The term “ghosting” first became popular in the dating world, explaining how a potential romantic partner just vanished without any further communication. Since then, it’s become a term used in many situations, including hiring, because sometimes people stop responding and seemingly disappear. If you have ever had a candidate ghost you during the process, here are a few tips to keep it from happening again.
Don’t make it easy to ghost
It is easiest to become a ghost when you feel no personal attachment. If a candidate doesn’t feel like a connection has been made, they will probably have no issues just ignoring your phone calls and emails from here on out.
A good practice in all situations, not just with potential ghosts, is to make it a personal and attentive experience. Develop connections with them and treat them as more than just a resume in a stack, so they feel more involved in the process.
Pay attention to their experience
Listen, we get it. Hiring is time-consuming. There is much more to your role than simply interviewing talent. First, you have to find them, engage them, interview them, and you do all of this with hundreds of candidates while trying to keep up with all the communications. Unfortunately, when you are busy, and you do not have an update to share, you are more likely to let a touchpoint slip. No one intentionally neglects the candidate experience, but unfortunately, it does happen.
Getting caught up in the search and your typical responsibilities and not keeping the candidate updated is one of the easiest ways to see them disappear. Try to block time in your week to follow up with your candidates, even if just to tell them you are still waiting for feedback. Scheduling time for and prioritizing this task will help ensure that you don’t forget to share an update. If they reach out directly to you, take a moment to respond.
Hire additional support
If you are managing a team that has tried blocking time weekly to update their candidates and is still experiencing a higher volume of ghosting, your best bet may be to add resources to your team to handle the workload, even if only for a short time. Instead of trying to do the job of three people, or asking your team to do it, trust a specialized vendor to provide you with one or more contract resources to get through the most demand hiring pushes.
It is their job to know their clients, find the talent that can hit the ground running, so you don’t have to. All you need to do is make the final decision on a worker and bring them onto your team. Sounds much less stressful, right?
When you need additional support, Search Wizards has you covered
At Search Wizards, we specialize in building teams of all sizes. We give your talent acquisition team the boost it needs when it is needed. Other solutions you’ve tried may have hurt your brand, blew your budget, and affected the candidate experience. With us, you don’t need to worry because this isn’t our first rodeo. Let us make it easy for you today!
