How to Prevent Candidate Ghosting
The term “ghosting” started as slang for dropping out of contact with someone, usually after you’ve dated. It’s an immature, passive-aggressive way to let someone know that you’re not interested in pursuing a relationship with them. And unfortunately, it’s bleeding into the business world.
It’s hard to say when this started, but somehow, we’ve ended up in a situation where simply not providing an answer seems to have become the way to say no to someone. Whether it’s a failure to respond to a business proposal or simply not responding to emails and phone calls, people often decide to just cut off communication in the hope that the person not being responded to somehow “gets it”.
Ghosting can happen throughout the business world, but it’s most common among job seekers. And the worst part is that it can happen at any point in the interview process, from your initial phone screen up until the start date.
Why do candidates ghost?
It’s hard to say why someone may simply stop responding during the interview process instead of telling you that they aren’t interested. Ghosting isn’t limited to one type of job, or one particular age bracket (no, you can’t blame it all on Millennials). What we can do is look at some of the most common reasons why candidates ghost.
Your interview process takes too long
It’s exciting to be invited to an interview. But nothing kills that excitement, and interest in the position, like a drawn-out interview process, especially one where a candidate has to wait for weeks for feedback or to have a follow-up interview scheduled. That’s the kind of thing that will encourage someone to look for job other opportunities at a company that might be ready to hire. If you also haven’t stayed in communication with the candidate, it becomes more likely that you'll get ghosted.
Poor candidate communication
Sometimes, your managers, or anyone else speaking with a candidate, will just put their foot in it. Your manager may lack basic interview skills or may simply not realize how they’re coming across to a job candidate.
The decision to ghost often results from a negative interaction with your company, especially if that negative interaction is with a potential colleague or supervisor. It may seem unfair for a job candidate to judge a company by one interaction, but remember, that candidate has a very limited view of your company.
Inaccurate job posting
It’s not unusual for a job description to change after a position has been posted online. When a job posting has changed significantly without being updated, it makes your company look disorganized. It will also encourage candidates to ghost you. Imagine finding out that a job was going to be a salaried position, only to find out it’s going to be a contract. Would that make you want to go through the interview process? Probably not.
The same thing holds true for other job details, such as educational requirements, benefits, and pay. When a candidate interviews for a job that’s significantly different than the one they applied to, they are likely to simply ghost.
Failure to sell the job opportunity
We think of the interview process as an opportunity for a candidate to show why they would be good for your company. But in reality, an interview is a two-way process, and as much as you’re selecting someone for a job, the candidate is selecting a new employer.
When you don’t take the time to show why your company is a great place to work and present the job opportunity as a good match for the candidate, you make it harder to hire the right people. You also increase the likelihood of getting ghosted.
You haven’t stayed in touch
Candidates are as turned off by ghosting as anyone else. If you suddenly stop communicating with a candidate, it annoys them and encourages them to look for other job opportunities even if you have a perfectly good reason for dropping out of communication.
There are times when you won’t be able to keep up with candidates. Things happen. But when you’re not able to keep in contact and you don’t let the candidate know beforehand, or as soon as possible, you risk discouraging interest in your company and the job opening.
Ways to keep candidates engaged
Ultimately, ghosting is about poor communication. Candidates who ghost often feel that they can just disappear without consequence because they aren’t engaged with the opportunity. Maybe they don’t believe that the opportunity is real, maybe they have reservations that they don’t feel comfortable discussing with you. For whatever reason, the candidate is not fully engaged with the opportunity. The good news is that you can work to minimize the temptation to ghost.
Keeping in touch
One of the most effective tactics to encourage candidate engagement is to be there. There are things you can do throughout the hiring process, like giving feedback and letting candidates know where they are in your hiring process. Simply returning emails and phone calls promptly, just as you would like, will go a long way to keep candidates engaged in the interview process. When you let job candidates know that their time and energy is appreciated, it will make them much less likely to ghost.
Control your interview process
A long, drawn-out interview process is often cited as a major reason why candidates often feel frustrated and disengaged from a potential employer. Truth be told, it can be very frustrating for the company and the hiring manager as well. The job is open for a reason, and you are interviewing people to fill it. The longer a job goes unfilled, the bigger pain it becomes.
Keep your interview process as compact as you can. Don’t be afraid to use video interviews for managers who have limited availability. Using video interviews will help keep the interview process moving forward and will make it easier to evaluate candidates. You can also let candidates schedule their own interviews by using online schedulers like Calendly. It’s also a good idea to spend some time with your managers to make sure that they can communicate with candidates in a professional and positive manner.
Personalize candidate communications
No one likes to get form letters, or form emails for that matter. When you have to send out a communication to your candidates, make sure that it’s as personalized as possible. One good way to do this is to make a note about some personal interest of the candidate, such as a favorite sports team, and mention the last game that team played. This will let the candidate know that you are listening to them, which will make it much less likely they will ghost.
When things change
Be sure your job candidate is aware of any major changes to a job description before they come in for an interview. Everyone is different, and some changes will be regarded as more disruptive than others, but no one likes a surprise in a job interview. When a job changes significantly, let the candidate know ahead of time so they can back out if they want rather than ghost once they’ve found out about the changes.
Use all of your resources
If your candidate came through your talent acquisition partner, that partner can be a great way to keep in touch with them. The candidate may feel more comfortable disclosing concerns with a recruiter than with a representative of the company they hope to work for. Don’t be afraid to use the recruiter to take the candidate’s temperature and to make sure that any concerns are addressed.
Early onboarding
Once the job offer has been made and accepted, it can be tempting to assume that the hiring process is over. The fact is, however, that the candidate can still ghost you.
It’s important not to forget the candidate once they’ve signed their offer letter. Make sure you are still keeping the candidate engaged from the time they accept a job offer until they actually start their new job. One way to do this is to start the onboarding process early. There’s a lot you can do before the candidate’s start date. For example, you can give the candidate information about benefits, an employee handbook, possibly even access to the internal employee web site. If you have any team-building exercises planned, be sure to invite the new employee. Ideally, candidate engagement will become employee engagement.
What about the candidates you don’t hire?
The thing about a job search is that there’s always someone who ends up disappointed. It’s unusual to be able to hire more than one candidate for the same job. So what happens to the people you don’t hire?
If you treat candidates right throughout the process, you’ll be able call on them later when you have another position for them. They may feel comfortable referring candidates to you, or you may be able to pass their contact information to someone you know who’s hiring. In other words, the candidates that you don’t hire can become part of your network, if you treat them with respect.
Treating candidates with respect includes letting them know they didn’t get the job in a reasonable period of time. Everyone has had the experience of getting a rejection notice. But it’s the companies that drag their feet and tell you “no” weeks, or even months after you complete their interview process that really make you want to tell everyone in your network to avoid.
Don’t ghost
One of the most common complaints from candidates is that they stop hearing from employers – this is literally the definition of ghosting.
There may be a good reason why your company stopped talking to a candidate without notice, but whatever that reason may be, it won’t make any difference to the candidate you ghost. They’ll remember it and tell people about it. Ghosting candidates can damage your reputation as an employer, and ultimately, it can damage your pipeline.
Think about it – you contacted the candidate for a reason, and that candidate has friends and acquaintances who likely have the same, or similar, abilities and experience. You don’t want to get a reputation for treating job candidates poorly – that’s a great way to encourage ghosting.
