[saberworks]

When I was job hunting I sincerely appreciated any rejection letter at any stage of the process, be it automated or personal. Obviously an offer letter would be better but the absolute worst is hearing nothing back. We should be praising the companies that take the time (or implement the automated process) to send the rejection letters and not leave us hanging.

[CM30]

Yeah, the tendency to 'ghost' people is a huge problem in society now, and companies seem to prefer it to just saying 'no'.

But it's especially bad when you've already gone through most of the application process beforehand. Being ghosted after a job application? Annoying, but possibly understandable if the demand was really high. Being ghosted after going through multiple interviews, a coding test and everyone basically implying you've got the job in the bag?

Now that's awful. If someone's spent hours/days/weeks of their time going through all these steps, you at least owe it to yourself to tell them if they've got the role or not. Even just saying 'Sorry you don't have the job, we chose another candidate' is better than radio silence after all that wasted time.

[dylan-m]

I was ghosted by an employer after sending them a "few days/hours" technical homework assignment (kindly assigned before any kind of interview). Granted, I sent it to them near the deadline and it was barely complete, but it still took an afternoon. If I have a chance to deliver karma in their direction I probably won't hesitate.

[ShabbosGoy]

> Yeah, the tendency to 'ghost' people is a huge problem in society now, and companies seem to prefer it to just saying 'no'.

What do you think this is attributable to? Is it that technology has shortened our attention spans so much that we no longer encode the memories of recent experiences?

[techsupporter]

I think it's two reasons:

1) People are becoming super averse to conflict and, by extension, confrontation. I think it's for myriad reasons. Not wanting to deal with the possibly-negative response; being accused of something; the other party exacting some form of retribution; and so on. I think the perception is that if one party says "[not-preferred reply]," the other party feels maligned instead of just that "it didn't work out."

2) Along the same lines, I think not saying "no" is also seen as responsibility shifting. "Well, I didn't tell them 'yes' so they'll figure it out soon enough." And then the ghosted party is then held as being responsible for their own feelings. "Not my problem you felt bad that [a possible employer | an acquaintance | some other interaction] never called you back. Those are your feelings, not [mine | ours]."

[shanghaiaway]

Interactions are low touch and large in number. Since relationships are weak ghosting is seen as acceptable and frankly reaching out to every person may take too much effort. Not saying it's okay because I hate it too. Just explaining this phenomenon that appears to have been caused by digital communications.

[krapp]

If a company doesn't hire you, then by definition they have determined that your time is of no value to them, so it would literally be a waste of their resources to interact with you further.

[staticautomatic]

Unless you consider the company's reputation and good will a resource...

[krapp]

Except this is already standard operating procedure for most companies, and it doesn't seem to have affected them.

[meowface]

It probably does affect them, though, whether they're aware of it or not. Some of the best talent they can get probably reads HN threads like these. A prospective great employee could easily read this thread, see stories of company X ghosting people, and decide to avoid them.

[staticassertion]

Not necessarily. Companies should be assuming false negatives in their process and should be encouraging reapplication in most cases. It is in their best interests to provide feedback to the developer and a good experience.

[ThorinJacobs]

This may be internally consistent, but what of applicants following up on their applications? A sizable portion of the workflow believes - and is advised by job search coaches - that the correct response to being ghosted is to follow up on the application. Do you not waste more time fielding and diverting followup calls than simply sending (at minimum) a quick form email to remove all doubt?

[stcredzero]

Obviously an offer letter would be better but the absolute worst is hearing nothing back.

No. One thing that's worse is they schedule a follow-up call, then blow off the call. Happened to me.

[DoofusOfDeath]

Approximately the same thing happened to me with Red Hat.

[52-6F-62]

IBM got me with that one

[Fins]

LinkedIn, too...

[Tsiklon]

Oracle did that to me. Twice.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Yeah, but... Its Oracle. Did you think that their evil didn't permeate down to a personal level or something?

[neumann]

My best rejection was from McKinsey & Company...

Applied for a job, 12 hours later received a personal email from HR citing a) their appreciation for my skillset b) why I am not a fit for their current role c) their request to keep my details on file for future opportunities.

signed off by a guy with his mobile and email in case I wanted further information.

It was the most professional interaction I've had during a job application process.

[kaspm]

No the _worst_ is when they offer you the job verbally on the phone and in between the phone call and the written offer they give the job to someone else.

