Ghosting. It’s become a part of the way our society engages — or disengages. It’s the mere act of completely ignoring someone, usually forever.
Initially, ghosting took the world of teens and young adults by storm in the form of blocking on social media.
Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends found this to be an acceptable form of “communication.” It’s their way of saying, “I am done with you.” This trickled over to struggling families and ultimately, into the workplace.
Most conversations and articles related to ghosting in the workplace hinge around candidates ghosting recruiters. We hear stories of candidates being non-responsive or not showing up for scheduled interactions. This is often followed by grumblings about the “younger generation” and a lack of common courtesy.
The hard truth is that it’s not just the younger generation.
Ghosting is happening right inside your talent acquisition function, and it’s your recruiters — of all ages — doing it.
While hurtful to candidates, recruiter ghosting stems from an extreme lack of time and competing priorities rather than an intentional avoidance. Regardless, the damage to your brand and pipeline is significant.
3 steps to ending recruiter ghosting
- Recruiter ghosting represents a break in your standard process. Review your process and clearly define and communicate the expectation around candidate follow-up.
- Once that process is clearly defined, be sure that you have a way to capture (with date stamp) candidate follow-up in your ATS. Be sure to analyze the data and review it with your team.
- Most importantly, embed dedicated sourcing into your solution. There is no replacement for human connection. Your sourcers will do this for you, while also building and nurturing your pipeline.
There is no acceptable reason for recruiters to ghost candidates. As the CHRO or talent leader, it is up to you to really understand the why behind ghosting.
If after careful analysis, the root cause of recruiter ghosting is low bandwidth, this can be easily remedied through dedicated sourcing.
If you are in a recruitment model that doesn’t include sourcing, consider outsourcing this to an on-demand solution. Sourcing on demand is the ideal way to quickly and qualitatively source best-fit talent, fill vacancies faster, build your brand, and put an end to ghosting.
