Job seekers are ghosting employers while companies struggle with hiring

Recruitment and employee retention have been difficult in many industries, but it has become even tougher in recent months. Home health provider  Interim HealthCare of the Upstate currently has 51 open positions it's looking to fill. However, since September, 17 candidates have canceled their interviews and 20 didn't even show up. Rick Silva,  Interim HealthCare's recruiting manager says, "We don't have the leverage in this market. The candidates do."

Ghosting isn't a new phenomenon in the job market and it happens on both sides. When there are more job seekers than open positions, recruiters don't often reach out to all candidates. Likewise in this tight labor market, the job hunters have the advantage. Josh Howarth is the district president overseeing mid-Atlantic teams at staffing firm Robert Half. He says, "Job candidates out there...they have so many options and are in interview processes with multiple companies for multiple positions and once they choose a position, oftentimes they just ghost the other companies that they've been in conversations with." 

He also added that ghosting began to increase by the end of last year and is now happening more than he's seen in his 20-plus years in the industry. "A big piece of it is usually around people not being comfortable saying 'no'; or giving people bad news...it's easier for them to just go dark." And it's not just interviews that candidates are ghosting. Sometimes people don't even show up for the first day of work after accepting a job offer.

Source: CNN