Ending on a Sour Note: Why Lack of Communication in the Hiring Process Burns Bridges Needlessly

Ghosted by an interviewer or interviewee? Call Ghostbusters! … no answer? Okay, well give this article a read in the meantime. It might be helpful too.

Having someone cease contact during the pre-hire process, whether it’s a potential candidate or an employer, is a common occurrence that can have even the most patient and professional individual tearing their hair out in frustration. What, if anything, did you do wrong? And could it have been avoided? Of course it could – this is an entirely avoidable nuisance in the modern job market. But, to keep lack of communication from dampening the pre-hiring process, we all need to do our part.

The Tables Have Turned

According to a recent survey, 66% of applicants who were rejected from roles found out in unsavory ways; 36% received no response at all, whilst another 30% received an impersonal rejection note. And now the tables seem to have turned. Candidates ghosting employers is on the rise due to a growing job market, and now companies are facing the effects of new hires or promising interviewees ceasing contact without so much as a “thanks but no thanks”. But, whatever your thoughts may be on this shift of power, two wrongs don’t make a right.

How Can We Fix This?

It’s difficult to tell an interviewee who has applied for fifty jobs via various job sites and received minimal-to-zero acknowledgment that they need to watch their manners. Afterall, this is where it all began; the age of technology has made it so easy to apply for jobs, that in many cases it seems simply impossible to respond to all 100+ applicants for each and every open position. But the sad truth is that this ignorance has become the new norm – and we need to challenge it from the top down, showing interviewees the meaning of grace and respect as opposed to making them feel as though they’re wasting their time.

Obviously, it can be a challenge to keep up with every applicant. There’s only so much a single HR professional can do, and this is why Applicant Tracking Systems are more necessary now than ever before in a digital job market to maintain a great candidate experience. By tracking, organizing, and assessing candidates with pre-hire tools, we can ensure that every potential employee gets the time of day they deserve – and at least ensure that those not suitable for the position receive a “thank you and good luck” for their time and efforts.

If we all treated applicants this way, and led by example, they would follow suit – and the whole process of hiring/applying for jobs would become a gentle breeze, instead of a ravenous hurricane of ghosting and unreliability sweeping across the landscape of the current job market, immolating all promising career seekers and hopeful employees in its path. Wouldn’t that be a dream come true?