AngelList was, it has become a company that just markets their resume writing services, resume review services, all sorts of other services that draw in your money somehow. Why do I say that? 120+ applications on Wellfound since then. Crickets. Absolutely nothing. One day I got an email, "Your profile has been viewed!". Weird, never seen an email like that from Wellfound. Indeed, "You have 1 profile view in the last 90 days". Huh. 120+ applications, 120+ times me answering filling out Wellfound's content questions on "why you would be a good fit for this role", "tell us about x and y and z", no interviews, no contact, only ONE company has ever even viewed my profile (and for what it's worth, it's not a company that has any positions open). Well, maybe my answers suck, you say. Maybe my resume isn't as impressive as I think it is. But similar answers and the same resume get me fairly steady hits on every other site I mentioned, I've got to multiple final rounds, I've been explicitly told I was hirable, I was just the number two, I was "in the top three". And to be clear, many of the companies I see on WF are advertising on other sites too. My suspicion? WF DOES take job listings, but they also harvest them from other sites - the job is real, but there's no-one from the employer reviewing the applications to their "phantom" job at Wellfound... and meanwhile all people like me are doing is providing content for WF to harvest and train models for their real business model: AI-driven resume writing and review service and other products. My AI video interview? Viewed... zero times. Huh.
fuzzer371 3mo ago
Of course BJAK would be on there. Any company that quotes prices in anything other than USD isn't a company I would trust
inferhaven 3mo ago
this is awesome and a scoreboard you might not want to win for your company xD
nabbed 3mo ago
After several interviews with a big telecommunications company, I got a verbal job offer from the recruiter over the phone. I accepted. They said the formal job offer would be coming in the next week or so. I never received the formal job offer. I called after a month and was told not to worry, it was still happening. I think I called again after 3 months, but stopped thinking about it after that. Eventually I went to work for an internet company (which also delayed the formal job offer for several months. Deja Vu! But only because the background checking firm was having trouble completing the background check). This was in the mid-aughts.
lacoolj 3mo ago
lol "robert half: google" what am i supposed to gather from this? Robert Half ghosted someone they were actively trying to find a job for? Why would they even do that? They have more clients, the recruiter loses if they don't get you somewhere. If you got "ghosted" from a recruiting company, there was probably a good reason for it.
BeetleB 3mo ago
Do they distinguish ghosting after an interview vs before? Nvidia ghosted me some years ago after a full interview. They said they'd get back to me in two weeks. After three weeks I pinged the recruiter and she said "definitely by the end of the week". Never heard from them. Two months later the site showed it was still pending. Some time later it finally changed to "rejected". Not even an automated email. I stopped applying and responding to their recruiters. Some years later a manager reached out to me saying I'd be a good candidate but I need to formally apply to schedule. I applied. Crickets. Amazon routinely ghosted me prior to scheduling the full interview. They'd do a screening round that I'd pass. Then they'd say they want to go ahead with a full interview and that I'll be called for scheduling. They never called and the recruiter never responded. Probably happened five times. I ignore Amazon recruiters.
reactordev 3mo ago
As long as there has been recruiters… there has been ghosting.
djmips 3mo ago
Last year I interviewed with Epic Games and I didn't get the job but they arranged a meeting to let me down easily, encourage me to apply for other positions. I really appreciated that!
bzbee 3mo ago
[flagged]
luciana1u 3mo ago
[flagged]
shepherdjerred 3mo ago
