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Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

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Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#61
post #4

Getting ghosted 95% of the time has been the default for decades.

Agreed. A bit besides the point, but I'm dating a recruiter that has worked in a few industries, but not tech. She says, as a rule, she doesn't provide feedback. People just don't listen or accept it, they just use it as an opportunity to argue. So what's the point?

Detailed "here's why you suck" feedback, sure, but just a "no" would be more professional than this emotionally immature "ghosting" thing.

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#62

One of my top lessons I've learned doing successful startups: 1. Recruiting is the #1 job of any startup CEO, and the #1 determiner of corporate success. 2. Up market, down market, side market, it doesn't matter: You will get better employees if you treat candidates with respect and you will be more competitive. 3. It's a lot of work for the 95% of clowns out there you interview, and there's a push towards automated…

your last paragraph resonated very well with me as i can't remember the last time i spoke to a recruiter that seemed to have a horse in the race.

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#64

One of my top lessons I've learned doing successful startups: 1. Recruiting is the #1 job of any startup CEO, and the #1 determiner of corporate success. 2. Up market, down market, side market, it doesn't matter: You will get better employees if you treat candidates with respect and you will be more competitive. 3. It's a lot of work for the 95% of clowns out there you interview, and there's a push towards automated…

You'd think if professional sports could figure out how important this is we could too, but for some reason there's a tendency to give it lip service then put absolutely no effort into doing a good job. Scouting and screenings are done by people that companies treat like dirt, we incentivize them only for body count, interviews are done by low experience employees and employees who don't even like interviewing. We do…

[deleted]

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#65

Every time I've been passed over for a job, I've been notified in a timely manner. I would consider anything less to be grossly, outrageously unprofessional. It's never happened to me, but if it ever does, you best believe I am going to name and shame the hell out of that company. Everyone deserves to know, and people like this don't deserve to have anyone working for them.

I’m trying to get started in this field, I am finishing grad school in the spring and applying everywhere… I mostly hear nothing. It is incredibly unprofessional.

No response to applications is normal.

Ghosting is suddenly leaving you in the middle of a conversation. For example, not showing up for a scheduled Zoom interview then not replying to your concerned email, asking to reschedule. And yes, that's happened to me.

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#66
Here's a relevant experience. I applied for a job a few days ago. The recruiter reached out to me through email to schedule a phone call and I scheduled a time through her online calendar. To give you some more context in terms of timing: she emailed me in the morning and I responded in the afternoon. Less than 24 hours after she reached out to me, the job ad on the company page is taken down and now says the position is filled. No response from the recruiter.

What the hell was that?

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#67
post #28

Both of the following can be true at the same time: 1. I personally owe a response to anyone who reaches out to me, in a timely manner, even if that answer is no, because to intentionally ignore a request is unethical. 2. I will strive to have built up many and different areas in my life, such that my sense of confidence is not impacted by the actions or inactions of people who are, in essence, strangers. If you want…

My Rule: The nature of a negative (i.e. final) communications should equal how personal the relationship is. If you applied electronically and we stated "only those considered will be contacted" or you cold-emailed me some sales pitch, we don't have a relationship at all and you deserve nothing. If you contacted me and I responded with a short email, my final answer should be a shjort email. If you spent several hours in face-to-face interviews and we're not moving forward I owe you a phone call or email with some explanation of why - in a TIMELY manner.

Seems pretty easy to me.

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#68
At every company I worked at, each interviewer would have gone through training to do interviews, write feedback, participate in debriefs and actually do those things in a timely fashion. Senior people would have participated/chaired in semi-formal or more-formal hiring committees and helped make hire/no-hire decisions. And the hiring tools we used showed if the candidate has applied earlier for same/different roles, and did interviews and what were the feedback earlier. There would also internal confidential ref-checks based on overlap in candidate's work history with anyone at the company currently. If the candidate was rejected at any stage, the recruiter is informed and they have access to almost all of these data in the same tool. And they are expected to communicate that back to the candidate. And there is a feedback tool for the candidate to rate the whole experience and this feedback is analyzed carefully, and processes tweaked accordingly, especially if the company is growing and expected to continue to grow for a while.

In companies that had to do aggressive cost cutting, the recruiters were the first to be impacted. These roles have had high churn and sufficient training and experience quality monitoring may have suffered during this period. That could be the reason why the certain steps in the process involving recruiters (like communicating back to the rejected candidates) may have suffered w.r.t quality of interactions.

Re: Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think if professional sports could figure out how important this is we could too, but for some reason there's a tendency to give it lip service then put absolutely no effort into doing a good job. Scouting and screenings are done by people that companies treat like dirt, we incentivize them only for body count, interviews are done by low experience employees and employees who don't even like interviewing. We do…

In professional sports you are selecting one of the few hundred or thousand best people in the world. Its not even remotely the same impact.

Every successful athletic team makes player scouting and development a core function, not only the elite levels. In the US that means minor league baseball teams, university teams from volleyball and fencing, to football and basketball. Pro cycling teams that pay almost nothing and aren't competitive world wide.. It's not just the elite teams that make this top priority. They ALL know that the most driven talented players they can get at their level is what will make them win.
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