My two penny’s worth on what seems to be an emotive topic at the moment…
It’s a tough market for job seekers at the moment and, while unfortunately there are genuine cases of candidates being given the run around, the topic of ghosting – what it constitutes, and whether or not people are always entitled to a response – is a debatable one.
To put it out there – the notion that recruiters (or hirers, or anybody for that matter) should be obligated to respond to every single approach, message or application is plain unreasonable and unrealistic. Like everybody else we have a day job to do, need to put food on the table, and in order to respond to every incoming request I’d genuinely have to hire somebody dedicated solely to this task. It’s not free, far from it – there is no small consumption of time, resources and money in allocating that level of attention to something.
That being said, there are many situations where to provide no response or feedback is wrong, and people are warranted to feel aggrieved in these cases. My view:
👻 Lack of response to a cold message, or initial application = NOT ‘ghosting’. You can’t be ghosted by somebody you’ve never interacted with before – you’re playing a numbers game here and a low response rate is to be expected (not that I am discouraging these approaches, they should absolutely be part of your job seeking or networking attempts!).
👻 Disappearing from the face of the earth after a genuine engagement, such as a meaningful conversation with agreed actions, an interview or – from a recruiters point of view – being asked by a client to dedicate time and resources to run a search = GHOSTING, and never acceptable in my book. (I’d also throw into this; if you’re a hiring company and you’re asking candidates to jump through a million hoops just to get their application through the door – requiring hours spent on filling out forms, completing tests, etc – then I hope you intend to return the favour to all of these candidates by engaging back in return.)
In summary, we are seeing countless genuine examples of ghosting, but also many occasions where it’s a card that is overplayed. For those guilty; this is not a witch hunt or a slam piece, it’s likely something that we are all culpable of – or have been guilty of before. It does seem rife at the moment and unfortunately empathy with job seekers (human beings) has gone out of the door somewhat. But, it would be wrong not to balance that out by sticking up for all the recruiters and hiring businesses out there that are getting berated for not being responsive to every bit of inbound communication that lands on their doorsteps.
