But it’s another thing to just never get back to them at all - and it’s far too common.Įmployers who ghost candidates like to say that they don’t have time to get back to every applicant, but that stretches belief in the days of electronic applicant management systems, which will send rejections with the click of a few buttons. It’s one thing to take a little longer than planned to get back to people, or to have to reject someone who thought they’d nearly clinched the job. Or the organization could implement a hiring freeze or restructure the team you’d be joining, and suddenly that “guaranteed” offer disappears. Someone internal could emerge who is stronger, or the boss could decide to hire her cousin, or they could realize late in the game that they need to hire someone who speaks French. You could be perfect for the job - someone who leaves interviewers confident that you’re the one they want to hire - and it still wouldn’t be a sure thing. What that means for job-seekers is that no matter how well your interview seems to go, you should never, ever assume a job is a lock. It’s really impossible to tell from the outside what might be going on that could massively mess with their recruitment plans or timeline. Maybe they’ve had a project explode spectacularly and that’s all anyone over there is dealing with right now. Maybe a key person on the team resigned and now they’re thinking about reconfiguring the role. Maybe the CEO announced at the last minute that she wants to sign off on the hire, and they’re debating whether to bring people back in for final interviews. Maybe a last-minute candidate emerged and they need time to interview them. Maybe the hiring manager is out sick, or unexpectedly had to go out of town. Plus, you never know what’s going on behind-the-scenes. So they often have other, higher priorities.) (Since this is a common point of confusion: “hiring manager” means the person who will be managing you once you’re hired, not the person who’s in charge of all the organization’s hiring. That’s not a great practice, of course - ideally they’d write back to say, for example, “Things are taking longer than we expected but I should be in touch in another week or two.” But realistically, hiring managers are busy and often pulled in a bunch of directions, and hiring can end up lower on their list than more pressing projects with deadlines now. Why do employers leave candidates hanging?Īn awful lot of employers simply don’t bother to contact candidates until they have something definite to say, even when they’re well past the timeline they laid out for you. And that’s if they get back to you at all many of them don’t and instead just ghost applicants completely, even after multiple rounds of interviews. It’s incredibly common for employers to assure candidates that they’ll be back in touch within a specific time frame and then end up overshooting that by weeks or even months. Since I started writing a workplace-advice column more than a decade ago, I’ve probably received more letters from frustrated job seekers about this experience than any other. Should you follow up with them? Is their silence supposed to communicate their answer? And why won’t they just get back to you with a response as they said they would!? Your interviewer told you they would get back to you either way next week, but now it’s been two weeks and all you’ve heard is silence. It’s happened to all of us: You had a great job interview, nailed every question, and left feeling optimistic about your chances of getting an offer. Photo-Illustration: by The Cut Photos: Getty Images
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