How common is ghosting in recruitment here in the UK?

[Terribleluck]

I know it's fairly common in the US, bit how abou here? Still haven't heard back from two recruiters but one lady from a charity is telling me that I shouldn't take this as a "no".

Very common, why would they contact you when they could be chasing down the next lead / putting other candidates forward, chase them up and see if they have heard back from the clients and for any feedback if it was a no.

Very common. Barely get an acknowledgement from most agencies.

If they don't think they'll make money from you, you won't hear from them - until they do think they can make money from you, or someone you know. It's just business, nothing personal. They're sales people after all, chasing commissions.

Well for these two cases one is an internal SR recruiter and the second one is from a recruitment agency. For both I have been through various interview stages and one was the final interview.

I work in recruitment and that's result bad form. We strut snow to get back to every CV we receive, but after you have given your time and energy to any company in the form of 1,2 or any number of interviews then you should absolutely expect your feedback. Even if the feedback is 'sorry I haven't managed to get your feedback yet. I'm working on it, please bear with me' - then that's what they should be doing.

How many times have you tried ti make contact with either of them?

Sorry for the typos. I was typing quickly as I have a call to jump into and didn't read my post through!

Internal recruiter was an email on Thursday evening (interviewed Monday) and the external recruiter was Friday evening (via text) final interview was previous Friday.

Far more than I ever expected. I'm a recruiter and always get back to every application and give feedback after every interview. I have been applying for roles myself and have been ghosted by both internal and external recruiters. I recently interviewed for 90 mins with the founders of a small tech consultancy and discussed how important the candidate experience is in this current market (any market actually) and all agreed. Then I was ghosted by them .

Exactly @thedogsmother why?? We invest so much time, it's just the least they can do, minimal courtesy

@Terribleluck

Exactly *@thedogsmother* why?? We invest so much time, it's just the least they can do, minimal courtesy

Exactly ! It's also incredibly important for a company's reputation in the wider market to treat people properly. With reviewing and opinion so available and visible now it just seems mad to not send a simple message and leave those candidates with a good impression. Sigh !

The better agencies will keep you in the loop, the shit ones not so much.

I think we are increasingly in an era where no one wants to be the bearer of bad news and therefore seen as the bad person.

I think you need to be quite robust to tell several people that they weren’t good enough for a multitude of reasons, so perhaps many find it far more comfortable for themselves to ignore those who do not make the cut.

I also think a lot of people doing recruitment are not necessarily recruitment professionals - very prevalent in smaller companies- where perhaps, for eg. you have an admin person running point. (Not to say that all admins are bad, but if you have someone who is perhaps inexperienced or just doesn’t give a shit about doing add-ons to their actual job, you end up with this).

It’s really not great, but these are the times in which we live.

@beetle "the bearer of bad news" is what I think is happening in my case (external recruiter). I understand getting ghosted at application stage, even potentially at phone screening stage. There's also been positives as I've noticed that bigger companies are definitely checking CVs/applications manually rather than relying on software to do so.

Depends on the potential pool of applicants for the job.

I was just chatting to someone on Reddit that ghosting at interview stage is even more demoralising than no interview at all.

Yes very common. I’ve also been ghosted after interviews by a couple of companies. What surprises me is that they don’t seem to care about reputational damage. It is a small world and how a company treats me will affect my future buying decisions.

I've already had a cry today... I mean I doubt I would have used either of the companies that have ghosted me, but I wish for the well-being of candidates that they'd get back to us. Job seeking is already extremely stressful, add unemployment, money worries, and then the roller coaster of thinking that maybe your trials and tribulations are over to then land on nothing, is definitely one of the worst experiences I've ever had.

Well they got back to me and they liked me so much, that they tried hard to make me "fit in the company" but apart for creating a role for me, they just couldn't see where... But they'll keep me in mind in case something comes up.

@Terribleluck

Well they got back to me and they liked me so much, that they tried hard to make me "fit in the company" but apart for creating a role for me, they just couldn't see where... But they'll keep me in mind in case something comes up.

I feel your pain. I was unemployed and stressed about money then had FIVE interviews with a fairly niche company. I met their entire management team. They even had me do "homework" (one of those bullshit interview tasks where you to prepare a presentation in advance). After all that, they announced that they really liked me but didn't have a suitable role at my level but would contact me if they did. Bunch of timewasters.

Not as bad as another (household name in the UK) organisation that interviewed me, made a verbal offer (which I accepted) then the paperwork never materialised. I had to chase and chase the recruiter to get an answer. Seems they'd "been made" to give the role someone internal. The recruiter would never have told me if I hadn't chased him so hard. Appalling.

@hundred very similar to what just happened to me!! How long did it take you to actually get a job? I started applying/looking 4 weeks ago and here I am, still no job, being ghosted and losing my will to live.

Well it looks like its happened again. I've spent 90 minutes speaking with this company over two interviews including Head of HR who promised a decision today. Ah well, onwards.

@thedogs wouldn't you give them a grace period? Mine is about a week and maybe an extra day or two, just in case.

[quote Terribleluck]@hundred very similar to what just happened to me!! How long did it take you to actually get a job? I started applying/looking 4 weeks ago and here I am, still no job, being ghosted and losing my will to live. [/quote]
I was actually out of work for 18 months. It was horrendous. I was made redundant (but less than 2 years service so no real pay-out) with most of my dept. Just as Brexit happened plus HMRC changed the IR35 rules so suddenly almost every contractor was suddenly looking for perm roles. There were zero jobs and a gazillion people job hunting. Recruiters told me that they'd get 3-500 applications within 24 hours of advertising a role, with many of those people vastly over-qualified. I honestly thought I would never work again. I finally got a non-advertised role through a personal recommendation (from someone I used to work with) but the interview process took 5 months and my start date was the very first week of Covid lockdown. I narrowly escaped the job offer being rescinded (by 1 week!).

Both of those time lapses are very short and way too soon to be chasing unless for very junior roles. There may be other interviews after you and also the need for internal discussion and decisions alongside their actual work before the potential employer even gets back to a recruiter.

@season the HM told me he'd be looking to get the stage going for this week... I didn't set up the timeframe, they did.