Have you had a new hire not show up on what was supposed to be her first day?
Have you had a job candidate come in for an interview and then stop returning your calls and your emails?
Have you had a new hire work for a few weeks and then disappear?
All these behaviors happen in all levels of jobs (and The Wall Street Journal even shared a store of a job candidate who faked his own death to avoid telling a new company that he’d decided not to take their offer and stay with his old company.)
Now, let’s all say this together, loudly and clearly: Ghosting people is rude. Unless your actual life is in danger by letting your boss know you quit or not showing up on the first day of work, you are being rude, rude, rude.
But, let’s also say this clearly: Ghosting job candidates is just as rude. Giving someone a job offer, waiting until they’ve given their notice at their current job and then yanking it back is beyond rude–it’s cruel.
To keep reading, click here: Your Job Candidates and New Hires are Ghosting You. This is What You’ve Earned
Ghosting is wrong no matter who does it, so no one should try to rationalize it by telling themselves “they probably would do the same thing to me.”
I did it. My coworker and I were young, low-echelon, desperately trying to improve our situations– and he told me where he was interviewing. I was about a week behind him in the hiring process.
He got his offer first, and gave two-week notice. Our then-employer immediately ushered him out the door without further pay.
Guess what I did when I got my offer? Yep, I didn’t give notice till Wednesday that I was starting work elsewhere Monday. My then-employer was stunned. Go figure.
Mr Ghost of Firings-Past you did the right thing given the situation!
Excellent article, solid advice.
The last of 7 questions I teach my students to ask themselves before they even apply to a job (to apply for their first job in the US) is, Can I and will I keep the job at least 6 months, and preferably 12 months? If they cannot answer yes to this question, I advise them to not apply.
Again, solid advice here.
HR has given me two of the ghostings I’ve gotten.
The HR guy from a student loan company in My Fair City called and scheduled a phone screen for Friday afternoon at 4pm. No problem, except he wasn’t there when I called that Friday– nor did he return my voicemails, ever. Oh, HR got around to making an offer to a friend of mine a month later, who promptly declined (it wasn’t good anyways, but I feel better about it).
Finally Taylor Swift ghosted me. Ok, her LinkedIn photo looked a bit like the singer, and her name and age were quite similar. Initially Ms Smith called me about my submitted job application, and said the hiring manager was very interested. However the hiring manager was traveling for a week, but she’d call back when he returned and got his schedule in order. No calls, no return call to my voicemails spaced a week apart. Personally I think Ms Smith has gotten an inflated sense of importance. I’m referring to the HR gal, of course.
Psst, Suzanne, it’s rite of passage, not right of passage. Pesky homophones! 😉
As to the article, YES YES YES all around. I wouldn’t ghost an employer, but I have quit a couple of jobs with no notice when they were just awful. One that springs to mind was a second job in a laundromat, doing fluff-and-fold. It was an evening shift, working alone with a lot of very sketchy customers who constantly hit on me, and I never felt safe. I worked there for half a week before I finally called the owner and quit over the phone.
I never expect a reply from just submitting an application. However, if I’ve made the time and effort to interview with a company, I expect follow-up, even if the news is disappointing. I code these things in my job spreadsheet and note which ones ghost me, and they go right on my nope list. Don’t bother recruiting me!
Thank you! Fixed!
In all fairness – even though ghosting is wrong by either side of the hiring process – I feel that it really started with employers, really the recruiters. It was during the strong downturn in the American job market, employers/recruiters had hundreds of job seekers and thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. I had never been ghosted by employers before that.
But, I said for years their bad behavior will come back to bite them – and so now it has. The generation that started looking for work during that time has come to think that is the way companies/the working world works. It wasn’t; but, it now become a “norm” so I get why job seekers do it. it was done to them first.
okay, okay, I am sooo cynical!
Employers have done for years, now they are swallowing that bitter pill, doesn’t taste good.