I always email after an interview, but I couldn’t possibly correspond to everyone who submits an application. That would be a part time job all on its own
I would guess they probably don’t have the time. I heard a few months ago that a place was hiring for about a dozen positions, and they got a few thousand applications.
I always just assumed they deal with too many applicants to have time. I just assume if I dont hear back in a month I didnt get it no reason to ponder why.
It’s particularly ridiculous when it’s multiple interviews. A month ago, my kid did four interviews with a place and then they ghosted. Should be a law against that…
Not sure how HR operates across all different companies but anecdotally when the last job I worked at opened up an engineering role we had something like 2000 applications in 3 days…and not even a very big named company.
Unless you’re getting auto rejection letters it’s probably HR stopping after the first few promising candidates in their inbox list because holy shit
It sucks, but I can also understand it. Myself and another guy were both applying for the full-time position that we were both working part-time. I got the job.
My boss, in an unusual moment of idiocy joked “we gave the job to the younger guy”
I think that he was trying to be sympathetic because it is hard for older people to get hired, but of course it ended up with the place getting sued for age discrimination.
The guy was a dick and it was objectively the right decision to give me the job because I was much better at it. But still kind of shit for him.
So that if the person they want cancels on them, they can tell the runner up that they were the first choice and so on down the line until they finally get someone.
That and some of them love to be assholes and enjoy knowing they are making people have false hope.
i don’t ghost candidates that have two way interactions with the company. If we’ve phone screened you, had you visit the team on-site, sent a take home assessment, etc you will 100% get a yes/no response from me. Sometimes in the form of an automated template from the ATS if we’re really early in the interview process, and always from me directly if we’ve had back and forth communication.
That said, I can’t extend that to all applicants too. The last time we opened a role, we had a few hundred applicants within the first day. I sort through those, send interview requests to candidates that look promising, and use the ATS rejection template for everyone else. I try to reject on a rolling basis, so let’s say pretty much everyone gets a yes/no within a week of applying, and 100% of applicants get a yes/no within a few days of the role closing.
It really sucks when the interview goes really good and you’re gettin good vibes from the interviewer then they choose someone else that’s like a kick to the gut
I’ve done quite a few interviews at the small company I work for and I tell everyone: we have a few candidates left to interview but one way or another we’ll let you know.
Here’s the thing: I am not HR. I’m just an engineer who got put in an interviewing position and my recommendation is listened to. But after I say yay or nay, idk if HR is reaching out to these folks. I can ask them to. I can tell them to. But my authority does not extend over them. So I hope they are letting these people know. But idk.
I honestly assume they’re shotgunning applications everywhere. I don’t receive anything that looks close to tailored for the posting and a ton don’t reply back if I send them a message. Less than half show up to the interview.
And I know what most of you are going to say; “Well, you should pay more” or “You must not be offering enough benefits” or something. Trust me, I’m offering better than most in my field (blue collar, minimal training or experience).
I just assume that’s how it works these days. I post a help wanted on Indeed and am spammed with quick click applicants who are going to hit 30 others and just wait for the best of all they hit up in a week. They honestly don’t care about me sending them a denial, they certainly don’t send any my way.
I once let a candidate know he didn’t have the specific experience we were looking for. He argued with me and threatened to “turn me in” and call the local news channel. I figured he was just another loon that would go away, but then he published a nasty article about me and my firm on his website. Most of it was made up garbage of course, and he sounded like an idiot. But that site was one of the first hits on Google for many years when you searched my name.
Needless to say, I now ghost applicants that I don’t actually choose to interview.
A company that ghosts you should give you a good indication it’s not a good company to work for. Honesty seems to be lacking in their working environment.
We develop HR software. Not ADP but one of the other big boys.
We have tools that prompt recruiters to send rejection/decline emails, but most ignore them because humans are lazy. A scant few configure the system to send the email to all applicants unselected for the role, but it’s a tiny minority of customers.
It’s hard enough to get recruiters to close filled/retracted/delayed recs. If our auto pruning didn’t purge them after 90 days? They’d have positions listed from 2018… I’m sure of it.
I did this when I first started in HR (for the first few months) because I never really had any of the process explained to me. I always replied if the candidate reached out, but if they didn’t I let it lie. I told my husband and he told me it was shitty not to follow up so I went back to everyone I had ghosted and let them know we had moved on, and now I’m super anal about making sure everyone gets a follow-up. I was just stupid tbh.
Corporate worker here.
You get hundreds and hundreds of applications for every job. HR filters them down for the hiring manager, but holy shit there’s no way HR could write them each a personal letter explaining why they won’t be moving forward. Some companies have automated responses, others ghost.
