The term ‘ghosting’ is used to describe a situation where someone (either Candidate or Employer) suddenly ‘disappears’ and ceases all communication right in the middle of a hiring/recruitment process.

Ghosting has become FAR MORE prevalent since Covid-19 came along as lots of people are hiding away at homes behind keyboards where it is easier to do so. It’s a by-product of the digital age we live in possibly, where people are increasingly getting used to faceless contact and acting anonymously online that they think it is acceptable behaviour, when in fact many deem it rude and disrespectful.

It’s actually a term first used in the online dating world, but is becoming more and more synonymous with recruiting and becoming a big problem (increasing by 10-20% over the last year alone, with a recent LinkedIn report stating that 95% of Recruiters have been ghosted in the last year and 40% of candidates believing it’s perfectly reasonable to ghost an employer/recruiter!!.)

The damage an employer can do to their business when ghosting applicants can be pretty serious. – starting with poor employer branding ,image and reputation, which is difficult to shake off once word gets out (and it always does through various online mediums and word of mouth). We see a high percentage (as much as 50%) of candidates taking their second choice option because their first choice employer was just too slow and their recruitment process is broken/poor. Also, there will be far fewer internal referrals, as who’s going to refer/recommend a company who ghosts its applicants resulting in an embarrassing recruitment situation for the referrer?

The damage a candidate can do to themselves can be equally detrimental, you are going to get yourself black-listed by employers & staffing businesses very quickly by adopting this worrying approach/trend. “Why should I care, there are loads of jobs about, it’s a candidate driven market” I hear lots of Candidates saying, well just bear in mind that ‘what goes around comes around’ in life, take a longer term more professional view on all this and just consider ‘would I like to be treated like that’ before going into ‘ghost-mode’.

However, taking all the above into account….it’s just plain rude/ignorant and unprofessional to ghost anyone that you are engaged in dialogue with in ANY professional working environment. Common working professional etiquette and good manners should mean it never happens.

som3 …. On a mission to stamp out ghosting