Earlier this year I was interviewing at Figma. My interview was at 3:00. I signed the required NDA. At 3:00:55 I received an email saying thanks for your time but you're not being considered anymore. I emailed the recruiter and heard nothing back. --- Jerred, Thank you for your interest in Figma! We know that applying for jobs takes time, and we appreciate your interest in joining our team. After reviewing your application for Software Engineer, Full Stack, we've decided not to move forward with your candidacy at this time. Your resume is in our system for future opportunities, and we hope you'll keep an eye on our careers page. Best of luck with your job search! Best, Figma Recruiting --- Jerred Shepherd's interview with Figma! M_____ F_____ canceled this event.
- pluc 3mo ago
  Had this happen to me several times. Recruiter reaches out super excited they found you, tells you you're the next best thing since sliced bread, asks you for availability and then dies.
SilentM68 3mo ago
Most company managers don't care about letting the rejected candidates know what their fate is. They just want to find the right candidate and make their daily hiring quota. Thank you for the site. I shall make good use of it as I am constantly getting ghosted :)
neya 3mo ago
The real person that should be held responsible for ghosting is the HR. They represent the company. It takes very little effort to even send an automated email intimating the rejection and better yet if possible, a one liner reason - even from a drop down so as to help the candidate improve themselves. Instead, all the fucking HR does all day long is make cringe videos on TikTok these days and create imaginary problems that don't exist to justify their existence to management. https://www.reddit.com/r/theprimeagen/comments/1tkgml2/bolt_ceo_fired_the_entire_hr_team/ https://www.reddit.com/r/theprimeagen/comments/1tkgml2/bolt_...
laughing_man 3mo ago
Companies at which I worked sometimes went silent because there was no decision. It's hard to send an email that says something like "Hey, I know it's been three months, but I can't get my boss off the stick to make a decision here." I don't know how many times I had this conversation: Me: Hey boss, you know how Matt quit last week and we're down a guy? We really need someone in that role. The project is going to slip if we don't replace him. Boss: The project can't slip. My bonu... I mean, it will make the whole team look bad if it slips. Me: Great. When are you scheduling technical interviews? Boss: There's a company wide hiring freeze. We can't replace anyone. Me: So... the project is going to slip then. Boss: No, the project can't slip.
tty456 3mo ago
Call the recruiters out by name.
tom86150 3mo ago
[dead]
Studui81Labs 3mo ago
[flagged]
dw1014 3mo ago
For Companies Looking to Scale Ghostying Pipelines (Satire) https://staticfile-25978.wasmer.app/ https://staticfile-25978.wasmer.app/
- syrusakbary 3mo ago
  ahahaha
rahul342 3mo ago
I got email offer from Snowflake with numbers after a full round of office interviews. They first matched me with a team and then themselves decided to pivot me to another team. I wasn't feeling fully interested in second team's work; the manager told me it's completely OK to explore with 1-2 hiring managers before accepting. I asked the recruiter to help connect. The next email was "Thank you for your time!" and ghosting on all follow ups.
blobbers 3mo ago
Ghosting is rude. Companies should at least politely reject you. Chances are if they ghosted you, you didn't do as well as you think. You nailed a tech interview, but you only nailed part 1 of 3 and the interviewer didn't have the heart to tell you there was 2 other questions. It happens to everyone. We've all done these interviews with nice candidates that just aren't right for that job. Don't worry! You'll find the job that works for you.
vkaku 3mo ago
I used to have an active avoid list of companies based on: - Instances they ghosted - Interviewer behavior - Scope of work and funding red flags - Generic red flags found on Glassdoor, Team Blind etc. Now I just remember it without needing that list
dzonga 3mo ago
let this be done for u.k companies lol.
kartoshechka 3mo ago
my friend had been waiting for offer after passing final interview, but recruiter suddenly went silent. she responded nearly 2 years after saying that she had been on parental leave (yeah it's this long in our country), and he would have to start whole process again. of course he moved on and never applied to this company again
speby 3mo ago
Likely, every company ghosts, either occasionally or often. So really this is kind of a 100% hit rate problem.

