Keen to stop candidate ghosting from holding up your hiring process? The trend of ghosting is rampant among both job seekers and job providers, but addressing this issue and reducing interview no-shows is in the best interest of everyone involved in the process.
No version of ghosting is ever pleasant to encounter, whether it’s a haunted house, a delayed response on a dating app, or a candidate who never gets back after a job offer. The process of hiring is complex and time-consuming in its entirety, but when candidate ghosting begins to interfere with the process, matters grow far more complex. Hiring gets held up, too many resources are spent on a candidate who ultimately disappears from the process, and the unresponsiveness creates more complications for future candidates.
Ghosting in the hiring process is just as common among recruiters who disappear from the scene abruptly, and this is just as detrimental to the relationship between employees and job seekers, but that’s a conversation that we’ll tackle another day. For now, let’s take a look at how to prevent candidate ghosting.
Is candidate ghosting interfering with hiring? There are a few different ways to stop it, and it all starts with improving your recruitment process. (Image: Freepik)
Hiring Holdups: How to Stop Candidate Ghosting and Improve Candidate Communication
Ghosting in the hiring process is not a new concept or idea, but it has become increasingly common in the modern workplace. Not only do hiring teams encounter ghosting when hiring, but some candidates even go so far as to accept a role and then never show up for their first day of work. This creates considerable frustration among employers and, unfortunately, leads to more severe treatment towards the next candidate who is hired.
Indeed’s Ghosting in Hiring Report found that 61% of job seekers in the U.S. have ghosted between two to four employers in the past 12 months. The numbers were significantly lower in Canada, where 37% were admitted to doing the same, or in the UK, where 36% of job seekers admitted to ghosting.
The problem with ghosting isn’t just that it occurs, but that there is often little remorse for doing so. After the treatment that employees themselves have experienced, 70% felt it was fair to ghost an employer. Although 59% ultimately regretted doing so, 23% felt a degree of control over the situation and their employer. Ghosting can occur due to multiple reasons, some of which are justified and others that aren’t. Regardless of the reasoning, ghosting in the hiring process creates holdups and issues, many of which only sour the relationship between employers and employees.
Why Does Ghosting Occur in the Hiring Process?
To stop candidates from ghosting, it’s first important to understand why they do it. The list of possibilities is endless, and some indeed do it out of malice or a desire to get back at employers. For the most part, however, ghosting in the hiring process occurs due to genuine reasons and external preoccupations that keep employees from getting back to potential employers.
So, why do candidates ghost recruiters?
- They received a better offer elsewhere and don’t feel it’s necessary to inform other potential employers
- They lose interest in the job and no longer want to pursue it
- They see a mismatch between what the job posting stated and the actual role presented during the hiring process
- They are unimpressed with the hiring process and communication, and resort to employing similar tactics themselves
- They grow tired of waiting for the recruiter to reach out and cut off contact with them
- They aren’t satisfied with the terms of the offer, such as pay, benefits, or growth potential
- They feel frustrated by poor communication that results in confusion and eventual withdrawal
- Many candidates dislike seeing AI in the hiring process and reject the job before an AI tool can reject them
- Personal incidents may cause candidates to lose track of job applications, resulting in ghosting
How to Prevent Job Candidate Ghosting Tendencies and Improve the Hiring Process
A 100% end to candidate’s ghosting employers may sound like a pipe dream, but it is possible to make changes to the hiring process to reduce the chances of it occurring.
Ask New Hires About their Hiring Experience: When employees are finally hired, it’s important to ask them a few quick questions about what they liked about the hiring process and where improvements could be made.
Improve the Job Postings for Clarity: When the job description accurately reflects the role, finding employees who fit the bill and have an interest in the role is easier.
Pursue Transparency in Pay and Benefits: When employees are satisfied with the pay and benefits, they remain eager to pursue the role and all it has to offer.
Structure the Hiring Process: Applications flood in the moment a job post goes up, and without a structured approach, it can be impossible to keep track of all the candidates. Use necessary systems to ensure that there is order to the madness and recruitment teams have a structured approach to interviewing and communicating with candidates.
Improve Frequency of Candidate Communication: Candidates appreciate getting updates about the role and the progress being made with their applications. With frequent delays and issues in communication, employees are likely to settle for another opportunity.
Clarify Employee Expectations: To stop candidates from ghosting, it is essential to set clear expectations of what they can expect. With the entire hiring process laid out in front of them, employees are able to set reasonable expectations for the hiring timeline and process.
Rely on Human Interactions: While using AI and automation in hiring can be helpful, job seekers often prefer talking to a human over interacting with a bot when it comes to assessing candidates or communicating with them.
It’s Time to Reduce Interview No-Shows and Fix the Ghosting Issues in Hiring
Rising trends such as ghosting suggest that there are elements in the hiring process that are currently broken. Addressing them in the present is better than waiting for matters to get worse, as the frustrations are likely to grow and put a strain on the business’s reputation as a good place to work. Ghosting prevention in hiring is an essential consideration in improving the candidate experience and reducing the potential areas of friction that currently persist.
No single strategy can stop the rise of candidate ghosting, which means that recruiters and HR teams have to sit down and carefully consider their current mode of operations to determine what they want to do to improve it.
Do you have recommendations on how to stop candidates from ghosting HR hiring teams? Share your suggestions in the comments or write to us. Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights on improving candidate communication and fixing the hiring process once and for all.
