Strategies for Dealing with Ghosting in the Job Market

Ever been left in the professional lurch after what you thought was a successful interview or networking event? Trust us, we've walked in those shoes too, and we're ready to share how we lace up and keep striding forward despite the silence. 

From the lively corridors of PodFest in Orlando to the nerve-wracking wait for a post-interview call, we peel back the layers of maintaining connections and handling the frustration of being ghosted. Our heartfelt tales from the conference will not only make you laugh but also arm you with strategies to persist when others go silent, proving the power of networking and the art of the follow-up.

The job market's a jungle, and we're your guides, pointing out the red flags to watch for and the breadcrumbs leading to a company's true colors. 

In this revealing discussion, we weigh in on the split opinions about working for an organization that's previously left you high and dry, and even touch on the curious case of disappearing new hires. 

So, join us as we share the wisdom gleaned from being ghosted, and how to emerge as the CEO of your own journey, learning and laughing all the way.

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Transcript

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:02

Welcome to the Redefine Your Career Journey Podcast, where we help career minded professionals like you become the CEO of your career.

Laura Bashore: 0:11

I'm Laura Bashore and I'm here with my co-host, Mary Fain Brandt. Together, we have over 25 years of experience in career development and coaching.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:19

We're thrilled to share our insights and expertise with you on this podcast.

Laura Bashore: 0:22

Grab your favorite cup of coffee, tune in and let's start the show.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:32

Hey Laura, I can't believe that we had our first professional sleepover. I love that term that you came up with. So does everyone else when I share that.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:41

So if you guys don't know, we just went to our first conference together and it was in Orlando, florida. It was PodFest and, as you know, we you know this podcast. We want to learn how to level up our podcast, make it a better for our listeners, and it was just an amazing conference. It was fast and furious. I got in over 30,000 steps. Did I tell you that?

Laura Bashore: 1:09

No, you didn't, and I was sad that my watch wasn't working, but I believe it because we were cupping it. You know, we walked to and from the venue. We figured out how to do that. I ride trolley. Besides all the great stuff that we learned, one of my favorite things was actually spending time with you in an environment where we're just being ourselves and figuring out like we always knew we get along professionally. We see things in the same way, but to know that we get along just more on a friend level was really cool too.

Laura Bashore: 1:43

Yeah, I mean, there's not many people I will stay up with till 3am. Okay, I'll bet early.

Mary Fain Brandt: 1:50

I don't stay up till 3am. I told my husband that he's like what I'm like.

Mary Fain Brandt: 1:55

I know who am I. I don't stay up to 3am anymore and I feel the same way, like most listeners probably don't realize. So Laura and I met on LinkedIn, literally that's. We connected there. Then it was a phone call. We were both living in San Diego at the time. You came to LinkedIn local. You came to my brunches for social media marketing world, but we really had only met in person about four times and one of those times was for a photo shoot, right? So we've only been in person four times. So spending three full days together in a small hotel at a conference, lighting up agendas, creating a plan of action, I just love that, because we did get to break bread, have lunches and dinner and stay up till 3 o'clock, and I'm going to put this out there. Saturday, when we were exhausted, I was like how about a show? And we watched Barbie and I fell asleep. I was so exhausted.

Laura Bashore: 2:55

You fell asleep and I was like, okay, be respectful. So I watched also the beginning of the movie proposal because I love that movie. And then I was like I got to go to bed but it was great. And then, outside of that, the networking was so good because you and I are newer to the podcasting realm and we were nervous as to what this would be like, because we are used to feeling very comfortable in the spaces we walk into because we're kind of a known commodity and those spaces are known. So it was really fun to go into a new environment with you.

Laura Bashore: 3:28

That was new to both of us. So we were coming in at the same level and then realizing you knew a handful of people there already and then I also felt like it was fun for us to both see how the other one networks, because it's so important to our businesses. And now we need to do our follow ups. You know I'm starting to follow up. I've been talking to a few people and hoping that it's not going to turn into a ghosting situation or that I ghost them. I love your cards, oh, and that's one of the other cool things, right, our magnets that we created and using our oh, they were a big hit.

Mary Fain Brandt: 4:07

I was so shocked that everybody loved our magnet. When we handed, oh wow, this is a magnet, it's so cool and it did pop because it's colorful. So, yeah, I have a few business cards. I didn't collect a ton. I scanned badges and QR codes. So that is.