Did they ghost you?

484 points by mooreds 3mo ago

jagged-chisel 3mo ago

“Yes”

jedimastert 3mo ago
Yeah I thought it was gonna be a static page

nekusar 3mo ago

The real answer is that many jobbads are fraudulent. And fraudulent job ads should be handled the same way a fraudulent advertisement for a good is handled: you either make good and prove hiring, or you're tried for felony fraud.

rzzzt 3mo ago
What is your proposed time limit (when someone has to be hired to fill the position) and "cooldown period" (when hiring can re-open after someone does not meet expectations in practice)?
- orphereus 3mo ago
  What does this have to do with the original comment?
- ryandrake 3mo ago
  It's obviously a difficult problem to write rules around, and there are so many ways for companies to weasel out of any rule you write. The general principle is that you should not advertise a job if you don't actually intend to fill it. But you should also not do it if you have some "theoretical job" you can create and are just fishing for candidates. Any rules I write down here will have trivial ways to work around them though.
  - rzzzt 3mo ago
    But this is an issue with all legislation (or tabletop game design), right? You also don't want to fall on the opposite end of the scale where the people tasked with prosecuting these violations are allowed to go just by feel.
    - harimau777 3mo ago
      At this point I'd be completely fine with just going by feel. It would be better than what we have now.
  - nekusar 3mo ago
    > It's obviously a difficult problem to write rules around Bull-fucking-shit Companies claim all the time that "if you give us a 10 year abatement we will bring X jobs to the area" Well, time to quantify that, asshole. We pay for it. And if you can't, I want C level blood. Id be OK with 100% of all taxes, with a 30% yearly interest, payable, to prevent jailing of the whole C level board.
derektank 3mo ago
What do you mean by “make good” and “prove hiring” operationally? Say for example, a company posts 10 job openings, fills 9 of them, but for the tenth, they don’t receive good candidates initially, the hiring manager has to go back to their leadership and negotiate a higher salary for the position, it goes through HR, they update the PD, they do a round of interviews with two good candidates, but then the hiring manager has a death in the family and takes leave, one candidate accepts a different position in that time, and then when presented with the offer, the second candidate backs out because they were expecting a salary at the higher end of the range in the PD despite having limited experience, then after 6 months and the team prepping for another interview round, the financial situation has changed and executive leadership freezes all hiring indefinitely and the job gets taken down. Has the company made good in this case? If not, and this was an example of fraud, what is the mechanism for detecting it as such? Are there law enforcement officers actively scrubbing for possible violations? How much does that cost? Is it worth pulling a prosecuting attorney from a civil rights lawsuit over? Or, if the company has made good, what compliance could a company do to prove that they haven’t committed fraud? How many man hours do we expect the company to spend on that compliance? I don’t ask these questions just to poke holes, I think there would be a lot of benefits to the job market for both employers and employees if everyone applying to a job could be confident that the position was open. But I am skeptical that anyone has done a serious cost benefit analysis to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze.
- wombatpm 3mo ago
  Then should be a paper trail of the position, and a final decision by a person to not fill the position. I feel that as part of unemployment insurance all job postings should tie back to a canonical job position registered with the state with mandatory reporting of applications received,number of interviews conducted,date hired or date position withdrawn, and final dispensation: external hire, internal hire, contract hire, or position withdrawn. If HR isn’t bullshitting everyone, they should have that data. State agencies and nonprofits already tract the information.
  - derektank 3mo ago
    As far as it goes, I think that alone is a fairly reasonable ask (though a heavier touch than I personally would feel comfortable legislating without serious consideration). But I’m not sure it really solves the problem if all you need to do is have someone sign off and say, hey, we didn’t find any good candidates. It seems susceptible to pencil whipping. So, what’s the next step. What is the trigger for prosecution? Where’s the line drawn between a fraudulent job posting and the merely poorly managed? Or, if they’re the same, what’s the definition? Are there a minimum number of interviews that need to be conducted each week?

jasonjmcghee 3mo ago

Based on the strange emoji use in place of some buttons, I'm guessing this is vibe coded- and a lot of this is really nice looking front end - great color, topography, border styles... Would be interested to know how much intervention there was or if this is where we are

ls-a 3mo ago
[flagged]
- malfist 3mo ago
  Clearly, they care
  - ls-a 3mo ago
    [flagged]
- speerer 3mo ago
  He's responding _positively_ to the design and querying if this is accessible to everyone.
yallpendantools 3mo ago
Is https://didtheyghostyou.com/companies/robert-half https://didtheyghostyou.com/companies/robert-half an artifact of vibe coding you think? Robert Half is apparently an HR consulting firm but in TFA it links to a very sus `https://www.google.com/aclk https://www.google.com/aclk`. What an oversight given the assurances that submissions are reviewed and moderated. Or is Google outsourcing HiRing to Robert Half now?
- kotaKat 3mo ago
  ... and Robert Half is like a massive temp staffing firm on top of that (I've seen them working call center contracted remote support gigs before), so there's certain scales of companies being involved in 'ghosting' candidates from both top-level positions and super low-level positions, so...

orphereus 3mo ago

My anegdotal experience in EU is that ghosting AFTER the company responds to your application is very, very rare. I would always get the usual "Unfortunately, we have decided..." charades. At least no ghosting. I can think of only one situation, and it was kinda peculiar in its own right (they called me 8 months after my application because they were in a jam and I said I won't be able to start in such a short notice they wanted, and they warned me in advance they would ghost me because the HR was I presume in a crunch). As for the ghostings BEFORE they even respond to the job application, I'd say that it is around 40% of job applications that I never get a response after "We have received your job application yada yada yada". Again, this is just my anegdotal experience. Maybe my experience in EU job market is a rarity.

throw-the-towel 3mo ago
My experience in France was that almost everyone ghosts you, including after three rounds of interviews.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  It's probably because they don't want to be liable for giving a reason.
  - danek_szy 3mo ago
    Well, then they might just respond: Thank you, but no thank you… No liability, but at least they wouldn’t leave the person hanging…
  - OptionOfT 3mo ago
    Which should be illegal. You should be able to formulate why you prefer someone. And it would prevent companies from ghosting people.
    - matchbok3 3mo ago
      Making this "illegal" does not solve the problem at all. People really need to stop providing this knee jerk outlawing reaction to things they don't like. I assume you'd also make it illegal for a person to turn down a company without a reason, right? How about we make that 6 months in prison.

