What To Do When Companies Ghost You
It's January baby, time to turn up your job search. 🤠
This time of year (just like in Dec) is a great time to be job hunting. Companies have fresh headcount and want to hire you!
My clients were fully booked with interviews this week.
It was a direct result of not slowing their job search down during the holidays, like many other job seekers do.
Now they have momentum and a heard start over candidates. 😎
But even if you are just restarting, there's no better time than now!
We are currently in an employee market, which means there are lots of jobs and not enough people to fill them. So the job market is your oyster. 🐚
Go get 'em!
Now, maybe you have been job searching for a while and aren't getting responses or worse, you're being ghosted. 👻
Let's talk about it.
What do you do when a company ghosts you?
First off, getting ghosted by a company sucks, but you have to remember it could be happening for a variety of reasons that are out of your control.
Yes, companies should do better and the candidate experience should improve across the board.
But again, what a company does is not in your control, and being ghosted happens to the best of us, at all levels and roles.
If this is happening to you take it as feedback to adjust your strategy.
Something could be improved in your job search process to reduce the number of ghosts.
Most likely you could be following up more often with companies.
I tell all my clients to focus on positioning themselves as high-value candidates (and being persistent!)
Ask yourself if you are doing everything you can to be compelling enough.
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Pro Tip: Make sure to express excitement between interviews.
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If you haven't heard back from a company, ALWAYS follow up kindly and in a timely fashion.
Even if you haven't booked an interview and you did cold outreach to someone inside the company (hint: you should be doing this), follow up with them too!
The riches are in the follow-up folks! It's real.
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Sidenote: I told about half a dozen people who asked me for virtual coffee chats in December to reach back the first week of January and I got a total of 1 follow-up in my inbox. Guess who got my time? 👀
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Recruiters and hiring teams appreciate it when you follow up because it shows interest and persistence.
And companies like hiring folks who are truly interested in them. 👈🏽
I recommend following up at least 2-3 times before moving on.
So many people are surprised when they hear back from companies/people once they’ve followed up!
Truth is, it's how business gets done, and how you get prioritized over other candidates.
Send a follow-up email every 4-7 business days to ask about next steps.
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Bonus tip: If a company is lagging in booking the next steps, use leverage in your follow-up emails by saying you are moving forward with other companies.
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All the rewards come from following up, in your job search, and in life tbh.
Remember, you can’t give up when you’ve been ghosted.
All you can do is take accountability for your outcomes and shift your strategy if things aren't working.
Don't get paralyzed by rejection - Your perfect role is out there, keep going!
Don't stop until you reach your destination!
Make following up your top strategy in 2022, and watch how fast you start booking more interviews and get better results.