Mary Fain Brandt: 4:24

You know there is a lot of follow up to do. I've done some and made some great connections, but you know we're talking about follow up and I just want to be honest and transparent. You know I sent an email out to about eight people and I only got a response from two. So for me, Laura, I could be like, ooh, they didn't want to really connect with me, or I didn't make an impression on them, or I could be more realistic, Like it went to spam. You know they got a ton of emails after the conference. They were busy after the conference, you know, getting caught up on world, on their life.

Mary Fain Brandt: 5:01

So I'm going to chalk it up to I need to follow up again and I think that's really important to our listeners today. One follow up is not enough and don't be afraid to follow up again and I'm just going to say it. Pick up your phone if you have their phone number. So I'm going to be honest, on three of these cards here that are in my hand. So if you're watching YouTube, there are three people that I'm actually just going to pick up the phone and I'm going to call them to follow up, because maybe they didn't get my email and so I feel a little ghosted. I feel a little ghosted right now, Laura.

Laura Bashore: 5:40

Yeah, I mean, and it's a real thing and I'm glad that that's what we're gonna be talking about today as well. You know, I will say, if you do call, leave a voicemail, because I don't answer my phone calls, but if you leave me a voicemail then I will call you back. So be thoughtful in your voicemail and let's talk with our audience today a little bit about ghosting kind of, the truths of it, the myths of it and how to avoid it, and also chalk it up to somebody else's problem, not yours, I mean that's kind of where.

Laura Bashore: 6:15

I wanna start it off with.

Mary Fain Brandt: 6:17

Okay. So why does ghosting happen? So, as I just shared a really relevant experience that is going on right now, right, some of my emails weren't answered and that's okay. I'm going to follow up again. But why does ghosting happen? In the past, I wanna say, when I was working with a potential client, like gone through the consultation part and I had sent the email, something happened and they got really busy in my email, right, it just sunk down. So I did pick up the phone and I think I believe I text the person first because you wanna be considerate of what's going on like, are they okay? You know I'm the person who goes oh my gosh, they don't wanna work with me, right, I go right there. But I've learned to change that story to say maybe they didn't get the email, maybe my text went into the unfiltered you know, on your phone, the filtered unknown. So I'm a big proponent of following up.

Mary Fain Brandt: 7:14

Three times Emails get overlooked or deleted by accident. Raise your hand If you've ever deleted an email by accident and then you're like wait, where did that email go? I know, I just saw it. You know files get in this place. Sometimes you type the wrong email. You transpose a number or a letter on the contact info. I mean this happens to me. Being someone that's dyslexic, I have to be really careful with that and I have to read everything out loud.

Mary Fain Brandt: 7:41

You guys, or in the realm of career professionals, when we're working with recruiters, sometimes a recruiter just doesn't know how to say sorry, we've moved on. There's a lot of reasons why you might be ghosted and we kind of wanna break through those myths, share some stories and work through how to handle when you're being ghosted. We know it hurts. You forge your soul into the interview or interviews or presentation. Maybe the company hired internally. That happens a lot. We were just talking about that on a previous episode.

Mary Fain Brandt: 8:21

It happens more in the initial contact point, when a candidate doesn't know, is that the recruiters are typically reaching out to a multitude of candidates, and I'm reading this from I believe this was Forbes or no, it's a SHRM Society of Human Resource Management article that they reach out to a multitude of candidates With the assumption the recruiters thinking, okay, I'm gonna reach out to 50 people, thinking that only 10 of them are gonna respond. That's the early round of ghosting. I guess my tip is you wanna act fast, you wanna be in that first 10. That responds, because after that you probably are just gonna fall off. Ghosting is less prevalent. You guys at the second and third stage of the process, so after a phone screen or an interview, but that first round probably gonna get ghosted if you're not in that top 10. What do you think, laura?

Laura Bashore: 9:25

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know it would be great if they could get back to everybody and tell them you know you didn't get this or you did, but the reality is that most positions are getting you know over well over 200 applications in, and so there's just not the time. And again, the first thing that's going to happen is you're going to go through that ATS system that they have that is scanning through, and by that you're going to be sorted into different piles, and the pile that they're not going to bring in is going to get an automatic email, because that's just being smart about their time. Now the second thing is you made a good point about not really happening in the second or third round, but I know I've had clients who've experienced this.

