[kevinskii]

I completely agree. I work for a big company. I've been here for 18 years. It is a fantastic place to work. The people, the pay, the flexibility, the meaningful work, all are great. No place is perfect, but I haven't yet found anywhere I'd rather be.

However, our hiring process is sometimes shameful. You name it, we've probably done it. We've ghosted candidates that did really well in their interview. We've taken weeks to make an offer, and we've asked candidates to fly across the country for a 2nd onsite interview because some middle manager thought that Team X should talk to them.

We're getting better, but sometimes there are legitimate reasons for things like delays and ghosting that can't be disclosed to the candidate. I try to keep this in mind when I get treated similarly by other companies.

[DoofusOfDeath]

> We're getting better, but sometimes there are legitimate reasons for things like delays and ghosting that can't be disclosed to the candidate.

Can you elaborate? I'm having trouble imagining a legitimate reason to ghost a candidate, other than a court order or National Security Letter.

[kevinskii]

We make medical devices. They are surprisingly complicated things, and many peoples' lives depend on them. There's also a lot of ways in which they might potentially fail, and these failures can manifest years after the product has been in the field.

When there's even the slightest hint of a potential safety issue, it quickly becomes the top priority for a whole bunch of people. Most issues turn out to be false alarms, but we can never assume that. Lots of other things get put on hold, including hiring.

If you're an unlucky candidate who happens to interview right before one of these shit storms, you might be ghosted for a couple of weeks at least. Obviously we can't share the reasons for the ghosting, as much as we'd like to. Even a polite response from HR like, "Sally really enjoyed talking to you but she's unexpectedly tied up in something" can be market-moving information if you find Sally's role on LinkedIn and tie it to recent news about the company.

[ric2b]

> Even a polite response from HR like, "Sally really enjoyed talking to you but she's unexpectedly tied up in something" can be market-moving information if you find Sally's role on LinkedIn and tie it to recent news about the company.

So a candidate being ghosted can also be market moving because it means the same thing.

Just have HR stall a bit, maybe you're finishing the round of interviews for other candidates or something, it's not that hard.

[DoofusOfDeath]

> "Sally really enjoyed talking to you but she's unexpectedly tied up in something" can be market-moving information if you find Sally's role on LinkedIn and tie it to recent news about the company.

I'm curious if this level of caution is truly required to meet an SEC rule. I've never heard of another company feeling the need to be this secretive for market reasons.

[kevinskii]

SEC rules aren't the only concern, and "market moving" was perhaps too specific a phrase. There are lots of legitimate legal and financial reasons that a company may choose to be circumspect in its communication.

As one totally hypothetical example, let's say that the project a candidate is being interviewed to work on is suddenly in jeopardy. This could be due to sudden unexpected financial hardship, like a big contract falling apart at the very last minute. Or it could be due to a new competitive threat resulting in a need to shift resources elsewhere. Or the new CEO just doesn't think it's worthwhile. Or, maybe the project ultimately proceeds and the candidate gets an offer.

In any of these situations, a company can easily find itself the target of an investor lawsuit if the reason for the hiring delay is inadvertently disclosed and there is some ensuing stock movement, even if no SEC rules are violated.

You might still think that this is overly cautious, and you may be right. Either way, ghosting doesn't only happen because people are inconsiderate (though that is certainly a reason), and I personally try not to infer too much about the culture when it happens to me.