In the first 2 cases, I emailed the recruiter about 5~10 minutes after the interview was supposed to start, to check if I had the right meeting link (I know I did, but wanted to frame it politely). After the meeting was supposed to end, I sent another email saying that unfortunately I was not able to reach them, but that I'm still interested and would like to reschedule. Again... crickets.
In the 3rd scenario I confirmed the proposed interview date/time, but never received the meeting invite. Only after the interview was supposed to take place, the recruiter proposed a new time.
The companies mentioned are Grafana (no reply at all, not even from the head of people who I reached out to after being ignored by the recruiter 3 times), Miro (the recruiter replied several days later with a very vague non-apologetic message, but never reacted to my proposal of rescheduling) and Microsoft.
Is this a normal experience or is something weird going on?
(and yes, I know shaming companies with their name is not nice, but ghosting candidates also isn't nice imho)
But in general when dealing directly with a company I'd say: no reply to an application is completely normal, but not turning up to scheduled interview is not at all.
So - while I'm just a lowly developer I'd like to give escalating this a shot. If interested email me at bgruenbaum@microsoft.com
To reiterate: this is not normal and not representative of what an interview process looks like in Microsoft (regardless of whether you're an intern or a big-shot manager).
(This comment is just based on my experience and I'm speaking for myself and not Microsoft)
I find it somewhat acceptable to not respond to applications (sometimes companies get too many to handle all of them, especially if they don't have a well-resourced HR dept), but intentionally not appearing on an interview should be a firing offence I believe.
In a previous role, I would go on campus recruiting trips for my company, and we'd often have back to back interviews. Even when the I was literally trapped in a room, so the candidate knew I was there, I would do my best to finish on time and quickly get the next candidate. Eventually, our recruiters started building in buffer time, but until then, if I wanted to present myself and my company in the best light, then we had to start on the right foot - on time.
I occasionally interview higher level roles these days, and it's the same thing. Being virtual makes it far easier, since I can go from any meeting to the next with a button click, but when we were doing in-person interviews, it was necessary to plan for travel time between rooms. In the best of cases, the interviewers were the ones who moved, and not the candidate, but in either case, I'd rather wait on them than they wait on me.
So, no, it's neither normal nor professional.
I'll raise it internally to find out what happened in this case as I care that this is not how we act.
From my perspective, your post is courteous. I doubt that any of those companies want other people to have your experience. If you don't name the companies, they might never know that there is an issue.
On the other hand, I've had plenty of recruiters say they're recruiting for $HOT_JOB and then ghost. I've gotten feedback from a few I actually talk to more than a month and the feedback is typically along the lines of:
"The client said resume looks like you're a contractor". Spoiler alert - yes, and this is on the resume, I just take it as a softball "no" because I refuse to believe HR is that stupid.
"The position was filled before I could get you in front of them" which might be a "No" but more likely is "the position was created with someone in mind to fill it but we have to go through the motions of posting it..."
"You are out of their price range" - damn right skippy. No-one works for free.
But thats if I get feedback, it's far more common to simply get ghosted after they submit your resume.
* Early screen, then ghosting, not replying to my follow-up.
* Nobody turning up to the scheduled interview, then a day later an automated email thanking me for my application and asking me to pick a slot. It seemed like I was stuck in an automated loop. I later checked Glassdoor and there were loads of reports of this.
* No response to my application for 3 weeks, followed by a recruiter trying to schedule the first interview for another month from then (I managed to make it happen the next week instead).
I can see the Microsoft one being a routine mistake in an overloaded manual process. I have had recruiter working for a large company randomly disappear mid-process because they no longer work there. Took them a while to get back to me.
I accepted. I didn't get the job, and I actually had to go and email the recruiters boss to even get this confirmed. Immediately turned me off from the company, I don't need a bunch of flowery words just say I didn't get it.
I do expect this to get better as the reshuffling starts to stabilize but I don’t think we’re done across the industry quite yet.
