Have You Been "Ghosted" By An Employer?

I have been ghosted after interviews many times when I was a junior but luckily in my country when they make you an offer to be hired it goes with a signed document stating when are you starting and the salary you will receive and you can sue them if they don't make good on that.

And in the topic of employees ghosting the company... I only saw one kinda ghosting once, It was more than 10 years ago working as a helpdesk and a guy took 2 weeks of vacations, then the 2 weeks passed and he didn't came back, the company tried to contact him to no avail and after another week they just fired him. Then, after a month have passed without any news that guy came and sat in what used to be his desktop acting like nothing had happened, obviously we all were quite surprised and he was surprised that he wasn't able to login into the computer, then HHRR called him and he came back saying "you guys ain't gonna believe what happened! they fired me!". It was a wild day.

As a freelancer got ghosted by a client that didnt want to pay for the desktop app, good that It had a hidden trial period.

As a applicant at jobs I did not hear anything from most companies I applied.

At our company we got ghosted by only one employee (from a total hundreds over the years), he moved in a different country, got a job and left with the company laptop, without any sign or notice 😹

I was working a job in Liverpool, which was basically a pyramid scheme that involved me peddling charity to people. After 3 weeks of waking up at 5am, spending money train there and back and get back home about 9pm every night, and making very little money, I message my boss there saying that I couldn't come into work because I was ill, exhausted and my feet were killing (sometimes walking 20,000 steps a day). And the response I got was being removed from the whatsapp group. So I just never showed up again.

This is sobering reading, Yechiel 😢

Have you (or anyone commenting) written an 'Interview' review on the company's Glassdoor profile or Indeed or Comparably etc?

Candidate experience is "supposed" to be incredibly important to companies so it could be a way to let them know how to improve. It's anonymous too.

I've been ghosted by clients before (multiple times), but I've also done my fair share of ghosting.

For me anyway, The times I've ghosted has been from me postponing replying to a contractor until some external circumstances have resolved (boss giving the go ahead, funding being provided etc).

By the time it's clear these issues won't be resolved, days and potentially weeks have already passed and then it's just easier to ghost.

I've been ghosted after getting an offer. I accepted it verbally, and they kept putting me off about when my start date would be, but I stopped applying for other positions (obviously). After about three weeks, the recruitment company called me to say they couldn't get the company to answer their calls either but had been left a message saying they didn't want me after all.

Prior to switching careers into full time development, I got offered a position in government. Long term, stable, would do good for my City, but would be long hours. I initially verbally accepted the position and was told the offer letter was on its way within the hour.

I emailed the admin who was sending it, and never heard anything back. After about a week, I got offered my first full time development position, was promptly sent an offer letter and accepted. I called the gov't official to let him know I never heard anything back about the position and accepted another position.

He called me in five minutes asking what happened. I explained that I was ghosted by the admin. He basically said that she would call me immediately, but I said I had already accepted the other position. The admin called me immediately after I hung up with him and asked me to reconsider. I believe the admin got in considerable hot water for it all.

Strange story. I applied at a few companies. One in particular, I never heard anything at all. Many months later they called saying they were interested in my application. I was already well into a new job, so of course I declined. After a couple of years, I changed jobs. My replacement ended up coming from that slow-to-respond company. In fact, she thought the original job listing was to find a replacement for her. I might have replaced her, but she ended up replacing me. Weird!

I find it weird that someone could simply leave workplace to another without saying nothing, at least in EU. There are working contracts often, employee can be prosecuted, and even lose some money in the process. Regarding employers, during a job search can become rather expensive accepting such invitations. I fell on such invitations sometimes, often they promote themselves, a few interviews, and manifest high possibilities, later nothing. Can be a lack of a certain skill that can turn down or someone better appeared or the budget was canceled. Some cases, I see where I failed, they usually say that will keep in touch. I rather try to enjoy at least the trip.

If you are let go from a company and they won't tell you why, then 5 minutes after they tell you all of your credentials are revoked and nobody (even HR) will answer your emails to explain what happened... does that count as being ghosted by your employer?