The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎: GHOSTING 👻

Vol. 5: Every Job Seeker and Candidate's Favorite Topic!

Ever feel like this during a job search?

According to a recent CNBC article, largely based on findings from a December 2023 report from the job site Indeed, close to half of job seekers said an employer ghosted them after a second-or third-round job interview. That number increased significantly when the job seekers were asked their plans to ghost during future job searches — to a whopping 62 percent. Why is ghosting becoming so commonplace in the workplace — “expected” almost. And what can we do — to stop it?

I myself was ghosted fairly recently by a Company that describes itself as “… the world’s largest insight network.” It connects its paying clients with industry thought leaders and experts, paying the latter to share their insights directly with its clients.

I am familiar with this Company because I’ve been recruiting for 25 years, including for professional services Companies, and when doing so, I often need to research and evaluate talent from other professional services Companies within a certain geographical region — this could be tax and accounting, Big Law, a top-tier management consultancy, etc. So, when one of its “associates” reached out to me recently, I was flattered:

“I hope this message finds you well! By way of introduction, my name is “Jeff” and I am an Associate at THE WORLD’S LARGEST INSIGHTS COMPANY where we help our clients by pairing them with professionals to learn about various industries and topics. I am currently working with a client who is looking to speak with professionals who experts who have extensive experience with best practices for talent acquisition.  Based on your previous work experience, I thought you would be a great fit for this 30–60-minute phone consultation paid at an hourly rate of your choosing…. With that being said, my client is hoping to speak with individuals as soon as today! What's a good email or phone number we can continue this conversation through?”

As it appeared there was urgency to Jeff’s request, I replied that evening with interest, providing my contact information. We spoke the very next day for about an hour and Jeff told me I sounded like a great fit for his client and he’d get back to me. Then ➩ silence.

After a week went by, I reached out to Jeff directly, asking if I was still “under consideration.” He replied that “after our conversation last week, we learned that our client paused taking calls and a week later, they have not picked it back up.” I wonder if I had not followed up, if I would have heard back from Jeff. My gut says, “no.”

In fairness, a quick tour of his LinkedIn profile told me that he had only been working professionally for four years after graduating from college and in very different industries than his current employer.

I was also ghosted recently while writing my substack on Retained vs. Contingency Search — a world most know little about and that’s why I wrote it — by someone who runs a for-profit company in my very own industry, executive search.

The last ghosting story I will share involves a candidate I recruited when I worked internally in executive talent acquisition for a company. I was assigned to find candidates for a senior-level position and one of the candidates I recruited was a highly-polished and competent Vice President from the global advertising business. I ended up leaving the company I was recruiting her into — shortly after her interviews began with the Hiring Team. A few weeks after I left the Company, she reached out to me not once, but 2x — to share with me that she had been ghosted by the Recruiter at the Company who replaced me. Someone who had worked for the Company, far longer than me. Apparently, the Recruiter ghosted her after she went through two rounds of interviews. She could not get her to respond, even after reaching out a couple times directly, for an update. What could I do about it? Nothing. Just listen. I no longer worked there.

I could go on and on. On average, I speak to approximately two executives per day, every weekday for the last 20 or so years. People who work in C-level or Founder positions and those, directly below the leadership layer. They open up to me, they share their stories with me, I know which Companies and Search Firms ghost, and the many — who don’t. Just because you don’t hear back from a Company for a few days or a week, doesn’t mean you were ghosted.

What the people doing the ghosting may fail to understand and it’s such an easy fix, is it’s HOW you leave off with the candidate or person you are recruiting or soliciting or communicating with — that makes all the difference in the world. Whether the end result is getting the job or in my example, being chosen to be interviewed as an expert, it takes a certain level of skill and experience to learn how to exit a professional conversation not only politely, but with expectations managed, in advance, for the next step. Even if there is no next step. That way, the person does not feel like s/he was ghosted or left “hanging.” Some of us are born with this gift; some of us, need to learn it or be trained by people who have done it and share our values.

So, here’s my solution to the ghosting problem.