Laura Bashore: 10:17

I've experienced it myself, and a poll that we have in here is asking you know, would you take an offer from a company that ghosted you previously? And 21% said yes, which I was kind of surprised by, and then 58% said no. Now I understand if it's your dream job, and then suddenly they get back to you and you feel like, yes, I would take that, but I would say it's really a red flag. It depends on what you wanted that company, because if they've already interviews you and they don't have the proper processes in place to get back in touch, I don't know. To me, I just it wouldn't be something that I would, that I would move forward.

Laura Bashore: 11:05

What do you think?

Mary Fain Brandt: 11:07

Absolutely not. If they ghosted me before and now all of a sudden they're coming back to me. To me that's a red flag and I think it's really important in today's job market that we understand and we can identify, recognize those red flags, whether it's in salary, interviews, being ghosted. You've got to understand those are red flags, and I'm just really passionate about this. Learn to say no, learn to turn down that opportunity. If you have that icky feeling like that gut feeling like, oh, I don't know if you are queasy over it, there is your answer.

Laura Bashore: 12:57

I agree, and you know, speaking about prestigious organizations, you know, I even experienced this a few years ago. So I was interviewed for an executive director position. It's a six figure position with prominent university. I did the first initial call with the executive recruiter that they had. I'm doing air quotes for people because just because someone has a title of executive recruiter does not mean that they have executive experience themselves. It means that they found them their selves in that position. But in doing my research later, I found out that this person was a fresh graduate and so it's probably difficult for them to understand my career path because I was not fully academia.

Laura Bashore: 13:51

Anyways, my long story short is I had this interview. I asked my question of when can I expect to hear a determination, and they let me know within two weeks. Well, two weeks goes by, I hear nothing, and I was shocked, you know. So I sent an email. I heard nothing. At this point I already made the decision that I was not going to move forward with this company if, by some chance, they wanted me. However, I'm the type of person who I would like the answer. I would like to know what's going on. So I ended up sending an email letting them know that I, you know, am a career coach and I was going to use this example for my clients and share this in my blog. And then, wouldn't you know, she got back to me. They replied Then 24 hours, yes, and that they had moved on, and I ended up finding out it was an internal hire, so completely makes sense.

Mary Fain Brandt: 14:56

I need a bell.

Laura Bashore: 14:58

I need a bell that goes ding ding ding Exactly, and I knew it was a long shot regardless. But the fact is I'm telling you and sharing that that can happen to me and I knew it wasn't anything that I was doing on my side. So I just want to really share with the audience. Hey, understand that that it's not. It really isn't always you, you know, it is the things that are going on internally. So just to make sure that when you're being ghosted, you have to understand that that's not a place that you want to work for anyways, and I will share, lastly, that I had heard things from my previous clients about this organization that their hiring process is not great, the onboarding was not great, and so this just solidified it for me and I removed this organization from a company that I'd like to work for in the future.

Mary Fain Brandt: 15:50

And I think that's important. You need to talk to other people that have worked there, people that have interacted, whether it's on a client base, client relationship, vendor relationship or employee relationship. You need to talk, to have those conversations. I think it's so important. Even if it's your dream company, is it your dream company on paper, online? But once you put yourself inside that, is it still your dream company?

Mary Fain Brandt: 16:20

You invest a lot of time and energy with the resume, the interview, the next interview, the panel interview, the onboarding, the training, Just for you to find out. You know what. It's not my dream company. That I thought it was because processes are in place. Training is not good. So it's so important to do that research prior to making your list of the top five to 10 companies that you would like to look into. You know what I found interesting, Laura? I have a stat here that says it's about ghosting, but it's on the other end. Do you want to hear it? Yeah, definitely.

Mary Fain Brandt: 17:01

Southwest Airlines said that around 15 to 20% of new hires for some jobs don't turn up on their first day, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. What happened, Right? Like, why do you go through all that trouble to work at Southwest and then you don't turn up? I mean 15 to 20%. I feel like that's a high percentage, Great. So I'm wondering what is Southwest doing to combat that and to get that number lower, because that, like, I can't even imagine going through the process and getting hired and then saying, no, I'm not even going to show up. What's that all about?

Laura Bashore: 17:42

Yeah, I mean, I would be working with our HR department to figure out okay, what are we doing on the soft skills side of the people that we're making offers to? Yeah, yeah.