[inertiatic]

I can one up you. A couple of years ago I started looking for a job after a disastrous one. I ended up doing 3 interviews and a take home assignment for a UK company looking to relocate some people back to Greece and open offices here. Then I went ahead and negotiated my salary. Went ahead and stopped my job search after that and waited to be notified about my start date once the offices have been set up. Didn't follow up on a couple of other opportunities either because I was certain this was a good fit for me. A month and a half later, after some pinging on my part, I ended up learning that the plans to open an office here were scrapped and I was welcome to work from the London office, as if I would feel comfortable moving abroad to work for an employer like that.

[oceanghost]

I've had this happen. I even filled out the new hire paperwork.

It was devastating at the time but, in retrospect, it would have been a wrong turn for me personally and professionally. And

[kaspm]

I am sorry, no company should do that.

[oceanghost]

You know-- getting that job would have ruined my life. It sucked at the time, but I regret nothing. Thank you casino Morongo :)

and thanks.

[maxk42]

I have no problem being ghosted. The thing that really pisses me off, though, is receiving a rejection letter six weeks after the fact.

I got one today. It's okay: I got the message. I'm already gainfully employed elsewhere. You didn't need to send me a little reminder that I'm not good enough for your cool kids' club.

[crysin]

I've got one better. Submitted an application for a company, didn't hear back. Got a new job in the meantime and about 2 months after I submitted my application, I got an e-mail from their head of HR, like not from a no-reply address but a persons specific e-mail at the company, saying they really enjoyed their time interviewing me and thanking me for coming out to their office. Only I never did any of that, never had received anything outside of the original confirmation e-mail that they had received my application. Probably the strangest experience I've had while looking for jobs. I actually e-mailed the person back in a reply letting him know he never actually interviewed me nor did I ever visit the office. His response was something like "Thanks for the heads up." Didn't even apologize.

[meowface]

It's a bit silly to send one so late, but I'd rather get some word back rather than absolutely nothing.

[maxk42]

Not for an initial resume that was never responded-to.

If we've never spoken before then it's really not necessary to send me a form-rejection. I'm not holding my breath.

[oldandtired]

Many years ago, I applied for a position with a local organisation. I contacted the manager in question about a week later. As he was not available, I left a message with his staff indicating that I was wanting feedback as to how successful or not my application was in relation to the position.

I called back a number of times and left messages with his staff as he was quite often at meetings elsewhere in the region.

After some time, I managed to actually speak to the manager in question and during our conversation, he stated that I should have known that I was unsuccessful due to getting no feedback or calls or letters from him.

I made it quite clear to him that I had, in the past, been in the position of interviewer and that it was considered highly unprofessional for applicants to not be notified that they were unsuccessful. If they had put in the effort to apply then it was appropriate to put in the effort to respond to those applications.

What was funny was finding a rejection letter hand delivered to my mail box a couple of hours later. As I had other contacts within the organisation, which he didn't know about, I made enquires as to his general level of competence. He was not a people person and in that regard I was happy not to have been successful. If I got the story right, the successful applicant didn't last much over a year under his gentle management style anyway.

As has been noted elsewhere in these comments, the way a company responds or doesn't respond affects how they are viewed by applicants and it does affect their reputation.

[kevinconaway]

> We should be praising the companies that take the time (or implement the automated process) to send the rejection letters and not leave us hanging.

Its interesting that there is an article on the front page [0] right now singing the praises of Ghost (ironically named in this case) which does exactly the opposite.

From their careers page [1]:

> Unfortunately due to the volume of submissions that come in whenever we open a position we aren't able to respond to every single application, but if yours is successful - you'll hear back from us within around a week.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17082228

[1] https://blog.ghost.org/infrastructure-engineer/

[oldandtired]

But they are up front in notifying those applying for positions that this is the case. This is acceptable as far as I am concerned. You know before hand what the responses will be. When they do not give any such indications then they are unprofessional.

[eat_veggies]

I applied for an internship at Coinbase a full six months ago, and just received my rejection letter last week. Truly admirable!

[penguat]

I don't know if feedback is provided as standard where I work, or only on request - but we do provide meaningful feedback as far as possible.

I suggest that few companies will object to you asking about their timeframe for decisions, or (once that has expired) asking for feedback. Some companies won't be set up to provide it, which is unfortunate, but I suspect many will.

[magic_beans]

How hard could it possibly be to click a "send rejection" button that triggers a plain-text email!?

[philipyoungg]

I've worked with a startup that handles Application Tracking System before.

The reason company ghost-ed candidates is because they want to keep them as an option.

Say that they don't get a "good" candidate, they have those "lesser" candidate as backup in case they need someone fast.

[navs]

I appreciate hearing something back. I remember once hearing absolutely nothing for weeks until I had to actually email them to ask, receiving my unfortunate news immediately after.