I applied at a startup once and made it through three interviews before they ultimately picked someone else. I got a page long letter with the best, most thoughtful feedback telling me exactly why they hired the other person instead of me. It was awesome.
I wish everyone could do that, but there are just too many people applying these days for that to be practical.
My wife has forced me into enabling her cuckhold fetish by threatening to take away the kids, and my brand new Kawasaki 2023 Mule 4010. I often spend time out in the pasture on my Kawasaki 2023 Mule 4010, scrolling through workday and reviewing the applications that get forwarded to me by Peggy from HR. Sometimes I find it hard to focus because I know that fat cunt Teddy is in my house, eating banana bread THATI BAKED, flirting with my wife.
Anyways, while I’m reviewing the applications on my Kawasaki 2023 Mule 4010 I like to take my time andreally make sure I’m picking the best candidate, hold on she’s calling me back to the ho
If you get past the recruiter interview and talk to the actual hiring manager, then getting ghosted if not hired is, sadly, a 50/50 outcome. Most larger companies use databases like ePMO and WorkDay to manage recruiting and interviews. If the interview didn’t result in hiring then the manager checks the box and makes some notes as to why, and the candidate usually gets an automated email. Some companies have it written in policy and it’s followed, and some just don’t.
However, that’s not always the case. There is no rhyme or reason. On some jobs a recruiter can get several hundred applications, and about 90% are just absolutely unqualified. The job requires a specific certification and people without it apply in droves. I get it, people are desperate, but this is a sure way to get added to the “IGNORE” list.
I interviewed for a different position about a year ago. I thought the interview went well. But I didn’t hear anything. Keep in mind that this was internal.
I was an IT Support Specialist, and we handle all the New Employee Onboardings. My team gets a standard email about a new employee, like normal. However, the employee position listed was for the position I applied for.
Nobody told me that I didn’t get the position despite the fact that the hiring manager sat 2 desks behind me. We would literally walk past me at least a dozen times a day.
AND they used my own name when describing where this new employee’s desk was at.
My work’s HR won’t allow us to. They do nothing with the hiring process beyond posting a half-wrong job description, then put us in charge of ranking the applicants, interviewing everyone, background checking and reference checking them, then the hiring manager can only contact the person they offer the position to and any internal full-time applicants who didn’t get it. Any other internal part-time or external applicants hear nothing for 8 weeks until HR sends them a generic “we went with someone else” email, if they’re lucky.
It’s happened to multiple part-time staff of mine who have been going for full-time positions for a few years now. Incredibly frustrating for me who would promote them if I was that hiring manager and devastating for them when their own workplace doesn’t even give them the courtesy of a phone call.
Please say why. I hate being unsure if I’m getting a job. I haven’t messaged many since there’s not much available for a teen without any mode of transportation that also listed contact information, but I’ve messaged what I can (literally one place) and got nothing. I think I’ll just take Walmart
Giving a reason gives somebody ammunition for a human rights complaint. Somebody who shows up with no arms will sue for ableism if you don’t hire them for a job that requires lifting heavy boxes all day. Or the job is “lady in leotard bunny suit modeling leotard bunny suits for a women’s leotard bunny suit boutique” and you get men showing up just so they can sue for sexism if you tell them “women only” or something.
Other applicants can take an eternity to get back to the guy doing the hiring.
Management can take an eternity to get back to the guy doing the hiring.
From what I know, it’s usually not malice, it’s messy systems and bad habits. A lot of teams don’t have a clean way to mark “no” in their ATS without triggering a form letter that legal wants to review, so it gets kicked down the road. Recruiters juggle 30–60 roles, and when a hiring manager stalls, they stall too. Also, some companies worry a rejection could spark arguments or review bombs, so they default to silence.
I do a bit of hiring, not in HR but rather I’m very involved in who gets hired into my team.
There are a couple things going on here.
First, 95% of the people who apply for the position are so wildly unqualified that I can only assume they adopted a spray and pray approach. I don’t engage with these whatsoever, they’re just deletes.
Second, if someone is a great candidate but not the best candidate, sometimes we don’t want to send a rejection until the main candidate is hired. This is because my top candidate is usually applying elsewhere and I don’t know that I’ll get then. When I do hire, the people who were real contenders I always call, not just because it’s the right thing to do but also because I might want to hire them in the future. But if I’m in a lengthy hiring and negotiating process with one candidate, the others can feel like they’ve been ghosted. This sucks but there isn’t a better way.