Sorry you had a shitty experience. I’ve been on both sides recently and have covered for no shows who are supposed to help interview. No person interviewing ever deserves to be ghosted.
The dating world has moved into (or mirrors?) the greater world and there "No answer is an answer" is the law of the land. And why not, seems there's no consequence for bad manners, and maybe no reward for good manners. So good manners are an inefficient liability these days.
This is one of the outcomes of massively expanding our spheres of communication (globalization + internet are enablers). What does it mean when you can cheat every customer that comes along and there will always be a new one? Or be rude to every option on (tinder|hinge|bumble) and there will always be another one? or ghost a candidate, and there will always be another one?
Also another way to think about it is external recruiters get to coast on the good will of the greater brand (say "Google") and any small damage they do to it is unlikely to be attributed back to the external recruiter. They don't have to buck up and reject you explicitly because they can just let "google" take the nick to their reputation.
Later on, the company could add Zoom details. That would get stuck in some sub-section of Triplebyte UI. So if, like me, you didn’t go check their website at the moment of the interview, you would call a number and nobody answers and you think you got ghosted - and the company also thought they got ghosted.
It happened 3 interviews in a row until I figured out what was going on.
- not normal and quite the statistical clustering.
- Depending on the role, sometimes things happen. I'm in operations, and I have at times been late or had to reschedule due to critical incident. But we double and triple up on coverage so there's always SOMEbody to open up the meeting and talk to the candidate, on time. And while we have at times been slow to respond via email in scheduling or following up, we never ghosted somebody for a scheduled interview - that seems weird and rare. Similarly, I've never personally been ghosted (I know lots of people who have though).
- One thing though - are you applying to the companies directly, or are you going through agency/recruitment company? Just to isolate whether there's some single point of failure.
I've never scheduled an actual interview with an actual engineering person, and then be ghosted at that specific step. Years ago, I once had someone miss an initial technical phone screen, because a production outage came up minutes before the scheduled time. But even then, the company reached out shortly to let me know.
I would not even consider moving forward with such a company as you're describing, especially in the current job market.
If you have any friendly contacts at those companies (referrals), maybe they can give you a hint about what happened.
During a FAANG onsite I was given the same exact question twice and they did the wrong type of interview—so I could believe disorganization as a possibility. But I've never had someone not show in an interview, and 3 times in a row is beyond unlucky.
Is this in the USA or Europe or somewhere else?
Anyway, seems bizarre to me to do that to any candidate, let alone a senior one (who are in demand these days).
At that point you basically have 3 layers of people (Hiring Manager, HR, Recruiter), that will do their best to make it sound like something other than:
Our interviewer didn’t show up to the interview because they were still in bed/too busy with other stuff/never informed they had to interview anyone
To have it happen 3 times in a row, with different companies, seems pretty improbable though.
My ex was a technical recruiter for 20+ years at a number of marquee tech firms, and it was sad to see her job go from well respected matchmaker between client and candidate making sure there was a good fit to 'run the search, blast the email, go to next request in the queue'. Which as collateral damage meant she was no more useful to the firm than a fresh out of college new hire making a fraction as much. You can imagine how that ended.
This same pattern seems to be repeating a lot these days.
It's quite possible the manager who wanted the post you applied for has gone and your appointment had been forgotten about. HR would have been involved but don't like to leave their homes at the moment so this happens.
Edit: tbf I've had other interviews where the interviewers did show up
Don’t take anything personally no matter how absurd and just treat the entire job searching process as a game.
I interviewed a "principal" engineer once. It was supposed to be a technical interview over Zoom. The guy shows up 10 minutes late, no camera on, tells me he is out running errands, shopping and taking his kid to baseball practice, but can we still talk? Back then I put in more effort, so I tried to ask him some questions. He tells me he "didn't know it was going to be technical." These days, I'd probably just ask him to reschedule.
I'm not sure how he even passed the initial phone screen. Most interviewers are bad at it. I'm bad at it.
