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A recent article that has made its rounds on LinkedIn (and eventually wound up on the Yahoo news’ home page) which was promoted by their chief executive of hype and propaganda to shed light on what seemed to be a new phenomenon of “ghosting” in the workplace.
Upon reading, I discovered the first few sentences of the article made me believe this referred to no-show jobs where people are hired, but their ‘ghost’ so-to-speak, is the only part that shows up for the job – something that alludes to what we have heard about government and municipal positions, at times. As it turned out, after reading the article, it was not about that at all.
The term “ghosting” in reference to the workplace is just a new, catchy term coined for what those of us who are more experienced have known about for decades.
We used to call it many things such as “going radio silent” or “flaking out” but the issue was always the same: someone didn’t show up for their interview and/or job. Usually this happens at lower levels below the $100k range, but the phenomenon has no limits on salary and I have seen CFO and COOs behave the same, although at much lower frequencies.
Whether it’s called an interview “no-show”, job “no-show”, flaking out, vanishing, “going radio-silent”, or the latest catch-phrase, “ghosting”, the problem is all the same— it points to a lack of professional conduct. The old saying here still applies: everyone you meet taking the elevator up will be the same you meet on the way down. What might embolden someone to think they can casually disregard bothering to cancel an interview will come back to haunt (pun intended) that person later when economic times roughen up and her/his recruiter remembers their unprofessional, discourteous behavior.
The moral of the story here is if you don’t want the job, call up and say so, it is much better than blocking the phone and spooking out.