thousand_nights 3mo ago

for a moment i thought this was a commentary about my relationships

arcade79 3mo ago

Anecdotal, I know, but I was ghosted by Google back in 2004-2005 or thereabouts. Back and forth with a recruiter, who promised me that she would book phone screens. Then heard nothing. Pinged her repeatedly. Nothing. A few years later got another Google recruiter after me. Ended up getting hired in 2008. Looked up the previous recruiter. Her last day at the company was the day she promised she would book phone screens, or the day after (can't remember exactly, this is quite a few years ago). I can only assume she was suddenly let go. Ever since, I keep wondering how many ghostings happen because the person holding the strings disappears for some reason, and there's a lack of system to follow up on that.

com2kid 3mo ago
> Ever since, I keep wondering how many ghostings happen because the person holding the strings disappears for some reason, and there's a lack of system to follow up on that. This has happened to be more than once. At various points in time Microsoft has used external vendors for its recruiting/hiring pipeline (which, IMHO, is a bad idea, you want people with a vested interest in the company doing all of the recruiting and hiring...). So yeah, working with a recruiter, wait awhile, nothing, message "oh sorry she left, but the company wants to go forward." Ugh. It wasn't any better when I was a hiring manager at Microsoft trying to hire people. :( Flip side of this is I stopped giving honest feedback after I interviewed a candidate who, on paper, was a stretch for the role. They generally interviewed well but had obvious gaps in their knowledge from being self taught. At the end of the interview they asked me if I had any recommendations for what they could study up on, I emailed some suggested reading (popular tech blogs, probably something by Petzold as well) and got an angry letter back accusing me of being sexist and some other stuff.
- jimnotgym 3mo ago
  >which, IMHO, is a bad idea, you want people with a vested interest in the company doing all of the recruiting and hiring For engineers at a large software company perhaps. But if you were a distribution company that hires one developer per year, then it is hard to maintain the network required to get good candidates
deleted 3mo ago

mathisfun123 3mo ago

this is pointless because different teams/different recruiters within the same company operate differently (surprise surprise humans are different).

zem 3mo ago

wonder if this would count as sousveillance [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance]

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

rubylimetea 3mo ago

Is ghosting really such a big deal? Wait until you get an overly smug rejection letter that the author seemed too eager to write, and took too much joy in writing. Some people love to reject, and would never miss an opportunity. Another angle is - If you've been ghosted, you still have not been told no. That means there's no record of you ever getting denied for the position. (and maybe you really haven't been) It's kinda better IMO

cableshaft 3mo ago
You could be waiting to hear back from one company before telling another company that may have extended an offer yes or no, and it can take a while before you determine if you're ghosted or if they're just busy and haven't made a decision yet.
- tayo42 3mo ago
  Just send a follow up email after a few days asking for a timeline.
  - cableshaft 3mo ago
    I have done exactly that before with a company, but they hadn't ghosted me. But this is about them ghosting you. So presumably even if you ask them this they don't get back to you, otherwise they're not ghosting you.
- SoftTalker 3mo ago
  An offer extended is better than an offer you're just hoping might come. Act on what's real.
dofm 3mo ago
This is to some extent a generational thing, but yes. It’s rude. If you’re not ready to politely reject numerous candidates, don’t interview them. If you get a shitty rejection letter, you should see it as a lucky escape. A rejection burns both your bridge and theirs. If it’s especially shitty, there is nothing stopping you publishing it as a signal to others that a recruiter or employer is wasting people's time. Especially if you just did a coding exercise that looks suspiciously like code they might put a value on.

strathmeyer 3mo ago

[dead]

lacunary 3mo ago

this is cool but the leaderboard is just going to converge on large companies unless it's normalized somehow

lulzury 3mo ago

I think companies that don’t even acknowledge your application also need to be in this list. Most companies ghost at the application level.

SilverElfin 3mo ago

We need this for employees too. There are many who don’t act ethically when interviewing for a job.

nullorempty 3mo ago
Is it already provided by the background check companies?

