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Ghosting candidates after flyouts?

In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

I have a question about why search committees “ghost” candidates after second-round interviews/flyouts. I’ve had this happen to me twice, and I don’t understand the psychology. These are departments whose members have gone to the trouble of flying me out, interviewing me for a day and a half, going out to dinner with me, getting to know me as a person, and so on. After all of that, they then tell me they’ll let me know in the next few weeks whether I’ve gotten the job or not…. Except I never hear from them again, only to find out that someone else accepted a formal offer through other channels.

Why do departments do this? As a candidate, I’m not asking for much, just a one-sentence e-mail saying that I wasn’t chosen for the position. Do search committees view final-round candidates they’ve rejected as so beneath their notice that they can’t even write them a one-sentence e-mail? Or is it that they forget we exist? Or do they feel that it would be awkward/uncomfortable to convey this bad news, and so refrain from doing this at all? What on earth is going on? Are these search committees knowingly misleading me when they say they’ll get back in touch either way within a few weeks and then never do??

I empathize with the OP, having experienced this many times in the past. It sucks, and I suspect there are different answers in different cases, which may include HR policies.

Do any readers have any helpful insights to share?

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24 responses to “Ghosting candidates after flyouts?”

  1. Anonymous

    I agree it sucks, and I’m sorry. Because it’s similar to what often happens at other stages of a search (such as after a first round interview, or even just after applying), I suspect it usually is because of strict HR policies forbidding contact or answering questions, etc.

    One thing that’s awful about it, of course, is that a search chair is usually (I think) interested in maintaining communication with finalists, and in letting down easily those who don’t get the job, etc. Often this is partly self-interested: if the hire somehow falls through later, they would have to scramble to come back to perhaps you to see if you still might consider an offer. Also, it just seems like basic professional courtesy to inform them, and it makes you/your dept look bad professionally if you ghost them! But apart from those self-interested elements, search chairs tend to know how difficult the job market is (since it’s been brutal for like 2 decades), so they know how demoralizing it can be, and typically can sympathize with what’s like to come close but not land a job; thus I expect that by and large they’d WANT to notify the others at some point.

    Of course (having not been on that side of it myself) one wonders how crucial it would be to adhere to any such strict HR policies, if that’s what’s behind this, about non-communication when it comes to the finalists…. Would HR people ever discover that the search chair confirmed for the finalists that the job has been accepted by someone else? What could the actual penalties for that from HR later be? Etc.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    In departments where I have worked, it is pretty typical to ‘ghost’ candidates until the bitter end: meaning that a candidate has accepted an offer *and* the contract has been signed by everybody that needs to sign it.

    This can take a long time. Some candidates are waiting to hear back from other places. Some of these candidates ultimately decline the offer after waiting for a long time, and the job offer process begins again. Candidates typically negotiate. Then, things have to pass through numerous bureaucratic procedures before the contract can be signed.

    At any point along the way, things can go wrong. Even if the probability of an offer is low, the other candidates – including those who had fly-outs, and in some cases, candidates that did not – are still technically in the running for the job. Departments do not want their new hires to know that actually, they were the fourth choice candidate. So instead, they remain silent.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      This. And also–if the third, fourth, etc., choices are all not-ghosted, and the first and second choices back out, then the search fails in the eyes of HR and no one can get hired. A crappy system, for sure. Blame American HR’s (anticipation of, or perhaps defensive and self-imposed) hyper-litigiousness.

      Reply
  3. Paul

    That is unacceptable, and I am sorry that has happened to the OP. I have been on several search committees, and we never do this. At every round, we inform candidates of their status as soon as HR will allow (and keep the candidate in the loop even before allowed to give the official result). We do, of course, have to wait until things are finalized by HR before you can tell a finalist that they were not chosen, but again, we provide updates. So, there are situations where it could take weeks or perhaps even 1-2 months in special cases before the decision is final, but all candidates will – and should – be informed as soon as possible. As search committee chair, I am not bothered by an email inquiry kindly requesting a status update. I will let you know what I can, including that you be informed once a final decision is made.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    This has happened to me many, many times, so I commiserate with OP. I also want to note that it makes me think less of the departments that do this! I know search committees may think that we will be forever beneath them in the discipline’s pecking order, but this is not always the case.
    I also want to point out that “HR won’t let us” is a cowardly response. Once the candidate has formally accepted, you simply cannot convince me that there is any legally relevant consideration hindering them from letting the remaining finalists know. As someone who is now on the tenure track, I vow to not let laziness and/or cowardice lull me into bending to HR’s every whim. In many cases, there is in fact some wiggle room! Many philosophers are just too sheepish and conflict avoidant to ever push against their HR in any capacity. In the rare cases where committees have actually pushed back a bit against HR, though, it turns out there are indeed ways of being more forthcoming with candidates! That some departments never bother to investigate this reflects very poorly on them.
    For what it’s worth, the same goes for people saying they need to widely publicize their internal hire searches. You need to advertise nationally, yes, but your HR department doesn’t know about the philjobs/inside higher ed (etc.) distinction. There are ways of hinting to candidates and acting in a more humane way when it comes to these things if people actually gave a d*mn about the candidates spending so much time, energy, etc. on their fake searches. Also…. don’t further advertise internal hire searches on your personal social media! I guarantee HR is not requiring that of you. I cannot imagine being that callous and/or oblivious to the harm you are perpetuating in doing that (again, speaking from experience).