Mary Fain Brandt: 17:52

And then I also read something on LinkedIn where a recruiter got ghosted by a recruiter. Oh, that's fun, yeah. So a recruiter got ghosted by a recruiter. She had 30 minutes blocked off for him and he didn't show up, he didn't reach out to her. So, even if there's an emergency or something, and she was like how dare a recruiter do that to a recruiter? Well, how dare a recruiter do that to anyone? But it's a little ironic there that a recruiter ghosted another recruiter. Yeah, and to your point Laura yeah, to your point.

Mary Fain Brandt: 18:34

Don't take it personally. You move on and you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Anyway, I had someone who put all their eggs in one basket and I was like until you have an offer letter, right, don't, don't, don't do that, keep looking, keep interviewing.

Laura Bashore: 18:50

I agree, I share this game with my clients. Yes, even if it's your dream position, because until you have that offer and they've accepted your counter, it just nothing's finalized until it's finalized, right.

Mary Fain Brandt: 19:05

And this young woman was antsy and eager to get this response and it was taking longer than she thought it should. And I explain the hiring process takes a little longer these days and did you ask when they were going to make a decision? And it was a newer startup company. So there's a lot of things.

Laura Bashore: 19:27

Oh.

Mary Fain Brandt: 19:28

And I had a dynamic going into why she was ghosted for so long and then she ended up not getting the job. But she put all her eggs in that basket and then she was ghosted. You know, she did the interview and the presentation and then I I believe it wasn't the right fit from the beginning and I had told her that, like this might not be the the right fit for you, you should keep looking for other opportunities. But she didn't heed my advice at that time of the year.

Laura Bashore: 19:59

Well, and then the other side of that too is if you move everything into there, then it's really hard for you to move forward and be able to cope with being ghosted right, because now you're so tied into this potential opportunity that you can't even see beyond it and talk about messing with your mental health.

Laura Bashore: 20:25

I mean you're just not setting yourself up for a good job search experience. I can always tell the clients who are you know, we tell our clients. If you, if you throw your resume at everything you're going to interview for nothing, right Like it's not. That's not how that works. It's if you niche down too small, you're also limiting yourself and and focusing in on one thing that may or may not come through. So I think it's it's a great part or portion for us to address, because taking care of your mental space is just as important. When you're in the job search process, you know you can't define yourself by your job and you also can't define yourself by how the job search process is going, because it's not a reflection of you. Many times it's something going on with the hiring process at the company and that's just it.

Laura Bashore: 21:30

You know.

Mary Fain Brandt: 21:30

so a couple of bullet points on being ghosted and what to do. Number one don't take it personally. Number two follow up politely. Okay, the politely is the key word.

Laura Bashore: 21:42

I agree.

Mary Fain Brandt: 21:42

Don't get angry, don't be like you said you were going to call me on Tuesday and you didn't Like. Hey, I'm just following up to see what the status is of the hiring of the career coach at ABC company, if there's any further documentation needed for me, you know, a polite follow up. Number three on this bullet list bullet points is expand your options, and that should be actually number one, always, you know, have a yeah, because expanded, in my opinion, don't, don't limit yourself. Number four is learn from the experience. What could you have done? Is there anything? And there probably isn't, but maybe, maybe, if you had interviewed friends or colleagues, maybe you would have been more aware of the situation, of their poor hiring process or how long it really takes.

Mary Fain Brandt: 22:33

Number five on this list is take care of yourself, which is what you just said to do, but I love you know, don't take it personally. Follow up politely. Expand your options. Is there anything that you would add to that list when you get ghosted, cause it can really hurt. Like we're not trying to take away from from how you feel, right, the hurt that you feel when you are ghosted because you put in all the time. So we're not trying to take that away. We're just trying to help your mindset get through it.

Laura Bashore: 23:05

Yeah, I think you know doing your research after the hiring process. So for me, with the story I shared earlier, once I saw who was hired, it made sense to me it was an internal candidate. I did not have the depth of experience within the organization that this person had, and so it made me feel a lot better as to well, it actually had nothing to do with me, and that can be good to have that reaffirmed, because your confidence does get shook. It doesn't matter. Even if you are a career coach yourself, you know these things happen. And then look for what's the new opportunity that's going to open up for you, because for me I ended up purchasing another business so and there was no way I could have done that had I taken the offer or been offered the other position so I also would have lost a lot of the freedom that I have as a business owner. So you just have to look at the.