Third, if something actually goes really wrong in an interview, I don’t want to set people off. Everyone says they want feedback but in truth like 80% of people when receiving feedback will try to treat it as an opportunity to give a rebuttal. I’ve had bad experiences with people getting hostile about this and so if there is a really stark reason why a person had to get dropped from a process I will sometimes just let them go into the void.
Not an employer but tge real reason is that applicants failed one or more prescreening criteria. Rather than a frank rejection its better to ghost for legal reasons like avoiding discrimination lawsuits. 💩
Applicants? Who cares? Each posting gets THOUSANDS of applicants, most not even qualified as per the job description. Some companies send out a boiler plate, but many smaller ones without that tech don’t. Unless you can automate the rejections, it’s just not humanly possible to inform the thousands of candidates manually.
However, yes, people actually interviewed in any capacity, including a basic phone screen from HR, deserve a proper follow up.
And if you’ve run the gauntlet and had multiple interviews, making it to the point where you are one of at least two final candidates…then get ghosted, you should fucking name and shame the company. Here is a list of the companies that have done this exact thing to me over the years:
Comments
They usually only call you if you were hired. They probably don’t want to make so many phone calls.
I always email after an interview, but I couldn’t possibly correspond to everyone who submits an application. That would be a part time job all on its own
I would guess they probably don’t have the time. I heard a few months ago that a place was hiring for about a dozen positions, and they got a few thousand applications.
4 comments, only 1 by an Employer.
Good ol’ Reddit.
Does it increase “shareholder value” to do a followup with an unsuccessful applicant? No? Then there’s no business reason to do so.
Let me tell you why:
just an application no after an inveiw yes
Some places have AI do that.
I always just assumed they deal with too many applicants to have time. I just assume if I dont hear back in a month I didnt get it no reason to ponder why.
It’s particularly ridiculous when it’s multiple interviews. A month ago, my kid did four interviews with a place and then they ghosted. Should be a law against that…
Not sure how HR operates across all different companies but anecdotally when the last job I worked at opened up an engineering role we had something like 2000 applications in 3 days…and not even a very big named company.
Unless you’re getting auto rejection letters it’s probably HR stopping after the first few promising candidates in their inbox list because holy shit
It sucks, but I can also understand it. Myself and another guy were both applying for the full-time position that we were both working part-time. I got the job.
My boss, in an unusual moment of idiocy joked “we gave the job to the younger guy”
I think that he was trying to be sympathetic because it is hard for older people to get hired, but of course it ended up with the place getting sued for age discrimination.
The guy was a dick and it was objectively the right decision to give me the job because I was much better at it. But still kind of shit for him.
When I was hiring, some candidates were good enough, but I’m waiting until the best candidate started their first day.
If the best candidate bailed, I’ll connect again with the 2nd best, and so on.
So… to keep spares I guess
If you don’t have an automated system to respond to all applicants once the job is filled you’re not a serious company.
So that if the person they want cancels on them, they can tell the runner up that they were the first choice and so on down the line until they finally get someone.
That and some of them love to be assholes and enjoy knowing they are making people have false hope.
i don’t ghost candidates that have two way interactions with the company. If we’ve phone screened you, had you visit the team on-site, sent a take home assessment, etc you will 100% get a yes/no response from me. Sometimes in the form of an automated template from the ATS if we’re really early in the interview process, and always from me directly if we’ve had back and forth communication.
That said, I can’t extend that to all applicants too. The last time we opened a role, we had a few hundred applicants within the first day. I sort through those, send interview requests to candidates that look promising, and use the ATS rejection template for everyone else. I try to reject on a rolling basis, so let’s say pretty much everyone gets a yes/no within a week of applying, and 100% of applicants get a yes/no within a few days of the role closing.
It really sucks when the interview goes really good and you’re gettin good vibes from the interviewer then they choose someone else that’s like a kick to the gut
I’ve done quite a few interviews at the small company I work for and I tell everyone: we have a few candidates left to interview but one way or another we’ll let you know.
Here’s the thing: I am not HR. I’m just an engineer who got put in an interviewing position and my recommendation is listened to. But after I say yay or nay, idk if HR is reaching out to these folks. I can ask them to. I can tell them to. But my authority does not extend over them. So I hope they are letting these people know. But idk.
I honestly assume they’re shotgunning applications everywhere. I don’t receive anything that looks close to tailored for the posting and a ton don’t reply back if I send them a message. Less than half show up to the interview.
