to think this is shoddy after a job interview?

This happened to me. Similar scenario with panel interview for 2 hours and a written assessment where they told me candidates would hear by Wednesday.
I heard nothing on the Wednesday and thought the worst and also like you felt disappointed I didn’t even get a rejection email.
However on the Friday they offered me a different role (same position different location) that actually suited me much better and the delay in response was caused by them choosing the internal candidate and then offering me their role so took more time.

In with you OP. I'm an Chief People Officer and it never ceases to amaze me how shoddily candidates are treated. I have interviewed for many years and it's rare you dont know on the day or at the most the day after. You usually immediately know who you are not going to recruit even if you still have a decision to make, and yet recruiters keep people waiting. I always make decisions on the day and contact candidates on the day, and no I'm not in a small organisation. We have over 10,000 staff but most interviews are not more than 6 candidates. If you can't make 6 phone calls when people have dedicated time and money to come to an interview I wouldn't want to work for you anyway.

EXACTLY this.

There is an awful lot of exculpatory bullshit on this thread from people bending over backwards to say that the one really obvious thing that is by far the most likely outcome - you being ghosted - hasn't happened.

If they really wanted you they'd have been in touch. Write this one off. Move on professionally to the next opportunity and don't waste any more time with these charlatans. If, by some miracle, you get an offer from them at some point in the future make a new decision then based on how genuine it all feels at the time and/or how desperate you are.

All the people here defending this or insinuating you are in some way out of line I can only assume they all work in “talent acquisition”.

OP your gut was correct and you are right to be annoyed! I once got ghosted after the third interview. Three separate days of my life where I prepped, dressed and schlepped across town to meet these people. It was down to the last TWO. But apparently that one single rejection email was beyond them. This is accepted as normal. Why?

Fuck everyone who thinks it’s fine to ghost candidates. When I have recruited (in small companies without HR depts) I have personally sent the rejection email to everyone who wrote in. For a couple of hundred applicants it takes a couple of hours, is not hard, and the least you can do for each individual who took the time to apply.

I used to work for a small company and sometimes we were too busy to deal with recruitment quickly. It isn't necessarily just a case of calling all 4 applicants, they may need a meeting to discuss first but can't find the time. It is very annoying but it happens.

Perhaps they want to make sure the person who got the job takes it before letting the other applicants know. Perhaps wait until tomorrow at least m, and then congratulate yourself on dodging the bullet.

Contact them and ask for feedback?

They always offer the job out to their first choice. Sometimes people ask for 24 hours to consider. So they might have offered it to someone who hasn't accepted yet. They only give a straight NO to someone who was no good at all, so no news can be positive.

Just contact them.

There could be any number of reasons. Yes poor communication is one but they also could have made an offer yesterday and not had confirmed acceptance from the successful applicant. It would be foolish of them to reject other candidates while the process could still be ongoing

@LindorDoubleChoc it seems early days to decide you haven't got the job. In m experience interviewing and making hiring decisions can take longer than predicted (if someone on the team isn't available as expected etc). Also, if they have offered it to someone else, that person may not have accepted it yet (might be waiting on other job interviews too). In such a case the employer may not reject other strong candidates in case first choice turns it down. I know its excruciating waiting but don't burn your bridges by getting cross with them. A friend of mine was offered and accepted a job 10 das after she was expecting to hear about it because preferred candidate eventually turned it down. On the other hand i waited ages once to hear about an interview I'd had and when i asked tgey said sorry they forgot they hadn't told me! So you may still have everything to play for but repare yourself for an eventual no. Good luck!

In their defence it could be that they have offered to someone who has yet to accept, they won’t decline everyone else until they know.

on the other hand my DS has applied for over 300 jobs and had quite a few online interviews and some in person interviews. The number of employers who never get back to him is shameful.

In that case why not drop them a line to ask if you're still in consideration? I had to cancel interviews recently as the interviewer had a family emergency and spent the day in hospital with their child. Emergencies do happen. They might just be flaky but whether it's that or a genuine issue a polite follow up rarely hurts.

Well if I had two candidates that I’d employ, I would rush to reject the second one until the first had accepted, which might take a day or two.

This, also you don’t know the reason. One of the people interviewing had a personal emergency and had to leave early before they could discuss the candidates. Maybe not likely but could have happened.

She's very welcome to. I obviously have no skin in the game! But if the OP believes open communication is so key then practice what you preach. She might not want this job but you never know when you'll cross paths with someone later in your career.

Why shouldn't she treat them the same way they are treating her? Works both ways as you said

In that case it sounds more likely that one of the two has been off sick or there's been a work emergency etc that's thrown them off track by a day or two. Given your comments about the kitchen and loo though, if you're taking yourself out of the running then do them the courtesy of letting them know that. Communication works both ways.

That is true. But not all, obviously. And since the OP gave no indication of what sort of form or organisation she had applied to, everyone responded from their own experience. I explained how delays between interviews and the outcome being communicated occur in my own organisation. The person to whom I was responding there was incredulous that I might not have a fixed salary offer to make. But in 25 years of recruiting, that’s never been the case for the specialist roles in a quite niche sector that I recruit to.

Many companies employ on a set rate. Often NMW.

I've recruited. The first thing is to decide which candidates are "appointable" and which are not.
Let's assume you are appointable.

Once, we had 3 appointable candidates. The first 2 turned us down, which took time. No 3 was a great fit for the role. Maybe you're No 3.

Another time we couldn't decide between 2 candidates. In the end we interviewed them both again. Which also took time, and it was still a difficult choice.

Good luck with your job search.

Maybe one of the panellists is ill today or they are so busy with a business emergency they haven’t had time to discuss it any further. Maybe it’s harder to choose between 2 of the candidates. They wanted to “sleep on it”, discuss it further between themselves or speak and discuss with other employees. Also as someone who has recruited you wait for 1st choice to accept before letting the others know they are not successful so maybe waiting on that.

We have pay scales, and the appropriate one is advertised to potential candidates in the job ad. I can sometimes argue that a particular candidate should be appointed part way up the pay scale if they offer skills and experience that warrants it. But it needs to be approved by HR and further up the organisation so I’m not just appointing my mates on inflated rates. In the public sector we are accountable for every penny of tax payers’ money, and quite rightly so. Unless you are the sole proprietor of a business I can’t imagine that a hiring decision which costs more than anticipated could be made by one person in isolation. Surely there are checks and balances in private companies too?

This is normal and if they’ve offered the job to someone they will need to make sure the offer has been accepted before going back to other candidates to tell them they’re not successful on this occasion. As others have said, this job won’t be their only priority and there’s a whole process

I was once on a panel where we said something similar, we were planning to discuss and agree at the end of the day (Friday) but we’re all really tired so put in a diary appointment for first thing Monday, one of the panel then got unwell during the weekend and we had to wait a week for her to come back. I did feel bad for the interviewees, also because our first choice undoubtedly probably assumed they were our fourth choice but the reality is some things are outside your control.