Dive Brief:

• More than 40% of 507 recent full-time hires said it's reasonable for job seekers to "ghost," or fail to communicate with, employers, in a new Clutch survey, "What Causes Workplace Ghosting?" But more than 35% of respondents think it's "very unreasonable" for employers to ghost job seekers. Clutch said that ghosting has become commonplace in the recruiting process because of the tough competition for talent in today's tight labor market.
• Candidates will begin ghosting hiring managers when they accept another job offer (30%), when they decide the role isn't the right fit (19%) or when they don't hear back from a company (23%), Clutch said. Survey results also showed that of the job seekers who approved of ghosting, nearly half believe it's reasonable to ghost an employer early on in the interview process.
• More than a third of respondents said that the last employer to reject them didn't give them a response at all. Of those who did receive a rejection, 21% were rejected in a phone call and another 13% received a personalized email giving them the bad news. Clutch said that employers that don't communicate with job seekers and candidates send a message that they approve of ghosting.

Dive Insight:

It was once candidates who waited impatiently for acknowledgement of their application or the final word on a hiring decision. But now applicants — possibly emboldened by a tight labor market — are ghosting employers. They skip interviews, avoid communication and sometimes never turn up for their first day of work. 

To avoid this problem, hiring managers may want to re-evaluate recruiting processes to ensure they offer top-notch candidate experiences. "Hiring managers should follow up with job seekers as much as possible, give them a timeline on when you expect to fill the role and the negative consequences for the enterprise if it is not filled in a timely fashion," Jim Stroud, global head of sourcing and recruiting strategy for Randstad Sourceright, previously told HR Dive.

Now that employers and job seekers are both ghosting, the practice may become commonplace, but it won't fix the communication void that frustrates job seekers and recruiters alike. By leveraging technology in the recruiting process, however, HR managers could eliminate the "black hole" that applications, resumes and even candidates fall into when hiring managers are overwhelmed. Tech may also be key in reducing time-to-hire to lower recruitment costs.