Mary Fain Brandt: 24:14

I think you hit the nail on the head there. They may. So in all the research that I did for this episode, recruiters may not respond if you're not the top candidate. That's common practice. So if you're not hearing back, I hope that you're pursuing other options. I don't want we don't want you to put all your time and energy and effort into one job. The other thing that I get asked a lot, Laura, is how much should I follow up? I feel like the rule of three, like no more than three Some people follow.

Mary Fain Brandt: 24:50

Yeah, so one is maybe it's a thank you and then maybe it's a follow up I don't know what that timeline. So if they say two weeks, then it's appropriate to follow up at two weeks, one day, something like that, and then, if you don't hear from them again, give them a week and follow up again. So like that, three touch points.

Laura Bashore: 25:12

I agree, and I do also want to share one thing that was just popping into my head as we were talking about this One job that I got and I wasn't ghosted. So I did. I went through and I did two interviews and I thought, yeah, I'm gonna. I was just waiting for my offer to come in and, oh hello light, and I got an email that I got the email that we dread getting which said we did not move forward with you on the software. And I went and I told my husband he's like, well, you're not gonna get them all. And I said, well, no, I should have this, though I should have had this. I don't understand. So I think, something that most people probably wouldn't do I responded to the email, or actually I reached back out to the person who interviewed me because the email did not come from her.

Laura Bashore: 26:12

I reached back out to the person with a phone call and I said, hey, I just wanted to give a call and say thank you for your time and for interviewing me. If there's anything that opens up in the future, I'd really appreciate having a second look. And she said what are you talking about? And I said, well, I just got the email and I didn't get the position. And she said what? And I said, well, I got the thank you very much. And she's like no, no, she's like you got the wrong email. They clicked the wrong button. Yeah. And I said what? Yeah, she's like you were supposed to get the offer email. I was like, oh my gosh, she's like let me call you right back. I got to jump in and make sure they didn't give the offer to the other person by accident and I said okay, and I hung up the phone and an hour later it was all resolved and the following week I was starting my new job. So Wow.

Mary Fain Brandt: 27:10

So what I'm hearing you say is it can be beneficial to reply to that. Sorry, you didn't get the job, because you just never know if an error happened. Because if you hadn't replied, how long would it? I mean, I'm sure that they would have figured out. I mean, would they have thought that you were ghosting them, like hey, I don't care about that, would they? How many times would they have figured out? What if the other person? I mean, just imagine the chaos that could have come if you have responded.

Laura Bashore: 27:43

Well, like, yeah, and the thing with that too is the once I got hired on, my manager and I became very close, and so we had talked about that about a month later and she shared it with me because I was curious. I was like what would have happened. So it's funny you brought that up, because we had a conversation about it and she said well, the other candidate was good too, so we would have just stayed with them, but you were the person we preferred, so very glad that you called. So we were in a tight run.

Mary Fain Brandt: 28:13

So I think that's the bonus tip we're applied to this. I'm sorry that you didn't. We chose someone else. We're not moving forward with you, so respond to that, because that could be the opportunity.

Laura Bashore: 28:28

Shocked, and so that's yeah. If you feel like you had that, like that was yours, you're not gonna hurt anything. I mean, my initial thing was just to be like hey, keep my name in the running if a similar position opens up, and instead it turned into oh no, we gotta fix our errors. So you never know.

Mary Fain Brandt: 28:47

You never know, and I think that's important. Also, if you really like the company, if they align with your values, your skillset, the culture is a good fit, then why not send that email that says really enjoyed meeting you, I love the company, the work they're doing. I'd love to be kept in mind for future opportunities because that could lead to your next thing. I love it. Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, this was our episode. All about why ghosting happens, what to do when ghosting happens and just the key takeaway don't take it personally. Laura and I have both been ghosted. It happens to all of us. It's not always about you, so please don't take it personally. Take care of yourself and never put all your eggs in one basket. You should always be looking for multiple opportunities and until you sign that offer letter, you are on the market. If you enjoyed the podcast, show us some love. Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, and if you have any feedback, go ahead and share that with us too, because we want to hear from you.

Laura Bashore: 30:06

And don't forget to visit our website. You need to find your career journey so it can help you take the next step in your career.

Mary Fain Brandt: 30:12

Woohoo, we'll see you next week with another episode was to help you redefine your career journey. Until then, stay focused, stay motivated and stay caffeinated.