Vanishing Acts: How to Prevent Candidate Ghosting in the Hiring Process

In the spirit of Halloween, it’s time to address a common nightmare for recruiters: candidate ghosting.

This occurs when job candidates drop out of the hiring process without warning; fail to show up for interviews; or even accept job offers, only to disappear before their start dates.

Ghosting is typically seen in lower-wage, high-volume hourly roles in industries such as retail and hospitality, but the trend has crept into the technology and health care sectors in recent years, too.

Candidates are inexplicably vanishing without a trace, leaving recruiters scratching their heads and wondering what went wrong.

Boiled down, the cause of candidate ghosting is a failure to communicate. The solution, then, lies in treating your potential hires as VIPs. Consistently engage with them, keep them informed about their job applications, and most importantly, make them feel valued. The trick is to treat all candidates as if they were wearing the crown at the costume ball. When candidates feel valued by recruiters, they are less likely to ghost.

“It’s HR’s job to stay connected with candidates from the moment contact is initiated all the way to beyond their first day,” said Sarah Smart, co-founder of HorizonHuman, a strategic HR consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and former talent acquisition leader at Hilton and JPMorgan Chase.

This can be accomplished through technology and by encouraging recruiters to build personal relationships with candidates; however, balancing recruiters’ workloads is also important, Smart said.

“If you have too many [requisitions], you can’t possibly keep track of your candidates, much less have the freedom and the time to really develop personal relationships,” she explained.

Matt Staney, a talent acquisition and employer branding expert in Austin, Texas, recommended that recruiters serve as career coaches to candidates and develop a transparent relationship with them. “Let them know that you will be honest with them, and in return, if they are seriously considering another opportunity, [that you hope they will] reciprocate,” he said. The logic is that if recruiters are honest and communicative, then candidates are less likely to ghost them.

“Candidates will feel more comfortable telling the recruiter what’s really happening, instead of just disappearing,” Staney said.

Offering a compelling employee value proposition is another effective tactic. Highlight your attractive compensation package, benefits, and vibrant workplace culture right from the beginning to avoid losing your perfect candidate to a competitor.

“Provide clear expectations on what the role is and isn’t,” said Steve Browne, SHRM-SCP, chief people officer at LaRosa’s Inc., an Italian restaurant chain based in Cincinnati. “Have candidates tour the workplace, let them see what the job is and who their colleagues will be, and make them feel at home. That way, it’s not an interview about the culture; it’s a peek inside the culture. I want people to feel like they are opting in, instead of me convincing them.”

Experts also recommend shortening the hiring process, limiting the number of interview rounds, and providing interview feedback to candidates as soon as possible.

“If you leave a candidate floating out there with no feedback after an interview, the chances of being ghosted go up,” said Claire Stroh, SHRM-CP, an HR consultant and career coach in Buffalo, N.Y.

Finally, one of the most effective ways to curb ghosting by new hires is to begin integrating them into the company immediately after they accept the role. Managers should use the time before a new hire’s start date to develop a relationship with them. Preboarding, the component of onboarding that takes place before the new employee’s start date, can last from a few days to a few weeks.

“The job is not done when the offer is signed,” Staney said. “Hiring managers should start folding them in, start introducing them to people to make them feel part of the team, and start formal onboarding. If they are integrated and excited to begin, they may not listen to another recruiter coming at them.”