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Key highlights
Introduction
There is so much interaction between a candidate and a recruiter during the course of hiring. All the effort put into assessing, interviewing, and offering a job role is nullified when a candidate ghosts you.
The term ‘ghosting’ first emerged in the dating context when a journalist was stood up by her date and blocked on all apps. Today, it has trickled into many other relationships, including friendships, networking, businesses, and workplaces.
It was commonplace for many organizations to ghost candidates after interviewing them. The reasons ranged from busy schedules, volume hiring, or just assuming candidates will know their results if they are not contacted. Although some candidates would also vanish on their recruiters, the rate of candidate ghosting has increased from 18% in 2019 to 28% in 2021.
Let us understand the concept of ghosting better.
Ghosting in the workplace is when a candidate accepts a job offer but stops communicating with a potential employer without any apparent warning or justification and ignores any subsequent attempts to communicate.
A candidate vanishing suddenly can leave you, the recruiter, feeling confused, disappointed, and frustrated and questioning what went wrong and whether you should follow up with them. Of course, there remains the bigger challenge of interviewing another candidate for the role.
Quite obviously, candidate ghosting can cause many complications for recruiters:
When a candidate cuts off communication, you could feel uncertain of whether to follow up with them or start looking for other candidates. Depending on your experience with the candidate, you may feel like giving them the benefit of the doubt and making up reasons for why the candidate must be uncommunicative.
Apart from the already invested time in a candidate, waiting for them to respond or looking for other suitable candidates for a role increases the time-to-hire.
Ghosting significantly increases the cost-to-hire with duplication of effort.
There is a significant loss of productivity for the recruiter, which may lead to decreased morale.
The reasons for candidate ghosting can fall into 2 major categories:
In any of the scenarios, if a candidate is conflict-avoidant or passive-aggressive, they would prefer to disappear rather than communicate with you and reveal the real reasons for their change in decision.
Of course, as a recruiter, you may not be able to anticipate the mindset of the candidate. However, you can take some concrete steps to prevent candidate ghosting.
Firstly, let us understand the depth of the word – strategy. Strategy is defined as a long-range plan for achieving something or reaching a goal. Since it is a long-term plan, the strategy to avoid candidate ghosting starts right from the organizational values.
Through the various interview stages, you can uncover many aspects of the candidate. You can also understand them better by creating candidate personas.
Candidate personas may contain the following information:
Make transparent, timely, and honest communication a part of your organization’s values (within internal teams or candidates).
If you are straightforward about your value proposition, expectations, and the interview processes, it may help reduce ghosting. Likewise, you could encourage candidates to state their expectations and preferences throughout the interview process.
You could also use automation to ensure timely communication. This allows you to send follow-up messages and updates and inform candidates about their candidature.
Statistics show 48% of candidates feel exasperated by employers and recruiters who don’t inform them or keep them updated on where they stand. Therefore, ensure that you offer closure to candidates by communicating with candidates promptly.
Today, candidates feel that they have many job options, especially those from younger generations like the millennials and Gen Z. Candidate experience has become the main differentiator to be the ‘chosen one’.
The following factors contribute to creating a great candidate experience:
As a recruiter, what you can do to prevent candidate ghosting is to ensure an efficient recruitment process and communicate effectively. There may be factors that are beyond your control that may cause the candidate to withdraw their application. However, the comfort that the candidate has with you will help them speak to you openly about their preferences.
On the other hand, you must accept that even though you try your best to create a great experience, candidates may ghost you owing to their passive personalities.
And if a candidate still ghosts you despite being treated extremely well, you could consider the professional relationship with them to be incompatible anyway.
The answer is quite subjective. You must definitely follow up with a candidate through multiple channels, like phone calls, text messages, and emails, to avoid any communication gaps. You could also give the candidate enough time to respond, presuming busy schedules or emergencies.
With multiple follow-ups, you could request the candidate to inform you about delays or changes in their decision.
The urgency to fill the position is also an important factor in following up with the candidate.
Scheduling interviews is a tough task, especially if the candidate is employed during their time of application to your organization. Conflicting schedules can delay the process. Technological tools such as Applicant Tracking System (ATS) have the option of self-scheduling, where candidates and interviewers can view a calendar and schedule interviews mutually.
This will help reduce the time involved in logistics and reduce time delays.
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