Have you ever come across a situation when a candidate, who was scheduled for an interview did not show up, or a candidate who was supposed to join your organization on a certain day has not joined and has been avoiding your calls and messages? This practice of leaving the recruiter or the hiring manager hanging without any explanation and disconnecting all sources of communication is termed as Ghosting.

Ghosting is becoming a common problem among job applicants that disturbs the hiring plan of the organization and leaves the recruiter baffled and embarrassed.

According to a recent survey conducted by a leading organization, 22% of the candidates accepted to have ghosted the employer after accepting the job offer while 65% of the employers said that they have been ghosted by the candidates’ post accepting the job offer.

Following have been identified as some of the common reasons why candidates abscond from a recruiter or hiring manager.

1. Longer hiring process: Managers lose good candidates during the hiring process if the process takes longer. In a candidate-driven job market, the candidates are constantly looking for job opportunities and better prospects, having multiple offers in hand has become the new trend. In such a situation, they avoid the hiring manager or the recruiter of the organization they are not interested in.
2. Ineffective communication: The recruiter or the hiring manager needs to ensure that a candidate has all the relevant information regarding the role he is applying for and that he understands it well. Communication gap or incorrect information rendered to the candidate often leads them to seize communication with the recruiter in the later phases of the hiring process.
3. Mismatch in the candidate’s expectation and organization: If the interest of the organization and the candidate does not match, the candidate finds it difficult to grow and sustain in the organization for long and eventually ghosts away.

However, in most of the cases, we find that the candidates’ ghost to avoid the uncomfortable conversation with the manager or recruiter.

So as a recruiter or hiring manager, what is that you should do to ensure that the candidates do not ghost. Listed below are some of the points, we can adopt to avoid ghosting.

1. Make that connection: Make a connection with the candidate, let them know that you care about them getting a job.

1. • Shift the focus to the candidate and understand what their goals are. This makes them feel at ease and also sets a stage for a genuine conversation and as a result, they tend to inform you about any change in their intentions.
   • Make sure that the candidate understands the role and the organization well before proceeding so that he can take a well-informed decision.
   • Encourage candidates to raise their concerns. Answer their queries promptly and revert with additional information, if required.
2. Shorten the hiring process: With the changing time, organizations need to speed their hiring process and work with proper timelines for the closure of the position. It is better to have a “good” candidate than keep looking for “that perfect fit” and delay the entire process and as a result, lose the “good” candidate as well.
3. Give feedback on time: Always give feedback to the candidates, preferably within 24 hours of the interview. Keeping the candidates waiting for feedback makes them frustrated and you tend to lose them for any other opportunity that you may have for them in the future.
4. Stay in touch (post job offer): Once a candidate has been offered the role, keep the connection alive and help the candidate with his queries if required till he joins the organization and has settled properly.

Candidate experience matters during the hiring process as it speaks about the organization’s culture and how it takes care of its employees. Any job-seeker would want to apply for an organization that takes care of its employees and the hiring process gives them an idea about the same.

It is always better to learn from the past. Analyze the situations when you have been ghosted by a candidate and try to identify the reasons for the same. Look what you could have done better!!