If it’s clear cut that you have been ghosted. You’ve been on 1-3 rounds of interviews with a Company and no one from the Company is getting back to you weeks or months later — just like you might write to or call your local Assemblyperson or Congressperson to complain about the pothole outside your home since the last snowstorm or the opening of a new superstore or nuclear power plant in your community you want blocked, and even the pigeons landing on the windowsill of your apartment (true story shared by a friend who worked for an elected NYC official answering phone complaints from his constituents)… consider writing a letter or sending an email to the CHRO, HR leader, head of Talent Acquisition, CEO or Founder of the Company whose employee(s) did the ghosting and share your experience.

Trust me, Companies care about your experience and will not allow negative ones to continue. They most likely do not know it is happening. You’re not trying to get the "offending” HR or Recruiting executive fired (and they won’t be) — you’re trying to let the Company know about your experience. Be factual. Tell the Company executive the position you were recruited for — or applied to online, who you interviewed with at the Company, the dates of your interviews, and the result. Keep it data-driven and concise, but summarize or close out your email or letter, with your takeaway, your POV.

Here is an example, “I am writing to express my disappointment with your Company Name’s hiring process. Recruiter Name reached out to me on LinkedIn on January 10th about your Digital Marketing Strategy position. I spoke to Recruiter Name on January 17th for 30 minutes, then she moved me forward to a 30-minute video interview with HR Name on January 23rd. After my interview with HR Name, I had a video interview with VP Marketing Name for 45 minutes on February 16. After that, no one followed up with me, even when I reached out to Recruiter Name 2x by email after my interview with the VP Marketing Name to try to get an update. Today is March 8, and I have not received any update. Regardless, I remain very interested in the Position and future opportunities at your Company Name based on the information the VP Marketing Name shared. Thank you for taking the time to understand my experience.” Include that last line, if you are, in fact, still interested in exploring future positions at the Company. Don’t let one bad 🥚 spoil your interest, although it could be a 🚩 about the Company’s culture and you should definitely do additional due diligence for any future interviews with the same Company.

So how do you go about contacting Company executives? Great question!

Most Company executives have professional social media profiles. You can try to reach out or “connect” directly with the executive on a social media platform, using a certain and often-limited number of “characters” or words. They may not accept your message nor respond. In that case, you can try a quick Google search to try to turn up the email format that the Company uses. You can try calling the Company’s main phone number to secure the executive’s email or to leave a voice mail message for the executive — directly or with his/her EA (executive assistant). Lastly, you can always write and mail a letter to the executive directly via the good ‘ole United States Postal Service, c/o of the Company’s main HQ: “Hey ChatGPT, please tell me the address of Company Name. Include the street address, city, state and zip code of Company Name’s headquarters in the United States. Do not include a PO Box or satellite office location.”

Communicating your experience to the Company takes time and effort. I get it. But if enough people do this, the Company will take notice and change its ways. Someone in leadership will get involved and talk to the employee doing the ghosting. Maybe even initiate company-wide communications training to reinforce the Company’s core values and expectations when it comes to Talent Acquisition.

And don’t forget to share your GOOD experiences, too!

If you didn’t get the job but thought the Recruiter, HR or Hiring Manager or all or some combo of these folks did a great job of keeping you “in the loop” throughout the entire interviewing process. Maybe they gave you a really thorough, if not exciting view of the company — how it works, its future plans that may sync with your future professional interests, Maybe the Recruiter maybe made you feel like a part of the Company and as a direct result of your positive experiences with Recruiter Name, you “remain very interested” in future opportunities at the Company and want to share your very positive experience and takeaways with someone there in leadership. After all, what leader doesn’t want to read positive feedback from his or her “customers?” I often call-out great customer service on the social media platform, X. I also DM (direct message) Companies on X when I experience poor customer service.

I use the word “customer” intentionally because in the next Rodeos, a multi-part series, we’re going to dive into a topic that’s near and dear to my recruiting philosophy and approach —“The Candidate as Customer.”

For these upcoming Rodeos, I’m going to get “in the ring” with executives from Companies that I think — “get it right” — offer great customer service. Learn their secrets to customer success. I hope to include insights from people who work at my local bank (who give my dog treats every time we come in) and the employees at my neighborhood wireless store (outages be damned!). They have “saved me” many times. Outside of my community, I’d like to include customer service “nuggets” from corporations that often exceed my expectations when I have a technical or product malfunction. First on my list is Weber Grills!

