HR Trends & Challenges: What is Ghosting and How Does it Affect Your Recruiting Efforts?

HR Trends & Challenges Part 1: What is Ghosting and How Does it Affect Your Recruiting Efforts?

March 27, 2019

This article is the first in a 5-part series on HR trends and industry insights. Each article will focus on key areas affecting HR professionals and senior executives within the AD Member community. Data detailed in each article comes from a recent 2018 survey of C-Level and HR executives at AD member companies conducted by GRN Coastal across all divisions. Over 100 individual member companies responded. What follows is a series of articles highlighting key industry data which will hopefully allow the readers to benchmark their own company.

One of the big trends we see happening more and more in HR is ghosting. Ghosting is when a candidate essentially disappears, not to be heard from again. We have seen engaged candidates suddenly withdraw from the interview process and have no communication back with clients, even after an offer has been extended. We have seen interested candidates send in correspondence and resumes and apply for roles online and then disappear.

Candidates have choices and the only real indicator of why they may have become a ghost is when they show up working for another company a few weeks later. What could have happened during the process to make the candidate disappear?

When talking with clients, we hear a few potential reasons. Maybe the interview process is flawed. Maybe the hiring manager doesn’t give the candidate their undivided attention in the interview. Maybe the candidate doesn't have a good vibe about the organization or hiring manager. Or maybe the candidate was essentially kicking the tires to get inside the company to examine its workplace environment and culture.

There isn’t much that can be done upfront to qualify a ghost, other than closely watching their behavior and seeing how fast they react to requests throughout the process. A candidate that isn’t responsive most likely isn’t totally interested. Your talent acquisition team or recruiter needs to share these insights with the hiring manager no matter how strong a candidate may be on paper.

The interview process at most distributor companies is a high-pressure endeavor administered by HR personnel that are wearing many hats within the organization. 67% of survey respondents stated that they have an HR department with 2 or less full-time people. To showcase your company in the proper light, a cross-functional team-oriented approach has to occur.

Companies can also “ghost” a candidate. Does your organization have a detailed follow up process for each candidate you interview? We hear candidate feedback that their emails and follow up calls to HR and hiring managers and that they essentially are cut off from any level of feedback from the interview team. 

We highly recommend some sort of feedback to candidates within 3-5 days of an interview. Good or bad, the candidates deserve that feedback. They invest their time away from their current job and put themselves at risk by interviewing in your building. In today’s day and age of technology, a simple text or email can suffice to give the candidates their status. Remember that your organization is always being judged and you don’t want this lack of feedback to damage your reputation. Candidates deserve feedback. Don’t become a ghost as it hurts your company’s image in the marketplace. These are just a few examples of why having a thorough interview process is so critical to implement with EVERY interview.

Part 2 of this series will focus on how to attract top talent and prep for the interview process.

GRN Coastal is a full service recruitment company that assists members in the recruitment of top talent across all AD Divisions. You can reach John at Jsalvadore@grncoastal.com or visit their website at www.grncoastalrecruiters.com