They say love hurts, and so does ghosting!
This is especially true in the current job market when HR departments are between a rock and a hard place with fierce competition for top talent—resulting in the hiring process taking longer than usual and costing more too.
Ghosting (defined as never following up or returning contact after initially showing keen interest) goes both ways, and it can destroy your reputation as an employer—more on that below!
However, with candidate and employee ghosting seeing an almost 20% increase over the past year, this is an issue that requires some intervention (and the Ghostbusters are out of commission).
For now, let’s focus on why a candidate may choose to ghost you after you’ve asked them for an interview, made them an offer, or worst of all, even hired them!
Why does ghosting happen?
Ghosting refers to the phenomenon in romantic relationships where one party cuts off all communication without warning. On your part, candidate ghosting may bring on similar feelings of shock and betrayal.
There’s a more significant issue here. Levels of workplace engagement remain low despite how badly employees want meaningful work. Considering the high cost of employee turnover, efforts towards raising engagement and ultimately, retention, is in everyone’s best interest.
What you may not realize is that this starts during hiring!
Especially in times of high hiring competition, make sure you are communicating why a potential employee should want to work at your company during all parts of the process. If the candidate doesn’t get the sense that working at your company will inspire, motivate, or challenge them, they are likely to lose interest.
According to a recent Clutch survey, common reasons for ghosting include accepting another job offer (30%), never hearing back from the company (23%), or deciding the role was not a match (19%).
Problem 1: Different timeline expectations
Candidates may ghost because they interpret poor communication on the company’s part (like extended periods without updates) as a bad omen.
Look at how widely hiring expectations differ between employers and job seekers:
The total length of the hiring process
- 45% of candidates say they’ve gone from submitting their application to getting a job offer in less than a week
- 54%+ of recruiters say they believe applicants should expect hiring to take place within a month or less on average
Post-interview process
- 40% of recruiters say candidates should expect a response within 48 hours of an interview
- 40% of candidates will wait a week after an interview for a reply before losing interest in the job
Solution: Streamline your process
You want to reduce time-to-hire, right? Shortening the hiring process ultimately saves you money and frustration. On the flip side, your candidates want their time to be treated with respect, which means fast feedback on their applications—often faster than you expect.
Communication is key to a candidate’s positive experience with your company. Establish a clear timeline, whether in the email that accepts their application or at the conclusion of your interview, so candidates know when they’ll hear back from you. Most importantly, stay true to your word—or you risk them moving on.
What you can do during the hiring process:
- Focus on timely responses
- Fast-track exceptional candidates
- Consider cutting redundant steps
- Get other stakeholders involved earlier in the process
What you can do once they’ve been hired:
- Keep them excited about coming to work for your company
- Assign a start date that’s as early as possible, reducing the chance they will accept another job in the meantime
Problem 2: You’re a notorious ghost
We know well that recruiting is a busy and often stressful profession! You wouldn’t ghost your candidates on purpose, right? When we have vacancies to fill and deadlines to meet, it’s easy to let our responses slip through the cracks.
Unfortunately, those who have been ghosted by you will share their experience with others.
Remember that candidates want to know even when they have been rejected. It allows them to feel that their time hasn’t been wasted and thus to keep faith in the process. A personalized message is best, but if you don’t have time for that, invest in an automated system that can give your hopefuls closure.
Solution: Remember the Golden Rule
If you don’t want to be ghosted, take a look at how you might be ghosting yourself.
Ghosting can ruin an employer’s reputation. Why? Because the same way you get great candidates through word of mouth and employee referrals, those opportunities will sour on you if you treat prospective employees poorly. This also heavily reduces the chance that a good candidate, who was not right for one position, will apply for a better fit in the future.
Long-term employer ghosting is so pervasive that Lori Bumgarner, a career coach, has penned a heartfelt letter entitled “Dear Recruiters, Treat Candidates the Way You Want to Be Treated.” She invokes the Golden Rule as the standard of respect when dealing with job-seeking hopefuls.
Stress and deadlines can make us less conscientious, but with a little bit of intention, this is something everyone can get on board with!
Also, you might consider sending candidates a short survey for them to provide feedback about their experience. This will help you learn what you can improve in the future.
Problem 3: It’s a symptom of tech culture
Don’t get us wrong—candidates of all ages ghost. However, if we’re being honest, younger generations with a social media-heavy upbringing are more prone to it:
- They are used to casual communication methods, like texting
- Today’s job market gives them more options, making them less likely to commit
- They want to avoid confrontation
- They haven’t been taught appropriate communication skills for a professional setting
The Clutch survey found that more than 4 in 10 job seekers say it’s reasonable to ghost a company. Even more shocking is that nearly 1 in 10 job seekers (9%) say it’s OK for job candidates to ghost after accepting a job offer!
Plus, remember what we said about communication being key? More than one-third of job seekers (36%) say the last company that rejected them did not respond at all.
Solution: Follow up and don’t give up
It’s not that your candidates are not online. It’s just that you have to work a little harder to keep their attention.
Here’s another reason why it’s so important to be transparent about the next steps. Your younger candidates have grown up with instant access to information—if you’re open with them about the timeline, they won’t get distracted as easily. In fact, you’ll set yourself apart!
For bonus points, give them an additional reason to remember you. If you’ve reached out to them and they haven’t responded, send them one or two friendly, non-salesy follow-ups. Although you want to keep selling your candidates on your company through their start date, this isn’t the time for sales. Don’t take their silence as a done deal and be personal for best results.
Remember: attention spans are short and inboxes are vast. It’s possible they’ve just forgotten to respond, and this is a great way to get back on their radar. Ditto if you can switch up your method—if emailing didn’t work, call them, and vice versa.
Conclusion
There’s no need to be spooked by ghosts. If this is a pervasive problem at your company, it’s worth examining how you can bring empathy and a human touch back to the hiring process.
Have you ever gotten a thank you note after an interview? The candidate that sends a follow-up sticks out from the pack. Following up is a proven way to stay on someone’s radar, and not doing so is a missed opportunity to keep the candidate excited about the company or opening up the option for them to apply again in the future.
Remember to treat others how you want to be treated, and you’ll have a much higher chance of convincing your candidates to give up the ghost.