More and more applicants are ghosting companies
Created: 09/26/2022, 07:30
By: Carina Blumenroth
Ghosting also affects companies.
© Snowing/Imago
Applications can take a lot of energy and time.
Applicants are then constantly under pressure.
More and more people are not reporting back to the companies either.
Completing an application for a company often takes a lot of time.
The CV has to be adapted, the cover letter has to be created.
Online masks often have to be filled out or profiles created.
Most of the time, applicants already know that they might not get a message from the company.
That can be unnerving.
However, a study shows that more and more applicants are also ghosting companies.
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Ghosting after the application - more and more applicants are ignoring companies
ghosting
The term 'ghosting' means a complete loss of contact and communication without prior notice.
A study by the job portal
Indeed
and the market research
company Appinio
asked 400 HR professionals about the ghosting behavior between companies and applicants.
It turned out that around 56 percent of companies are increasingly being ignored by applicants.
31.5 percent state that they are even ghosted once a month.
application | Percent ghosting |
|---|---|
Employee (part-time) | 26 |
Employee (full time) | 25.8 |
education | 24 |
Source: Appinio, as of 09/23/2022
The table (above) shows the information provided by HR managers over the course of a month.
According to the survey, companies are most often ghosted by these applicants.
52.3 percent state that they cannot draw any connection between the gender of the applicant and the ghosting behavior.
Overall, over 90 percent of those surveyed have already been ghosted.
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Ghosting by applicants: 39.8 companies state that applicants apply again
Ghosting can happen for a variety of reasons - sometimes applicants seem to have second thoughts, because 39.8 percent of the companies state that they have applied again or received an answer within six months.
This has often happened to around 20 percent.
The majority of the companies (73.8 percent) had email contact with the applicants before the ghosting.
Around 54 percent had already had telephone contact.
Time of ghosting by applicants
Before the interview: 36.3 percent
After the interview: 29 percent
After a commitment before starting work: 17.5 percent
On the first regular day of work: 6.8 percent
For around 60 percent, the loss of their own working hours due to ghosting is one of the biggest negative consequences.
However, the costs (around 40 percent), labor shortages (35.5 percent) and the rejection of other applicants (33 percent) were also given.
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Ghosting by applicants: companies have changed that
In the study, HR managers were also asked what they had changed in the application process:
Shorter application process: 37.3 percent
Faster feedback after the interview: 37 percent
Faster feedback after receipt of the application: 36 percent
Around 7.3 percent of HR managers made no changes.
According to their own statements, HR professionals often ghost
Around 24 percent of the HR managers surveyed stated that they had never ignored applicants.
Almost 3 percent can no longer remember or do not want to make any statement about it.
About 23 percent say they ignore applicants once a month.
time | Percent ghosting |
|---|---|
Daily | 3.3 |
Weekly | 17.5 |
Monthly | 23.3 |
Half-yearly | 12.8 |
Yearly | 4.8 |
Less than annually | 11.3 |