SystemOut 3mo ago

I think that there should be a feature of "they turned me down/declined" and have an option for whether or not they gave you useful feedback. We should also reward and encourage positive behavior by companies.

sscaryterry 3mo ago

In my personal experience, order of dodginess :) 1. Recruiter 2. Second-hand car salesman 3. Realtor 4. Mechanics 5. Lawyers

mr_toad 3mo ago
We’re gonna need a bigger wall.

tamimio 3mo ago

> Provide a factual account without names, What that even means? What’s a “factual account”?! The story/events? The account you used to apply? Or what That being said, ghosting and generic rejections are alike, usually when you don’t hear from a company within a week (or within the time you ask them when you would hear back), you know they went with someone else, going back at you after that time is a major redflag, either they are chaotic, or the other candidate ditched them in the negotiations because they don’t know how to negotiate and are looking for bargain not a skillsets. Also, I think instead of the company only, the recruiter/HR name should be there plus the company, public shaming is needed for those individuals, maybe other recruiters are good on following up, which is not fair for the good ones while the bad ones are hidden.

pluc 3mo ago

https://ghostjobs.net/ https://ghostjobs.net/ https://ghostjobs.io/ https://ghostjobs.io/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43853401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43853401)

ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago

Those are quite small sample sizes. I assume that this is supposed to grow? In my experience, I was usually ghosted (sometimes, rather brutally). In a couple of instances, I was able to get the companies to confirm that I was toast, but only after I bugged them.

throw-the-towel 3mo ago
Did follow ups ever help anyone get a job?
- ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago
  Hard to tell, really. I doubt it would have made a difference, in my case. But treating people with respect and dignity -that’s something that helps the company (not necessarily the applicant).
- reactordev 3mo ago
  Sometimes it can help articulate your stance after the fact. I’ve used it to thank the panel and to clarify a few of my answers so they had something to research. I have also used it to pull the emergency escape hatch and thank them for their time.
cookiengineer 3mo ago
> but only after I bugged them working as a Redteamer/Purpleteamer, I read this as you physically planting a (listening) bug in the HR office to get that info :D
johnnyanmac 3mo ago
I always follow up because it's honestly how I got my 2nd job. I got a generic recruiter response and did your normal call. Then nothing. Followed up in a few weeks and it was clear they simply forgot to report back to the team. Then they scheduled me for a call with my future lead. On the other hand, it's hard to forget when I went 5 stages into an interview, then did 3 follow ups: 3 days later, a week after that, then 2 weeks after that. I got a response each time pretty quickly saying "yeah, your're still in consideration", and then nothing. Not even a generic rejection. I just cut my losses because if they can give weekly interviews for a month but need more than a month to consider me, it's not happening.

bogwog 3mo ago

This would probably be more effective (and controversial) if the reports included the linkedin profiles of the recruiters/employees involved in the ghosting. I can imagine a lot of situations where it'd be unfair, so maybe giving them an opportunity to explain their side before it goes up might be important... but also fuck you if you ghost someone trying to find a job.

nexus2045 3mo ago

I very much advocate for this, but only if you're past the HR/recruiter screen. Onsites, coding screen, second round, etc.

lschueller 3mo ago

An API for reporting would be nice. Besides that: hope this page came to stay. It's nicely done. Couple of years ago there was a very similar project here on hn, which came to a halt after only a couple of days it got posted

firefoxd 3mo ago

During the pandemic, my Amazon recruiter became sort of a friend. We communicated maybe over a period of a month, I joined multiple Amazon online panels and got to meet some employees. Everything was going well until it stopped abruptly. Covid was going full force, so I assumed something happened to her, especially since she was older. Emails and text went unanswered. I was worried... Until I checked LinkedIn and saw that she was posting daily. Full story: https://idiallo.com/blog/dont-ghost-me https://idiallo.com/blog/dont-ghost-me

sirsinsalot 3mo ago
Recruiters are never your friend. Ever.
- FireBeyond 3mo ago
  Yup. Recently I had one all buddy buddy with me, even to the point of unprofessionalism, in hindsight. After the final rounds, there was a little delay but he wanted to reassure me that they'd be finalizing things and would have exciting news... ... that turned out to be that I'd been the runner up candidate. Wow, thanks.
- RajT88 3mo ago
  I have had many poor experiences with recruiters. You have heard all the same stories I have to tell. The ones you may not have heard is the odd post on LinkedIn from a recruiter which suggests that the role is so cutthroat that you have to ghost most candidates. The one person I know from college who became a tech recruiter was someone who was not technical (English/philosophy double major) who loved telling people how stupid and wrong they were about things. He bemoaned once to me candidates that applied for job x which required experience x and not y which the candidate had, and how dumb they were for thinking it was equivalent. (They were mostly equivalent, which I knew having had a year of both under my belt; he never asked what I was doing at work in that conversation) You can draw your own conclusions. I have met recruiters I felt were under enormous pressure to find the best candidates. I have met some who were the scum of the earth. Mostly, unless they were on the payroll of the company they were hiring for, I have just felt they were lazy.

syntaxing 3mo ago

I had a Meta recruiter talking to me a while back (maybe 5 years) and she ghosted me. Found her obituary online a couple weeks later. Recently, had another Meta recruiter ghost me but that’s because of the Meta layoff round robin. Probably for the better since FRL has more or less been gutted due to AI focus.

wewewedxfgdf 3mo ago
The most literal ghosting possible.
zippyman55 3mo ago
I had an interview and no response. The interviewer got into a horrible car accident. Bad stuff happens.

