Have I been ghosted?

[PinkTonic]

A external recruiter came to me re a senior role. I liked the look of it so made myself available for 1st and 2nd stage interviews in the same week. Both went very well and I was told they wanted to hold 3rd stage and wrap up the process by end of following week. I’ve heard nothing since 2nd interview which is now 11 days ago. I rang the recruiter last Friday and left a message but he hasn’t responded. I assume it’s dead in the water and am not inclined to chase him again, but wtf! I am tempted to message the hiring VP on LinkedIn and let him know that the recruiter they’ve used hasn’t had the courtesy to let me know the outcome, which reflects poorly on the organisation. Would you assume you’d been ghosted at this stage?

Have you emailed to see if OOO on?

He's cheeky not to reply but I certainly wouldn't be telling the VP. It would make you seem unprofessional and a bit bitter imo. Not that you are! I get why you're pissed off. But I'd let it go.

I feel your pain, this has become normal nowadays.

I wouldn't email the company directly. However, after a few weeks of no reply, I would leave a one star review on both the agency and company's google page reflecting your experience. It is down to the company to ensure they use good recruiters.

@Surprisedavailable81 I didn’t email I rang him and I don’t want to contact him again. I wish I had emailed now.

@KimHwn I think cheeky is a mild word for no feedback after 2nd stage interview for a >£150k job tbh, I’m furious

@Movinginthesunlight Ive heard about this but this was a situation with max 3 candidates, not hundreds. It’s unfortunately become standard to not let people know they’re unsuccessful at application stage but I’m shocked it would happen in this situation. I half can’t really believe it tbh, I keep thinking something weird must have happened. If I don’t hear back I will definitely leave feedback

I would let it go too

It could be that they offered the job to one of the other candidates, but they haven't accepted the job, so they are keeping you waiting in case they need a back up plan if their preferred candidate doesn't take up their offer.

I was thinking the same thing- could well be this

And when you rang… did you leave a VM or speak with a colleague?

Yes I initially thought their preferred candidate is negotiating, but I still think it’s strange and unreasonable not to at least try to keep me warm and honestly I think it’s been too long now for it to be that

I left a vm as it was his own number he’d been contacting me from

So he could well have that OOO on his email.

If you really wanted the job, I wouldn’t cut my nose off to spite my face because he hadn’t returned a VM.

Id email to see if I get an OOO

It's so difficult and the waiting game is awful. It could be that if there is a number 1 choice, that person could be away on holiday and not being particularly responsive? Also, contract negotiations can go on for a while, and I'm not sure what the recruiter could say to you on that, as they may think you don't want to hear you are second choice?

if they have just ghosted you then that's totally piss poor of them, I agree.

Good grief, 11 days is nothing in recruitment! I wouldn’t call that being ghosted, I’d call that “being a bit slow”. I wouldn’t ema the recruiter and say you remain interested and would be grateful for an update. It may be that you are their first choice and they are getting an offer together and getting internal sign off. It may be exactly as others have said, you are their second choice and they are waiting to see if the first choice accepts.

in my experience hiring (law firm) we only tell the unsuccessful candidates that they have been unsuccessful once we have a signed contract back from our first (or second d or third) choice candidate, or if the person did so badly at interview we would rather leave the role vacant than hire them.

Are you prone to…. Flouncing?

Thing is recruitment takes time. All you have to have is a key person off sick, or a question over the pay budget to temporarily stall things. Don't always put it down to ghosting.

No, I’m not. However given that I took time at very short notice to prepare for two stages of what was presented as a three stage process, and kept my diary clear for the proposed third stage as requested, I’d expect to be informed that either I hadn’t been selected for third stage or that there was a delay for whatever reason. They specified the timeline, I didn’t imagine it.

I think you don't want to work there now anyway. It seems the current way to treat job applicants badly - take up so much of their time, get them to jump through a varying size of hoop, ghost them and delay. Very bad form I think.

Don’t do anything! You may yet get an offer. I had a long wait as part of a process but it turned out to be because someones wife had gone into labour prematurely. You just don’t know at this stage, going off on one is not wise though.

A similar thing happened to me once. I contacted the company directly, basically with an email explains why I was the best person for the job and with a proposal of what I would do if I got the role. They loved my direct approach and bold action. I got the role.

Recruiter contacted you with a role, you made yourself available for not one, but two interviews, you absolutely deserve to receive from feedback or update on the position after 11 days! Especially as you have tried to contact the recruiter directly. Even a decision has not yet been made, you still deserve a status update. And if the role has gone to someone else, im sure you'd like some feedback as to why you weren't considered.
I used to work in recruitment and we had an SLA to update candidates no more than 7 days following interviews.

Could just be they have been/are on leave and just catching up with emails and calls. I would email again and request a read receipt so you know when it’s been seen asking for next steps and feedback is not successful.

I had this for three weeks for a role I applied for. It turned out I was their second choice if they couldn’t get the other candidate over the line. I don’t think 11 days is that long particularly when it’s been half term and lots of companies have time consuming approvals to go through before making offers. I don’t think it will be the recruiter at fault.

11 days isn’t that long for process to play out. I’m interviewing to fill 3 roles at the moment. Multiple stages, trying to get diaries aligned and availability etc is hard. Typically people get interviewed in batches. You may be in the first cohort and if they don’t ’love’ you, they’ll be keeping you warm and trying the next 3.

I am not a recruiter - part of hiring management process. We have 4 stages of interviews.

Don’t just phone the recruiter, email.

Reaching out to the VP after 11 days would be a hard no for me.