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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

#81

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #54

This is NOT the new normal, and we should NOT accept it. Everyone here should do their part; for example, I'm more often a hiring manager and will not tolerate ghosting anyone who gets to any interaction with engineering. IME it's lazy recruiters who are responsible for this, and they're about as big of a part of tech as an accountant, i.e. very little. I don't understand why many people are hesitant to name and sham…

There should definitely be a larger effort to name and shame. I'm not currently job hunting, but in the past I have considered starting a site to document companies and the individual recruiters that are ghosting. It might be worth-while for anyone job hunting currently to start a google sheet or something along those lines to do just that since it's so common now.

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

#82

Post by Solvency »

nradov wrote: post #73
tracerbulletx wrote: post #49

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 there are objective metrics and performances are largely in public. In knowledge work there are no reliable metrics that apply on an individual level and you have to rely on candidates themselves (plus perhaps some unreliable references) to understand work history. It's a fundamentally harder problem.

And yet those sports teams still spend millions of dollars and expertise on it (recruiting). So what's techs excuse? It's harder so we don't bother?

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

#83

Post by tayo42 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #54

This is NOT the new normal, and we should NOT accept it. Everyone here should do their part; for example, I'm more often a hiring manager and will not tolerate ghosting anyone who gets to any interaction with engineering. IME it's lazy recruiters who are responsible for this, and they're about as big of a part of tech as an accountant, i.e. very little. I don't understand why many people are hesitant to name and sham…

> I don't understand why many people are hesitant to name and shame the individuals and companies.

The risk for repercussion isn't worth it. Your going to go online and stir up shit? Corporate culture is way to risk averse. If you are the kind of person getting ghosted and rejected from interviews you evidently aren't a person with any leverage in the hiring market.

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

#85

Post by ugh123 »

My first rule of recruiting for my own technical teams: don't let a recruiter be the face of your company or team. Set rules on interaction, follow-ups, etc. Insert yourself or someone directly from the team into the process as early as time allows.

Also, don't let a recruiter contact candidates on your behalf. I've seen this go sideways several times where unprofessionalism can be conducted IN YOUR NAME by the recruiter.

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

#86

Post by plugin-baby »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #74
frognumber wrote: post #20

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…

Almost every place I’ve worked (early at startups later at megacorps) there were never enough recruiting resources. So eventually I just got my own recruiter account on LinkedIn and started using my knowledge of the industry and state of hiring to make my own search queries and reached out directly. I had an incredible conversion rate - the senior person actually hiring saying “hey you look like you could fit in here…

100% with you, but it’s not always easy to get control of your own recruiting. I’ve also seen HR get upset when their involvement is not what they expected.

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

#87

Post by nradov »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #38
CM30 wrote: post #19

The new normal? This has been the case for years for almost all job applications. Maybe if you're lucky and the company has put you through like 4 rounds of interviews you might get feedback, but the general rule seems to be that useful feedback for an interview is the exception rather than the norm. And heck, even that isn't something you can rely on. I've had a fair few interviews get about 80% of the way through t…

When I was a pilot just starting out, in 2007 I’d see a human response maybe 1/100 applications. It’s pretty gross out there for people other than tech employees. What’s pretty funny is now that I’m changing into this field it seems to be adjusting to treat people like crap. So, I guess you’re welcome guys and gals - it’s my fault.

With the higher market demand for pilots now I suspect that job applicants in that field are now being treated better than they were in 2007.

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

#88

Post by skeeter2020 »

cco wrote: post #43

What I've never really understood is that though recruiters (external but also in-house) are typically paid on hiring candidates, much like sales people. And in that paradigm, why is ghosting so common? As a recruiter, a lot of your value is your professional network that you can pull from to place candidates. Why would you ever ghost people that, while not a good fit for this role, could be a good fit for a differen…

recruiters are a lot like real estate agents - there's very little barrier to entry or exit, so the good ones do well in both hot and cold markets, while the shitty ones exit when times get tough and compete like crazy for limited supply when they are good. The former builds value in their network and will likely never ghost you; you'll earn them several commissions over a career. The bad ones get fired or voluntarily leave so the network has no value. I suspect we're seeing an uptick in ghosting right now because:

1. There are a lot more newer people in tech today who are now going through their first downturn and involuntarily looking for a job. As a stereotype these people are far more public on the interwebs and sharing their experiences.

2. We're still in the downward trajectory so the crappy recruiters haven't been purged and companies don't have to compete on quality of service to get limited talent... yet. Wait until the next upswing - I'd bet far less people got ghosted on job applications 2-3 years ago.

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

#90

Post by zaptheimpaler »

The whole point thing about having half a breakdown after being ghosted is not going to be remedied by receiving a generic rejection email.. even the actual response he did get after pestering them was just "you were good but another guy was better" and yeah this is 90% of all anyone will ever say anyways. Like you can simply assume that 1. a better candidate was found or 2. the job opening was already closed because already hired or budget or role reconsidered if it helps you feel better.

The whole idea that we can apply the norms of personal relationships to a business transaction like this with 100s of candidates, no pre-existing relationship beyond 1-2 calls at mostand at best a generic rejection is basically displaced disappointment turned to resentment and anger. To which I say, you can either rant about it online and hope they change, or you can learn to regulate your own emotions.

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