Animats 3mo ago

"1 of 1 would interview with them again" is too small a sample. This site needs more data before they post recommendations.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

kilroy123 3mo ago

Sadly, not a new phenomenon. It does seem to have gotten a lot worse. One time, way back in ~2012, I did an all-day onsite interview with several people, lunch with the team, and everything. A full 8-hour gauntlet, and they ghosted me after it.

dasil003 3mo ago

As a hiring manager I take candidate experience seriously because I know it’s easy to get wrong and leave people with a really bad taste in their mouth at a sensitive time. As a candidate, though, I have learned not to take offense to being ghosted or the million other indignities that one is subjected to in a modern interview pipeline. It’s just a part of the modern economy, and far from the worst one. As terrible as it is, it’s not a hill worth dying on, suck it up and just move on with your search.

JumpCrisscross 3mo ago

This should include the hiring manager, recruiter or other point of contact. Particularly at large companies. That aligns individual incentives with the goal of reducing this behavior.

ethagnawl 3mo ago

I've been meaning to write something up about this myself but, suffice it to say, I've been asking myself this question a lot lately.

enos_feedler 3mo ago

[flagged]

throw-the-towel 3mo ago
Only the site-making people would make a site? No shit Sherlock.
- enos_feedler 3mo ago
  you mean you make a site using people? that's like a baby's toy

fHr 3mo ago

Nice name and shame

pbgcp2026 3mo ago

Cease and desist letters from lawyers piling in 3 .. 2 ... 1 ... They should've done it in a form of .onion service.

zelphirkalt 3mo ago
Maybe we also need a site, that tracks /that/. Spineless companies, in which people don't want to take responsibility for the way they treat others.

chrismarlow9 3mo ago

Ghosted by Apple here. Devops or SRE job for services teams if I'm remembering right. Did a months worth of rounds. Was told the offer letter would be coming within the next week. Turned down other companies on the gamble that it was actually coming. Never came. Pinged recruiter and finally after a month was told they stopped hiring and would reach back out in a few months when it started back. Never happened. That was 3 years ago. It was character building to say the least.

heddhunter 3mo ago
Sorry you went through that. I've been on the other side of it. I had interviewed a bunch of people, found a good candidate, had an offer ready to go. It was pulled at the last second by higher ups who decided they needed the headcount more than my department did. It sucks for everybody.
- chrismarlow9 3mo ago
  Yeah it was the lack of communication on it that killed me. If something had just been said I would have signed the other offer and moved on. But I went from 2 prospects to zero because of the lack of communication, that was the part that hurt. Anyway things happen, people lost bitcoins, people quit Google early on, blah blah, Pete best left. Life happens, move on.
- butterNaN 3mo ago
  > It sucks for everybody Sure but it sucks more for some than others
uberduper 3mo ago
I got ghosted by Apple after traveling to Cupertino to do some phone interviews from an Apple conf room. I'm pretty sure I've been blacklisted there for reasons unknown. Their recruiters reach out from time to time and after a couple messages back and forth, they too ghost. I've even been referred by friends which results in a conversation with a recruiter that ghosts me shortly after. I'm pretty good at what I do and I'm not weird. All the conversations seemed to go well so I have no idea what happened.

Paddywack 3mo ago

A few years ago I was considering setting up something like this for B2B startups that get stuffed around / dragged along / ghosted by corporates to try and change behaviour. Including positive reviews…

drfuzzy89 3mo ago

I've never actually been ghosted but in my early 20s, I had applied to a company doing something to do with processing geographic data from for NASA as a contractor. It sounded really cool and I heard about it from a guy who worked there who was the brother of an acquaintance and reached out to me to ask if I was interested. We went out to lunch, talked it over, and then followed up by email, and he put me in touch with their HR department. They asked my availability over the next couple weeks for an interview and I gave it to them, and they never responded. I followed up and got nothing. Then about a month later, they emailed me apologizing and explaining that they had just been so busy. I wrote back and again got nothing in return. This happened over and over for about 6 months. They'd email apologizing, I'd respond, and they'd ignore me. Then there was another six month pause before I got one last big apology and request for availability which I never responded to. In hindsight, I probably should have politely told them I was no longer interested after the first gap but I was young and really wanted to say I did work for NASA. Anyway, I never attributed any kind of malice to it, just poor management and poor candidate handling. I suspect that's often the case, especially with smaller start ups with likely overwhelmed employees wearing many hats. If anything, it's good signal that it's maybe not a great place to work. Imagine how they treat the people who work there if that's how they treat candidates.

