BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

The Problem With Ghosting Candidates (And How To Solve It)

Forbes Human Resources Council

Keynote speaker on all things talent! Founder and CEO of the Qualigence Group of Companies and Principal Partner with The Predictive Index.

Remember February of 2020? I know, it feels like ancient history by now. The economy was booming, unemployment was at a record low and we had millions more job openings than active candidates. One of the biggest complaints from recruiters at the time was being ghosted by candidates.

Then Covid-19 hit and the tables turned faster than we could have ever imagined. Suddenly talent acquisition teams were bombarded with applicants. More broadly, the market has been flooded with active candidates. 

So are recruiters treating candidates with more respect than they themselves received? Are they responding to most every applicant and keeping candidates in the loop if they're rejected?

Broadly speaking, the answer is no.

Candidate Experiences Are Sinking Fast 

You would think that given recruiters' experiences with candidates ghosting so recently, they would be sympathetic to candidates' situations. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, I'm hearing from a lot of candidates that they are being ghosted by recruiters.

This is just plain wrong. Just because you have hundreds of candidates doesn't mean you're justified in treating them poorly. It doesn't matter which way you slice it — this is just bad business.

From what I can tell, there are a few main reasons why this is happening: 

1. Recruiting teams are simply overloaded with an above-average volume of applicants. 

2. They've never had a process in place to communicate with every applicant, only the candidates who seem like a great fit. 

3. Recruiters are being trained to withhold specific feedback for rejected candidates to avoid lawsuits. 

4. Some are selfish, they're having trouble managing their time or they are acting in a vindictive manner for when they felt candidates were taking advantage of them. 

The Long-Term Damage 

Regardless of why recruiters are ghosting candidates, I can assure you it's doing tremendous long-term damage to your candidate experience, your recruiting process and your company's brand in the marketplace. With every candidate we ghost, we burn a bridge and foster resentment that can take years to undo. Ghosting candidates poisons our well of talent, so to speak. 

When the tables are turned yet again — and they will turn, sooner or later — candidates will remember how we treated them. And let's not forget that our candidates are often customers as well. It takes so much effort and time to build a strong employer brand, but so little time to destroy it.  

So, if you're one of those recruiting teams who's flooded with candidates and wants to respond but doesn't have time, what can you do to fix the situation? 

Solutions For Candidate Overload 

• Automate. In a perfect world, recruiters should send everyone a personal message. But when you've got 800 candidates awaiting reply, an automated message is the next best thing. In today's day and age, there's no good reason why you can't have prompt automated messages for every applicant when they successfully apply as well as if/when they are rejected. 

• Quit inviting anyone and their grandma to apply. Have you ever seen a job description that was way too broad? Many recruiters are witnessing firsthand how volume can quickly become your worst enemy. You don't need hundreds of candidates for a role, you need five to 10 candidates of great quality.

In sales and marketing, if we are constantly getting low-quality leads, we ask ourselves, "Why?" What are we sending out into the world that are attracting these unqualified prospects? 

If your recruiting team is bombarded with unqualified candidates, circle back to your employment pages and job descriptions. Are they too vague? Promising too much? Ask how you can tweak your message to turn away bad candidates. 

Get third-party support. Sure, I know budgets are tight. But if you look at the long-term health of your talent pipeline and your business in general, you can't afford to be letting down hundreds of candidates every day. If you want to grow long-term and thrive during the economic recovery, you need to be able to quickly and efficiently make great hires for key positions.  

The short-term costs of treating candidates well will pay dividends for your long-term talent needs. Regardless of your specific recruiting process, you should be able to find a third-party recruiter that can streamline the process and improve candidate experience. 

Recruiting Is About Relationships 

Anyone can find candidates. And anyone can make hires. But if you've been in recruiting as long as I have, you know that to consistently make great hires — the hires who truly add value to the business long-term — you need to build strong relationships with candidates. And you don't have to be a recruiter to know that ghosting is hardly the best way to build relationships.

If your recruiting team is letting candidate experience slide, I urge you to rethink your process and consider the damage it's doing to your business. What comes around goes around.


Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?


Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website