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    Just want to add that I was an internal candidate and am teaching over 100 students for my college, and I also wasn’t provided any updates or sat down to be told the bad news, or even a “we value your contributions and we’re sorry.” They said it was due to HR policy that they were unable to communicate with me. You’re not alone OP!

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      That’s ridiculous! They see you in the halls!

      Reply
  6. Anonymous

    I’ve heard people say something about HR requirements a lot, but they also don’t usually say precisely what those requirements *are*. At both of the places I’ve worked, we couldn’t tell candidates that they had *not* gotten the job until the offer was formally signed, because every time we rejected someone we had to give a justification for HR that I believe made it impossible to hire them if someone else pulled out. What we *could* and *did* tell them, though, is that we had made an offer to someone else. (We also told people we interviewed on zoom when we had scheduled fly outs already.) I think it’s worth looking into what your HR department *actually* says you can’t do. It seems bizarre to me that HR policy would require people not to say *anything* to candidates about the job search, although bizarre things do happen in academia sometimes.

    I’ve also heard a lot that departments don’t want someone to know they are second (third, whatever) choice for the job if the candidate who was offered it first turns it down. This seems to totally miss the reality of the job market these days. There are so many amazing candidates out there that I suspect in the vast majority of cases departments wish they could hire several of the people they fly out, so no one should be offended or hurt if they find out someone else was offered the job first.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Current marketeer here. Just echoing that I’d prefer to be in the loop and don’t mind one bit if I’m not the first one chosen. I’d be thrilled to get an offer even if I were the 17th person on the list; it just doesn’t matter to me at all.

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    2. Anonymous

      I agree with all of this, including your last point! I’ve always found it to be infantilizing that they think we can’t handle knowing we weren’t their first choice. It’s out of step with the realities of the job market.

      Reply
    3. Anonymous

      You make a good point about checking what the HR policies actually say. Having lived in a few different countries now, I’m starting to realize that this seems to be a particularly American work culture phenomenon. Specifically, your organization has rules that they don’t fully clarify to the employees, and out of fear of accidentally violating a rule, the employees wildly over-interpret what the rules say. I could share quite a few personal anecdotes about this from my time in US public school. I guess it results from the fact that US law and culture generally favor employers/organizations over workers, and from the general culture of arbitrary over-policing creating fear and mistrust.

      I bring this up because I think becoming aware of these tendencies, which are learned from childhood and therefore often implicit, can help people make a conscious decision to resist them.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        I am not an American but I lived and worked in the US for a number of years. It is a litigious culture, and people and institutions fear being sued (and rightly so). In fact, as a foreigner, my partner and I had a complicated tax return to file. But no one at the tax department in USA wanted to answer questions – concrete questions – for fear of getting in trouble for saying something wrong. Instead, we were always reminded that if we did not file our tax return correctly we could get a $ 10,000 fine and a jail sentence.
        From my experience, at a state university, university employees are so fearful of being blamed that they say as little as possible.
        I have worked in two other countries and the attitudes are very different.

  7. Anonymous

    I had a fly out recently where they transparently said at the very end – you might never hear from us again, where they mostly came off as just making it clear they wanted to follow HR guidelines. The visit went well, and they were not cold people, so I didn’t take this as coldness or strange. I think there is just a ‘by the book’ way of doing things, and it involved ghosting. Nothing to be upset about. We’re not special.

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    It sucks to not hear back but it’s just the norm in and out of academia. Laws need to be implemented to change and standardize HR policies.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Like commenters have said above, it’s often not the case that HR bans one from saying anything after the search has fully concluded. In a lot of cases I think the departments don’t even bother to learn the actual parameters

      Reply
  9. Anonymous

    To concur with other comments here, when the appearance of ghosting happens to campus interviewees it is almost always the fault of HR policies, not the department. (Yes, as employees of an organization we are required to follow policies, we can’t just decide to side step them–sorry to the other poster who doesn’t like that. But I do agree with them that departments can often advocate for things to move more quickly.)

