Ghosting Candidates Affects your Ability to Attract the Best Talent

Think about the last time a business associate, a potential client or even a fellow employee did not respond to your communications, despite repeated efforts. How did you feel? You may have felt rejected, invisible, or ignored.  In today’s terms, you have been ghosted. Ghosting is often associated with dating but can be easily applied to any relationship where communications have ceased without an explanation offered. Let’s now apply this to the world of the candidate/employer relationship.

Candidates who have been ghosted during the interview and hiring process naturally have a negative feeling towards the company and the individuals that they had contact with. When you do not close the loop with your candidates, you are communicating what you value, or better yet, what you don’t value. And that practice can negatively affect your ability to attract, recruit and retain the best talent. In other words, it can affect your employer brand.

According to the 2018 Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Report, “candidates who were interviewed and then given job-related feedback by end of that same day said they were 52 percent more likely to increase their relationship with the employer (apply again, refer others). Whereas, if feedback was not given, they’re more than twice as likely to sever the relationship.” 

It really comes down to caring. As Cammas Freeman, wrote in Now is the Time to Improve Candidate Experience a poor candidate experience in the hiring process can mean the difference between the right talent accepting an offer with your company, or the competition. It can also mean that you are viewed as an employer that doesn’t care about people. For further discussion on how your employer brand is hindered by a bad candidate experience, check out Why it’s important for employers to follow up with candidates after job interviews.

If you do not have effective channels in place to communicate with your candidates, from application to post-interview, today is the day to start building them. Begin with a strategy, then design the process around it. Check out this Guide on how to build a candidate communication strategy. Showing candidates that you care, whether you hire them or not, is a good way to positively contribute to your company's employer brand. 

Want to learn more? Stackrock Talent is ready to help you build a better candidate experience. Contact us at (208) 861-9207 or email alisa@stackrocktalent.com.