To email *again* the recruiter who ghosted me?

[Regretta]

Applied for my dream job in late January - it was at a third sector organisation, via a recruitment agency. It was a bit of a stretch for me but I couldn't pass up the chance.

I made it through the initial sift and I was asked to submit a more detailed cover letter and an example of my work. I spent ages on it. The recruiter told me they would be reviewing candidates over the following week and they would be in touch but I have heard nothing since then. I politely chased up twice: first to ask after the outcome and the second time asking for feedback on the assumption that I had been unsuccessful. No response to either.

My husband thinks it's very rude and unprofessional to ghost a job applicant, and that I should chase them up again. I'm of the opinion that my application was 0/10 and a total embarrassment, and I should just pretend it never happened. OTOH, some feedback would be genuinely helpful and I'm pissed off to have put so much effort into something and then hear absolutely nothing back.

WIBU to send yet another email?

Yes very rude to have not heard back yet or them even acknowledging your emails. I think at this point I'd be calling them asking for an update/feedback.

I'm job hunting at the moment and I completely get you.

They sound SO unprofessional and rude not to have responded, I think it shows such arrogance for them not to even provide feedback.

You wouldn't be unreasonable at all to follow up again. But only if you want to, not because your DH thinks you should.

Is there any way you could go above their head

Can you round there face to face much harder to ghost someone when they are in the office?

Very rude. But if it's anything like the third sector organisation that I work for, our HR are shit and disorganised and recruiting seems to take actual years.

I’d give it one last go, give it a week, and then go direct to the organisation. I’d be royally pissed off if an agency is gotten on board to help with a campaign delivered such a poor candidate experience.

Are you 100% sure that the agency was actually hired to recruit for the role? Iwork in recruitment for the public sector and often find recruitment agencies who do adverts based on my roles and then try and send me unsolicited cvs from their candidates. If you know that name of the actual company I would contact them direct.

YANBU but if they haven't already responded then likely they won't again.

I would contact the employer and tell them that, as the recruitment agency is not replying, you wondered if they could give you some feedback as you were keen on the post and would welcome feedback. They’ll be paying a fortune in agency fees and need to know. FWIW I used to do PR for recruitment agencies.

Unfortunately this is pretty standard for recruitment consultants. They are sales people at the end of the day.

Calling an unsuccessful candidate to provide feedback isn't going to help them hit sales targets or earn them commission so it isn't a priority for them.

Thanks everyone for the replies - a relief to hear that my standards for good manners and professionalism aren't too high! Still undecided about what to do - I'm not sure my bruised self-esteem actually could handle the feedback after all 😅

So annoying. I wouldn’t email again as it could just be ignored again which will be worse.

If you call they’ll likely not get you to be put through.

It’s very rude and frustrating but sadly also very common. I’ve been ghosted by recruitment consultants so many times. Sorry they wasted your time. I don’t think there’s any harm in following up again, but don’t put too much hope on a respond.

It’s likely nothing to do with you/your application, the sheer volume of applications, especially in the not for profit sector means this can be inevitable. Some places even state on the advert that they will be unable to provide feedback. I recently had a role where we had over 400 applicants, individual feedback is just not possible in that scenario (although a decent applicant tracking system will at least send a standard rejection).

I had this with a recruiter, particularly annoying as I wasn't job hunting at the time and he really talked me into applying. Chased up a couple of times then gave up.

Had GREAT satisfaction last month when he messaged last week about a role (incredibly niche and the job spec read like my cv) that he'd already told the would be employers I'd be perfect for and could he send in my cv they had on file? Very petty but I was being when I wrote back and said no, I wouldn't consider working with a recruiter who doesn't bother to give feedback 🤣 (very happily just started a new role I have no intention of leaving!)

Move on. There's nothing to do. Nothing to add. You have other things to think about now.

Just seen the date on this! Ignore me. I'm sure you've forgotten all about it by now.