Ask HN: What’s with all the job applicants who ghost the company

3 points by taklimakan 5 years ago | 10 comments

I’m seeing an increasing trend of job applicants who ghost the company after the first contact. For our latest job opening we received north of 300 applications of which a solid 15-20% have been contacted back. Not a single applicant has ever replied thereafter. Some have replied to schedule a first meeting and simply didn’t show up.

If it happened to my company only, I’d start questioning our HR procedure and the approach, or language, of our recruiter. However several of my friends and peers reported the same kind of story.

Maybe I’m just a grumpy old man but... is this the new normal in recruitment? Is it a collective revenge against companies that ghost candidates?

totalZero 5 years ago |

I am not a hiring manager but I have some thoughts that may or may not be useful.

After a few rounds of applying to jobs, people start to simply shotgun out resumes and filter the job opportunity later. I doubt there's any conscious malice involved. This is a tough time for some people and those applicants probably stopped being selective after early failures. Others who are looking for lateral moves may just be testing the waters. What's the delay between collection of applications and first contact?

> Not a single applicant has ever replied thereafter. Some have replied to schedule a first meeting and simply didn’t show up.

Not sure how to parse this. It sounds like some of them are replying.

> is this the new normal in recruitment? Is it a collective revenge against companies that ghost candidates?

I think what you are describing is the old normal. The shoe is simply on the other foot. "It's just business" has become almost a mantra for technocrats.

LambdaComplex 5 years ago | |

> I think what you are describing is the old normal.

Yeah, it's not "collective revenge," it's just equal treatment. Companies have been treating candidates like this for ages; they really shouldn't act so shocked when the candidates return the favor.

taklimakan 5 years ago | |

I’m admittedly lumping candidates who don’t reply at all with those who ghost the first interview. I view it as the same kind of behavior, as they quit the process early without an apparent reason.

iwangulenko 5 years ago |

Technical recruiter here.

Did you check DMRAC and all the other email settings?

Maybe your emails land in spam.

Or even quicker and better: If you have their resume, just call the (best) candidates.

If they were unsure whether to work for you, you might turn them around even. On the phone you can give them reasons why they should work for you and dissolve misunderstandings that they might have gotten via your website.

If you are hiring, the biggest ROI skill you need to acquire is LEARN TO LOVE THE PHONE.

taklimakan 5 years ago | |

You are right. Though when hiring remote, time zones might be an obstacle.

effingwewt 5 years ago |

From a perspective from the other side- job seekers are more and more finding that with WFH becoming more popular, their choices are increasing as well. However, that means more applications put in, more tweaks to resume/CV. Employers on the other hand seem to be asking more and more of the job seekers.

What I'm seeing is people dropping the companies with big asks in order to out out more applications. They can spend hours/days on back and forth with one company or spend that time applying to 20 other places.

Shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.

imagineerschool 5 years ago |

What are the stats about the whole funnel? Where are applicants coming from? How long does it take for a company to respond to applicants?

And, this isn't really a stats question: Are these meaningful skilled jobs, or are they jobs that could be done by anyone with a pulse?

To try to understand, I suggest you try putting yourself in an applicant's shoes. Try applying to these companies yourself and keep a journal of how the interactions unfold. You'll learn something!

ksaj 5 years ago |

To be fair, if that is their ethic, you probably don't want to hire them anyway. It seems reasonable to expect that if you ghost a company or recruiter, they are not likely to welcome you with open arms when you find yourself on the job hunt again.

ThrowawayR2 5 years ago |

Perhaps they're collecting unemployment insurance? My understanding is that submitting a number of job applications per week is required to collect but no follow-up with the potential employer beyond submitting the application is required.

imagineerschool 5 years ago |

You created an ask HN and only responded to 2 of 5 answers.

It's you.