    Usually departments are forbidden from all contact with candidates after the hiring recommendation goes to the Dean. Until the recommendation wends its way through the process (at some places, all the way to the president), an offer is made, a negotiation is complete, background checks done, and a contract signed, there is no news that can be shared. That can take well more than a month. I’ve heard of cases where the university won’t tell candidates that they have moved forward with another candidate until the contract is signed, in case the first candidate doesn’t work out and they need to go down the list. (I would prefer being able to tell candidates we have made an offer to someone else but that they are a strong second choice and I’ll be back in touch if anything changes, but departments don’t get to make those decisions.)

    All that said, other industries manage to do hiring a LOT more efficiently, and there doesn’t seem to be a good reason we can’t collective change practices. We could start by making the time between ad and offer much shorter. (Imagine if it was six weeks instead of four or six months!)

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      I think you’ve missed the thrust of some of the earlier points. Part of the complaint is that the department won’t even bother to update the candidates AFTER the search has officially concluded, the papers have been signed, etc.
      We aren’t saying they should break HR policy. For what it’s worth, the HR policies are often not as restrictive as committees suppose! As someone who has been on hiring committees in addition to having been a ghosted candidate, I actually reached out to HR to clarify some things and it turned out the department was misinformed and had more flexibility than they’d thought. They just never bothered to look into it.
      It sucks to learn you were rejected by seeing a “pleased to announce” post on social media when the department should be able to update at that point.

      Reply
  10. Anonymous

    I have had this happen to me, and I’m so sorry to hear that there are so many victims of it. For what it’s worth, I have a job now, and, I know it’s petty, but I’ve not attended events held at this institution purely because it was such an awful experience. Obviously I haven’t told anyone that, but it left a bad taste in my mouth that still makes me annoyed.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      I think more of us should be petty like this, honestly! I think search committees forget that at least some of us will eventually make it and be colleagues with them in the discipline. I have a few departments on my shit list that I will always hold a grudge against due to negative experiences with them as a job candidate.

      Reply
  11. Michel

    I assume that what really happens is that the delay before communication is allowed ensures they forget to send out the rejection. It’s been years, and I still haven’t been rejected from any of my (two) TT interviews.

    Reply
  12. Anonymous

    I applied for many ANZ jobs, and there was only one instance I didn’t get a PFO at some stage. On two occasions, I was informed that I was the second preferred candidate. Among these two, once I received a further notification that the first candidate accepted.

    Reply
  13. Anonymous

    As others have said, HR policies play a big role here. Another possible reason has something to do with the complications during the hiring process. I think this happens less frequently in philosophy since we have so many people needing jobs. But a department in social sciences at my institution is hiring this year, and the first on-campus interview occurred more than two months ago. It is still on going… All finalists declined their offer, and they are currently having their 5th (or more) campus visit. They really need someone and do not want a failed search. So technically, I guess that people who had their first round interview last December have not received their PFO letter, because they are still being considered.
    Again, I do not think this will happen in philosophy. But HR’s campus-wide policies need to accommodate cases like this.

    Reply
  14. Anonymous

    As a person who has been rejected from several jobs, I want to say to any department that is holding out because they think people don’t want to know that they were second/third/whatever that in my experience the opposite is true. I have had a number of departments say nothing– and a vanishingly small number of excellent departments give very clear updates (the department votes on x date, we have issued initial offers, the dean has to sign off, you remain on a back-up list etc). I would have been WAY more likely to accept a job at the latter departments than the former if I was ultimately made an offer. In my eye they showed themselves to be great colleagues and well organized.

    Reply
  15. Anonymous

    Been in this situation many times after a first round interview, which is fundamentally different than a fly out, but all the same, I have basically learned to read the tea leaves after e-mails get no response.

    I have learned to read between the lines when they say

    “We want keep your application active.”
    (again I realize this is not ghosting but its still bullsh*t HR speak)

    I have had a search committee chair tell me candidly that the training they received was to not respond to candidate queries and refer them to HR and that they disagreed with that policy.

    The one time I was able to get a real response was when I told the committee–and these were unique circumstances–that I needed to know because I was deciding between them and another offer and they candidly said

    “Thank you so much for your patience and for the time you spent with us discussing your work. You were not among those advanced to a second interview, though we have not yet made a final selection and it is not inconceivable that we might return to you or others I the original pool. At this point, however, that seems unlikely and I would not want that possibility to stand in the way of you accepting another position that you believe is a good fit for you or otherwise in your interest to accept.”

    I don’t know why that kind of response can’t be given more often but maybe lying (haha) to the committee about the fact that you have another offer to decide on might be the only way to convey urgency and get the response you’re looking for.

    Reply

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