Why Ghosting Is The Dumbest Topic In All Of Recruiting

Spoiler: It’s not a recruiting topic.

It’s Halloween. Time for my once a year rant on the dumbest topic in all of recruiting: Ghosting. Boo. ????

A few years ago I made my first appearance on the local news.

Fox32 Chicago uncovered a massive ghosting epidemic. And they wanted hot takes from methisguy.

Y’all know I love the camera so I’m game. Just need to brush off my ‘why recruiters ghost job seekers’ hot takes. Hopefully the people at the local diner find them as fascinating as the LinkedIn office dork crowd…

Plot twist: that wasn’t what they wanted to discuss at all! Apparently job seekers were ghosting on interviews and employees were ghosting on jobs.  (Turns out Quiet Quitting is a sequel.)

Needless to say, I shocked the producers when I told them the reality of it.

Conflict avoidance. Reluctance to give bad news. Taking the easy route to avoid tough conversations.

????It’s the human condition. Family, friends, recruiters, job seekers. Everyone’s been ghosted. And everyone’s ghosted someone else.

If you’re reading this, you’ve done it. You’ve ghosted someone at some time in your life.

Let’s stop singling out and blaming groups of people out of rage. (Not to mention virtue signaling.)

Let’s start addressing how we can make the people we interact with more comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

That’s the real root cause here.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.