You spend hours crafting a great job application, highlighting your skills, abilities and experience. When you’re asked to attend an interview, it seems to go well — and you’re quietly confident that you may be asked to return for another meeting, or be offered the role. But when weeks turn to months and you still haven’t heard back, you question whether you are competent at all.
Many of us have faced silence while waiting to hear back from a prospective employer, only to end up hearing nothing at all. "Ghosting" — a behaviour usually associated with dating in which someone suddenly disappears — is becoming more common among professional recruiters, research suggests. And it’s having a seriously detrimental impact on job applicants.
Two-thirds (65%) of the UK public have been ghosted by a recruiter, according to a survey of 2,000 job-seekers by the recruitment software company Tribepad. Three in four men (72%) have been ghosted during the job-seeking process, in comparison to three in five women (58%).
Ghosting isn’t just rude, but it can have a significant impact on people’s mental health. Job applications are often time-consuming and complex, with multiple written tasks and tests, as well as interviews.