How We Communicate With Each Other

One of the most common themes on Linkedin at the moment concerns the practice of “ghosting”, which generally goes along the lines of “they contacted me, I responded, they promised to do XYZ, now they won’t reply to my emails”.  This is normally aimed at recruiters, although from my own experience the practice is not confined to this group.

None of us are perfect and I’m sure that we’ve all needed a reminder in the past that we owe someone a response, but when does an oversight become ghosting?  Does technology exacerbate the issue and make it easier to ignore an unwanted correspondent?

We could make the case that this is simply a matter of courtesy and professionalism, but if we look at the recruitment sector in particular the situation is far from straightforward, for example:

·       Should a candidate expect a response to an online application for a role on an agency site? Possible scenario: the agency receives 20 applications of which only 2 are relevant and proceedable – should the agency respond to 2 candidates or all 20?

·       When a recruiter emails selected candidates about a specific role, if a particular candidate is not interested or is unable to proceed, should the candidate feel obliged to respond to what they might see as an unsolicited approach?

·       Would the answer to the previous question be the same if the recruiter’s approach was made via Linkedin?

·       When recruiter and candidate agree to progress an application on the candidate’s behalf and no subsequent response is received from the hiring company, at what point does the recruiter report the lack of outcome to the candidate?

·       Is the answer to the above question the same if the candidate reaches interview stage without receiving an outcome?

A combination of common sense and good manners would normally prevail in all of the above situations, but it’s easy to see how blurred the lines are and how frustrations develop amongst long term jobseekers, for example.