And I know what most of you are going to say; “Well, you should pay more” or “You must not be offering enough benefits” or something. Trust me, I’m offering better than most in my field (blue collar, minimal training or experience).
I just assume that’s how it works these days. I post a help wanted on Indeed and am spammed with quick click applicants who are going to hit 30 others and just wait for the best of all they hit up in a week. They honestly don’t care about me sending them a denial, they certainly don’t send any my way.
I once let a candidate know he didn’t have the specific experience we were looking for. He argued with me and threatened to “turn me in” and call the local news channel. I figured he was just another loon that would go away, but then he published a nasty article about me and my firm on his website. Most of it was made up garbage of course, and he sounded like an idiot. But that site was one of the first hits on Google for many years when you searched my name.
Needless to say, I now ghost applicants that I don’t actually choose to interview.
Employers going to ghost this post as hard as they ghost the applicants.
I’ll have my team review this and we’ll be in touch with an answer.
HR/ recruiters should. Hiring managers often are just overwhelmed.
And there are protocols that have to be followed which may vary. Such as giving one standard answer to everyone.
A company that ghosts you should give you a good indication it’s not a good company to work for. Honesty seems to be lacking in their working environment.
We develop HR software. Not ADP but one of the other big boys.
We have tools that prompt recruiters to send rejection/decline emails, but most ignore them because humans are lazy. A scant few configure the system to send the email to all applicants unselected for the role, but it’s a tiny minority of customers.
It’s hard enough to get recruiters to close filled/retracted/delayed recs. If our auto pruning didn’t purge them after 90 days? They’d have positions listed from 2018… I’m sure of it.
Have some class and send a basic form letter at the very least. It comes off as dirty and nasty.
I did this when I first started in HR (for the first few months) because I never really had any of the process explained to me. I always replied if the candidate reached out, but if they didn’t I let it lie. I told my husband and he told me it was shitty not to follow up so I went back to everyone I had ghosted and let them know we had moved on, and now I’m super anal about making sure everyone gets a follow-up. I was just stupid tbh.
You have been blocked by Employers
They’re bots or use bots to answer
[deleted]
It’s less risky to not follow up.
It only takes one person taking a rejection letter the wrong way to cause major headaches, either financially or otherwise.
It sucks for everyone.
Corporate worker here.
You get hundreds and hundreds of applications for every job. HR filters them down for the hiring manager, but holy shit there’s no way HR could write them each a personal letter explaining why they won’t be moving forward. Some companies have automated responses, others ghost.
I applied at a startup once and made it through three interviews before they ultimately picked someone else. I got a page long letter with the best, most thoughtful feedback telling me exactly why they hired the other person instead of me. It was awesome.
I wish everyone could do that, but there are just too many people applying these days for that to be practical.
Remember to search by controversial.
Glad you asked.
My wife has forced me into enabling her cuckhold fetish by threatening to take away the kids, and my brand new Kawasaki 2023 Mule 4010. I often spend time out in the pasture on my Kawasaki 2023 Mule 4010, scrolling through workday and reviewing the applications that get forwarded to me by Peggy from HR. Sometimes I find it hard to focus because I know that fat cunt Teddy is in my house, eating banana bread THATI BAKED, flirting with my wife.
Anyways, while I’m reviewing the applications on my Kawasaki 2023 Mule 4010 I like to take my time andreally make sure I’m picking the best candidate, hold on she’s calling me back to the ho
Because they tho k their time is more valuable.
Good question. (If/When it happens to you, remember to leave a “nice” review about your experience. I did.)
Hiring manager here.
If you get past the recruiter interview and talk to the actual hiring manager, then getting ghosted if not hired is, sadly, a 50/50 outcome. Most larger companies use databases like ePMO and WorkDay to manage recruiting and interviews. If the interview didn’t result in hiring then the manager checks the box and makes some notes as to why, and the candidate usually gets an automated email. Some companies have it written in policy and it’s followed, and some just don’t.
However, that’s not always the case. There is no rhyme or reason. On some jobs a recruiter can get several hundred applications, and about 90% are just absolutely unqualified. The job requires a specific certification and people without it apply in droves. I get it, people are desperate, but this is a sure way to get added to the “IGNORE” list.
I interviewed for a different position about a year ago. I thought the interview went well. But I didn’t hear anything. Keep in mind that this was internal.
I was an IT Support Specialist, and we handle all the New Employee Onboardings. My team gets a standard email about a new employee, like normal. However, the employee position listed was for the position I applied for.
Nobody told me that I didn’t get the position despite the fact that the hiring manager sat 2 desks behind me. We would literally walk past me at least a dozen times a day.