To be ghosted, 1) on a Zoom 2) On a call, scheduled by other party - is either massively unprofessional, or there has been massive miscommunication of some kind (possibly by the recruiter). Please try to spend extra time with recruiter on every aspect when scheduling calls. You don't deserve to be discouraged in this fashion, but you also have to be careful in where you send in your candidacy.
They show great candidates how they can fit culture. They show strong companies why everyone should want to join.
Ive had my share of:
Ghosting and no contact
Ghosting and then shitty email saying I didn't show up
Interviewing and then summary dismissal from interview because I didn't have "pet" technology (which was stated at 1st interview)
Interviewing multiple rounds and then hit with "Do 4-8 hour assessment". NO.
Bait and Switch: Position band is $140k-$175k on ad. During 1st round, stated salary was really $90k.
Family Family Family Family (toxic signs everywhere)
Hostility when I asked questions (Why is the role available, etc)
Basically, hiring is broken consistently across everywhere. Some places are better than others. But no place really has good procedure for a decent and respectful hiring procedures. At best, it's a spin at the roulette wheel. Worst case, you get what happened to me back in November, and work for a place so toxic that you walk out 17 days later.
I believed the recruiter's explanation at first. Then I got a yucky feeling that the 3rd developer just wanted to ghost me. (No, I didn't get an offer.)
Keep trying OP!
While I never got ghosted fully I did deal with recruiters falling off the face of the earth and then emailing me back to set up a meeting. Oddest thing is this would happen for both rejections and offers.
I think ghosting might make a good take home test for anyone in a senior position.
It's mild adversity.
And senior position filling will rarely benefit from haste.
How a candidate handles ghosting might provide a look at their communication skills, comportment, and temperament.
Good luck.
Someone with a @company-you-mentioned.com address or an external recruiter? Makes quite a difference to your question.
Referrals are a class above organically sourced candidates. Usually they skip a few steps in the pipeline, like role matching or credentials verification or reference checks. If the pipeline slows down, a referrer can gently prod the recruiter. In my experience, referrals get to an offer decision in O(days) (Google and other slow monstrosities are the exception here).
By comparison, if you're organically sourced, the only person who cares about you is the recruiter. They're busy, and they usually focus on candidates that are close to netting them commission or hitting their goals. I find that there is an awkward stage in the pipeline just past the initial funnel where most candidates get stuck and drop out for one reason or another.
If you're in this second class, I'd actually recommend working with a headhunter if possible. Not all companies work with them as they take a big chunk of change, but they save you time and work for you.
Better yet, find a job where you know someone who works there who can get your foot in the door and make sure you're treated well.
Now, as far as getting ghosted for scheduled interviews, I've seen this happen too. The most common case is the recruiter is a contractor or third party and isn't scheduling meetings properly. I've had this happen dozens of times. It sucks but not much you can do. Sometimes they don't confirm the interviewers are actually available, and the interviewers never accept the invite. Bad look all around.
The other issue I frequently see is time zone issues. Are you in a different time zone than your interviewers? If so, I'd recommend shifting your clock to accommodate them at least partially. Meeting somewhere in the middle is best.
Lastly, there's a possibility that you're giving off red flags somehow. Is your resume problematic? Did you work somewhere controversial? Are you communicating politely? Would any back channel reference checks reflect poorly on you? I see this a fair bit where a candidate gets burned without knowing why. It sucks. Sometimes there are visa issues at play as well, where employers don't want to sponsor if they don't have to..
In any case, it's usually bureaucracy so try not to take it personally. Recruiters definitely represent their companies, but are often poor representatives. If you can get in touch with someone else, a hiring manager or IC, you'll have a much better time.
Good luck!
tl;dr - Same. I hope it doesn't get more common.
Sorry about that, that’s just kind of how it works. It’s like looking at Expensive House A, Budget Nice House B, and Potential Cheap House C. Check out all three before deciding.
No matter what you hear about it being a hot job market, always know that it’s the company that gets the luxury of shopping around, not the candidate. It’s still a buyers market.