Ghosting has been going on long before the layoffs of 2023 and 2024. The resulting short-staffed talent acquisition and HR teams? Still not an excuse to ghost. I don’t buy for a second that Recruiters who ghost don’t know they’re doing it. Every time a Recruiter or HR executive or whomever is in the hiring “saddle” ghosts a candidate, it makes those of us who work in Talent Acquisition and have made it our careers, look BAD. It takes away our credibility and diminishes our profession.

As we learned in The Recruiting Rodeo Volume 2: Understanding Your Audience: A Glossary of Talent Acquisition Terms the job of the Recruiter and/or HR is to find and hire the talent for open positions at a Company — not launch the Company’s new podcast or create the product marketing roadmap for its new AI software bundle. That is someone else’s job and s/he is called the Hiring Manager. When the Hiring Manager needs to hire for positions on his/her team, the Hiring Manager depends on the Talent Acquisition team — which can include Recruiters and always includes HR — to do its job — find and hire the right talent for the open positions.

I view my job as an executive recruiter as a “Brand Ambassador” for any Company I’m representing. The Company that “hires” me (exclusively) to find talent for its open position(s). I am an “extension” of the Company’s culture and values. What happens when the Company I am representing is having a hard time filling open senior-level positions because its culture is known for being “toxic”? That’s a story for another ride 🐎, once your boots are a bit more worn in.

Maybe some Recruiters and others working in Talent Acquisition who ghost don’t care, but most of us hard working cowgirls and boys do.

You don’t need to get back to candidates in a day, but a week is more than enough time to send an update. Even if it’s “no update.”

There is no reason I can think of for a candidate who has devoted hours of his or her time to prepare and interview for an open role to wait weeks, if not months, to find out his/her fate or destiny, only to be greeted by a generic Company form letter or no reply whatsoever.

To anyone who is overworked or overwhelmed, we have all been there. The amount of searches most internal Recruiters have to work on is not viable, especially right now, when recruiters have been among the first job functions to be terminated in mass layoffs. It’s still not a reason to ghost.

If you are in a hiring position at a Company and want to improve your responses to the candidates you’re working with and are responsible for — you’re maybe not just running into time management roadblocks but the ATS — the Company’s applicant tracking system can “do better”(the ATS at most Companies is directly responsible for generating the generic form letter when you don’t get the job), please talk to your direct manager and ask for help. Oftentimes, that person, has never recruited from outside the Company’s walls and may not fully understand the time commitment required to recruit candidates for 5 senior-level positions, let alone, how to respond to candidates in a timely, efficient way. I would hope the manager cares about your concerns and efficiency in responding. If s/he doesn’t, then subpar recruiting practices may be baked into the Company’s culture.

There is not just one type of candidate along the hiring lifecycle. And there are multiple “audiences” that a Recruiter needs to manage along the hiring lifecycle including HR and the Hiring Manager. It’s a lot, per search. But as a Recruiter, that’s what we sign up for. Recruiting is a learned skill. So is time management. We learn by doing. Over and over again. But your values? They are your own.

I’m going to close out this Rodeo by suggesting that if a candidate emails you, calls you, or shoots you a message on a social media platform asking for an update on her/his status, because a week has gone by since s/he last interviewed, please don’t ignore the candidate’s communications. Get back to the person who wrote to you and is clearly interested in working at your Company and share with that person that you either don’t have an update “at this time” and provide her/him with some sort of timeline as to when s/he can expect to receive an update even if that reply is,”We are still interviewing additional candidates for the position and will get back to you once we have more information to share. Thanks so much for reaching out!”

And most important, apologize for any delay in communications. A simple “I’m sorry I did not get back to you with an update sooner” goes a really long way towards establishing trust and credibility. You never know when your paths will cross again in the future.

We’re all human. Treat others as you wish to be treated. You, too, will be a candidate one day.

Ghost Photo by Tandem X Visuals on Unsplash