sohrob 3mo ago

I know more than a few people looking for a job right now and this is their number 1 complaint.

lvl155 3mo ago

I was once ghosted mid interview day. They left me in conference room and completely forgot. I was going to walk out after 30 minutes but I just wanted to see how long I could stay there. It took them five hours. And this was in a “highly secure” building so not sure how they invite someone to interview and let them just hangout inside the building for five hours.

stephenhuey 3mo ago
Did you get an offer????
GJim 3mo ago
> It took them five hours. Presumably the Yucca plant in the corner put on a spurt of growth after your visit?

atum47 3mo ago

There were two companies posting on hn some time ago that I suspect was just gathering training data (asking for a code challenge or to answer 2 questions about 60 seconds long answering some bs). I feel like we should denounce those as well. Posting jobs that don't actually exists. Specially those that post month after month.

FireBeyond 3mo ago
Let's take a moment to talk about Wellfound, formerly AngelList. I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing something similar. The jobs advertised on there are real... I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn. It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market. Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads.I'm pretty certain that whatever Wellfound/AngelList was, it has become a company that just markets their resume writing services, resume review services, all sorts of other services that draw in your money somehow. Why do I say that? 120+ applications on Wellfound since then. Crickets. Absolutely nothing. One day I got an email, "Your profile has been viewed!". Weird, never seen an email like that from Wellfound. Indeed, "You have 1 profile view in the last 90 days". Huh. 120+ applications, 120+ times me answering filling out Wellfound's content questions on "why you would be a good fit for this role", "tell us about x and y and z", no interviews, no contact, only ONE company has ever even viewed my profile (and for what it's worth, it's not a company that has any positions open). Well, maybe my answers suck, you say. Maybe my resume isn't as impressive as I think it is. But similar answers and the same resume get me fairly steady hits on every other site I mentioned, I've got to multiple final rounds, I've been explicitly told I was hirable, I was just the number two, I was "in the top three". And to be clear, many of the companies I see on WF are advertising on other sites too. My suspicion? WF DOES take job listings, but they also harvest them from other sites - the job is real, but there's no-one from the employer reviewing the applications to their "phantom" job at Wellfound... and meanwhile all people like me are doing is providing content for WF to harvest and train models for their real business model: AI-driven resume writing and review service and other products. My AI video interview? Viewed... zero times. Huh.

fuzzer371 3mo ago

Of course BJAK would be on there. Any company that quotes prices in anything other than USD isn't a company I would trust

inferhaven 3mo ago

this is awesome and a scoreboard you might not want to win for your company xD

nabbed 3mo ago

After several interviews with a big telecommunications company, I got a verbal job offer from the recruiter over the phone. I accepted. They said the formal job offer would be coming in the next week or so. I never received the formal job offer. I called after a month and was told not to worry, it was still happening. I think I called again after 3 months, but stopped thinking about it after that. Eventually I went to work for an internet company (which also delayed the formal job offer for several months. Deja Vu! But only because the background checking firm was having trouble completing the background check). This was in the mid-aughts.

lacoolj 3mo ago

lol "robert half: google" what am i supposed to gather from this? Robert Half ghosted someone they were actively trying to find a job for? Why would they even do that? They have more clients, the recruiter loses if they don't get you somewhere. If you got "ghosted" from a recruiting company, there was probably a good reason for it.

