Both of the following can be true at the same time:
1. I personally owe a response to anyone who reaches out to me, in a timely manner, even if that answer is no, because to intentionally ignore a request is unethical.
2. I will strive to have built up many and different areas in my life, such that my sense of confidence is not impacted by the actions or inactions of people who are, in essence, strangers.
If you want to inure yourself to people ghosting you, spend some time in a sales gig doing cold calls. The vast majority of people will not respond to you and that is not only OK, that is a good thing. You want to be with people who give you a positive return on your energy, not people who sink your energy.
I mostly agree with the sentiment. But I'd say the difference with the kind of ghosting he's talking about is you're already (well) into the interview process. So you've invested a fair bit already. Like in sales, getting ignored or told to get lost immediately is easy to shake off, going deep into the process and then not hearing anything is different. You don't know if you should still expect something, you've got to balance persistence with being professional, you were to some extent counting on it at least possibly happening.
I've been looking for a job recently, and was also surprised about how much ghosting seems to to on, especially after already talking to people but also never hearing at all. The best application experience I've had recently was probably one that 24 hours after I applied told me no. There I at least could move it out of my mind entirely.
I do agree for sure that it's not personal. And how you're treated during recruitment is also good information.
My Rule: The nature of a negative (i.e. final) communications should equal how personal the relationship is. If you applied electronically and we stated "only those considered will be contacted" or you cold-emailed me some sales pitch, we don't have a relationship at all and you deserve nothing. If you contacted me and I responded with a short email, my final answer should be a shjort email. If you spent several hours in face-to-face interviews and we're not moving forward I owe you a phone call or email with some explanation of why - in a TIMELY manner.
Not getting responses from cold calls or applications isn't ghosting according to the author of the article (and I agree):
> In order for it to be ghosting, the ghosted party has to expect the conversation will continue. This means that if you apply and never hear back from a job, that’s not ghosting, a conversation never started. It only becomes ghosting when there is an expected next step that never happens.
People not responding to cold calls isn't ghosting, though. Ghosting happens when there's an established communication that gets dropped without explanation. A cold call is not an established communication, it's a solicitation to establish communication.
I don't think ghosting has anything to do with 1 or 2. And there is a huge difference between cold calling someone without getting a result and meeting someone face to face and then being ghosted.
Personally I'm not to hung up on small companies that do it. But later companies or recruiters, there is just no excuse. Especially for a recruiter, who's job it is to communicate with potential employees. Who knows maybe you'll find a different job for me down the line?
The problem really comes into play when they say they will get back to you in a few weeks... And then never do..
Move on.