Have you been ghosted during the recruiting process?

Question

Have you ever been ghosted by a company during the interview process?Just had a terrible experience with 'top' startup . Over the course of about five weeks I did, in this order: three initial screens, an UNPAID three-day creative project, and then two video-interviews spaced a week apart. Everything seemed to be going well -And then... nothing.One week after the last interview, I sent a follow-up e-mail. No response.Two weeks after the last interview, I sent a second follow up-email.Later that day (today), I got a form-letter rejection with zero personalized content from a generic "talent" e-mail and not the recruiter I had been speaking with for over a month.The second interview had moment that were pretty unprofessional... the interviewer was literally trying to draw pictures to explain the question they were asking and holding it up to the webcam. Nothing prepared to share.Is there any benefit in a name + shame? I can post all the questions they asked and the project requirements, I never signed an NDA.I like what I built and will probably be able to publish it myself, but this whole process is INCREDBILY frustrating.I've had it happen with big startups, small startups, and big companies like Google.Have you all experienced this? This kind of ghosting is so painful, and easy to avoid. Just... communicate.Shit like this makes me want to get out of tech.

5cott0 · Accepted Answer

Ghosted by Snap. Manager of a team reached out to me personally before putting me in touch with their internal recruiter and then nothing. Not as much of a waste of my time as OP though somewhat odd. I do still find it mildly amusing that Snapchat’s logo is a ghost.
I think a lot of times orgs/teams go through major restructuring in the middle of recruiting or otherwise rethink hiring strategy and unfortunately candidates oftentimes get left hanging. Also almost no one wants to deliver bad news, especially to a stranger.
Important thing is not to beat yourself up about it too much Always remember that interviews are 2-way streets and the signals you listed scream that it would be a complete effing nightmare to work there.

coder4life · Answer

Yeah, all the time, it's how it works - they don't want to give you any feedback (which IMO I should make a prerequisite for even interviewing me and wasting my time) but I barely get that. Just keep chugging along. I once worked at a company that barely hired anyone for 6 months, just kept wasting our afternoons interviewing people.

downerending · Answer

I sympathize, but it's probably useless to get angry about this. The moral of the story is to always be putting multiple irons in the fire, and assume that most will ghost.In a way they're doing you a big favor. They're identifying themselves as a company that you don't want to work for, and that information is gold.

drenginian · Answer

Name the company in a separate headline HN post.
Normally ghosting is expected, but since you put in so much effort it’s really disgraceful to not give you a phone call and at least some sort of vague phony explanation.
What is it that would lead to a rejection at step 7, that they could not have discovered at step 1 or 2? Answer is “nothing”, it’s just really bad hiring practice.