BeetleB 3mo ago

Do they distinguish ghosting after an interview vs before? Nvidia ghosted me some years ago after a full interview. They said they'd get back to me in two weeks. After three weeks I pinged the recruiter and she said "definitely by the end of the week". Never heard from them. Two months later the site showed it was still pending. Some time later it finally changed to "rejected". Not even an automated email. I stopped applying and responding to their recruiters. Some years later a manager reached out to me saying I'd be a good candidate but I need to formally apply to schedule. I applied. Crickets. Amazon routinely ghosted me prior to scheduling the full interview. They'd do a screening round that I'd pass. Then they'd say they want to go ahead with a full interview and that I'll be called for scheduling. They never called and the recruiter never responded. Probably happened five times. I ignore Amazon recruiters.

reactordev 3mo ago

As long as there has been recruiters… there has been ghosting.

djmips 3mo ago

Last year I interviewed with Epic Games and I didn't get the job but they arranged a meeting to let me down easily, encourage me to apply for other positions. I really appreciated that!

bzbee 3mo ago

[flagged]

luciana1u 3mo ago

[flagged]

shepherdjerred 3mo ago

Earlier this year I was interviewing at Figma. My interview was at 3:00. I signed the required NDA. At 3:00:55 I received an email saying thanks for your time but you're not being considered anymore. I emailed the recruiter and heard nothing back. --- Jerred, Thank you for your interest in Figma! We know that applying for jobs takes time, and we appreciate your interest in joining our team. After reviewing your application for Software Engineer, Full Stack, we've decided not to move forward with your candidacy at this time. Your resume is in our system for future opportunities, and we hope you'll keep an eye on our careers page. Best of luck with your job search! Best, Figma Recruiting --- Jerred Shepherd's interview with Figma! M_____ F_____ canceled this event.

pluc 3mo ago
Had this happen to me several times. Recruiter reaches out super excited they found you, tells you you're the next best thing since sliced bread, asks you for availability and then dies.

SilentM68 3mo ago

Most company managers don't care about letting the rejected candidates know what their fate is. They just want to find the right candidate and make their daily hiring quota. Thank you for the site. I shall make good use of it as I am constantly getting ghosted :)

neya 3mo ago

The real person that should be held responsible for ghosting is the HR. They represent the company. It takes very little effort to even send an automated email intimating the rejection and better yet if possible, a one liner reason - even from a drop down so as to help the candidate improve themselves. Instead, all the fucking HR does all day long is make cringe videos on TikTok these days and create imaginary problems that don't exist to justify their existence to management. https://www.reddit.com/r/theprimeagen/comments/1tkgml2/bolt_ceo_fired_the_entire_hr_team/ https://www.reddit.com/r/theprimeagen/comments/1tkgml2/bolt_...

laughing_man 3mo ago

Companies at which I worked sometimes went silent because there was no decision. It's hard to send an email that says something like "Hey, I know it's been three months, but I can't get my boss off the stick to make a decision here." I don't know how many times I had this conversation: Me: Hey boss, you know how Matt quit last week and we're down a guy? We really need someone in that role. The project is going to slip if we don't replace him. Boss: The project can't slip. My bonu... I mean, it will make the whole team look bad if it slips. Me: Great. When are you scheduling technical interviews? Boss: There's a company wide hiring freeze. We can't replace anyone. Me: So... the project is going to slip then. Boss: No, the project can't slip.

tty456 3mo ago

Call the recruiters out by name.

tom86150 3mo ago

[dead]

Studui81Labs 3mo ago

[flagged]

dw1014 3mo ago

For Companies Looking to Scale Ghostying Pipelines (Satire) https://staticfile-25978.wasmer.app/ https://staticfile-25978.wasmer.app/

syrusakbary 3mo ago
ahahaha

rahul342 3mo ago

I got email offer from Snowflake with numbers after a full round of office interviews. They first matched me with a team and then themselves decided to pivot me to another team. I wasn't feeling fully interested in second team's work; the manager told me it's completely OK to explore with 1-2 hiring managers before accepting. I asked the recruiter to help connect. The next email was "Thank you for your time!" and ghosting on all follow ups.

blobbers 3mo ago

Ghosting is rude. Companies should at least politely reject you. Chances are if they ghosted you, you didn't do as well as you think. You nailed a tech interview, but you only nailed part 1 of 3 and the interviewer didn't have the heart to tell you there was 2 other questions. It happens to everyone. We've all done these interviews with nice candidates that just aren't right for that job. Don't worry! You'll find the job that works for you.

vkaku 3mo ago

I used to have an active avoid list of companies based on: - Instances they ghosted - Interviewer behavior - Scope of work and funding red flags - Generic red flags found on Glassdoor, Team Blind etc. Now I just remember it without needing that list

dzonga 3mo ago

let this be done for u.k companies lol.

kartoshechka 3mo ago

my friend had been waiting for offer after passing final interview, but recruiter suddenly went silent. she responded nearly 2 years after saying that she had been on parental leave (yeah it's this long in our country), and he would have to start whole process again. of course he moved on and never applied to this company again

speby 3mo ago

Likely, every company ghosts, either occasionally or often. So really this is kind of a 100% hit rate problem.