AND they used my own name when describing where this new employee’s desk was at.
Fuck this ‘Ghosting’ culture…
If they never reject you, you can’t sue them for improperly rejecting you. They can always claim the never rejected you at all.
Recruiter: I don’t because that’s the hiring manager’s job.
Hiring Manager: I don’t because that’s the recruiter’s job.
My work’s HR won’t allow us to. They do nothing with the hiring process beyond posting a half-wrong job description, then put us in charge of ranking the applicants, interviewing everyone, background checking and reference checking them, then the hiring manager can only contact the person they offer the position to and any internal full-time applicants who didn’t get it. Any other internal part-time or external applicants hear nothing for 8 weeks until HR sends them a generic “we went with someone else” email, if they’re lucky.
It’s happened to multiple part-time staff of mine who have been going for full-time positions for a few years now. Incredibly frustrating for me who would promote them if I was that hiring manager and devastating for them when their own workplace doesn’t even give them the courtesy of a phone call.
I’d rather ghost than come up with some BS as to why they didn’t get a second interview lol
r/askreddit posters, why do you post questions to groups of people you dislike who clearly will not answer your question?
Please say why. I hate being unsure if I’m getting a job. I haven’t messaged many since there’s not much available for a teen without any mode of transportation that also listed contact information, but I’ve messaged what I can (literally one place) and got nothing. I think I’ll just take Walmart
Employers who ghost applicants after interviews what’s stopping you from just sending a simple yes or no?
they’re lazy, cheap, and avoidant.
also they want to have the option of calling you 6 months later to ask if you’re still interested in case they need to fill another position
i always thought it was for legal/liability reasons…better to say nothing and not open up any avenues for lawsuits.
Giving a reason gives somebody ammunition for a human rights complaint. Somebody who shows up with no arms will sue for ableism if you don’t hire them for a job that requires lifting heavy boxes all day. Or the job is “lady in leotard bunny suit modeling leotard bunny suits for a women’s leotard bunny suit boutique” and you get men showing up just so they can sue for sexism if you tell them “women only” or something.
Other applicants can take an eternity to get back to the guy doing the hiring.
Management can take an eternity to get back to the guy doing the hiring.
From what I know, it’s usually not malice, it’s messy systems and bad habits. A lot of teams don’t have a clean way to mark “no” in their ATS without triggering a form letter that legal wants to review, so it gets kicked down the road. Recruiters juggle 30–60 roles, and when a hiring manager stalls, they stall too. Also, some companies worry a rejection could spark arguments or review bombs, so they default to silence.
I do a bit of hiring, not in HR but rather I’m very involved in who gets hired into my team.
There are a couple things going on here.
First, 95% of the people who apply for the position are so wildly unqualified that I can only assume they adopted a spray and pray approach. I don’t engage with these whatsoever, they’re just deletes.
Second, if someone is a great candidate but not the best candidate, sometimes we don’t want to send a rejection until the main candidate is hired. This is because my top candidate is usually applying elsewhere and I don’t know that I’ll get then. When I do hire, the people who were real contenders I always call, not just because it’s the right thing to do but also because I might want to hire them in the future. But if I’m in a lengthy hiring and negotiating process with one candidate, the others can feel like they’ve been ghosted. This sucks but there isn’t a better way.
Third, if something actually goes really wrong in an interview, I don’t want to set people off. Everyone says they want feedback but in truth like 80% of people when receiving feedback will try to treat it as an opportunity to give a rebuttal. I’ve had bad experiences with people getting hostile about this and so if there is a really stark reason why a person had to get dropped from a process I will sometimes just let them go into the void.
Not an employer but tge real reason is that applicants failed one or more prescreening criteria. Rather than a frank rejection its better to ghost for legal reasons like avoiding discrimination lawsuits. 💩
Because sadly, there’s no accountability for treating candidates like crap
Applicants? Who cares? Each posting gets THOUSANDS of applicants, most not even qualified as per the job description. Some companies send out a boiler plate, but many smaller ones without that tech don’t. Unless you can automate the rejections, it’s just not humanly possible to inform the thousands of candidates manually.
However, yes, people actually interviewed in any capacity, including a basic phone screen from HR, deserve a proper follow up.
And if you’ve run the gauntlet and had multiple interviews, making it to the point where you are one of at least two final candidates…then get ghosted, you should fucking name and shame the company. Here is a list of the companies that have done this exact thing to me over the years:
Rivian
Burlington
Draeger’s Supermarkets
Warby Parker
General Atomics
Panasonic
Glass House Farms