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Recruiters Beware: How to Avoid Ghosting This Spooky Season 👻

  • October 8, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 43 views
Maggie McQuade-LinkedIn
Certified Community Influencer
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Picture this: You return from a dream vacation feeling refreshed and ready to tackle your hiring projects. You log into Recruiter, respond to candidate messages that came in while you were away…and then? Silence. Your inbox has become a total ghost town.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just a scary story. 50% of U.S. candidates have ghosted employers during the hiring process—a 14-point jump since October 2023. And here’s the twist: many of these “ghosts” disappear because they feel recruiters ghosted them first.

So, how do you keep your pipeline from turning into a haunted house?

🎃 One Trick: Out of Office Replies

Leverage the Out of Office feature for InMail to keep candidates informed while you’re away.

  • Turn on auto-replies for a specific time period.
  • Let candidates know you’re unavailable and when they can expect a response.

You’ll find this feature within the settings menu of your inbox in Recruiter.

🍬 More Treats: Best Practices when Messaging

  • Set clear expectations early: Share timelines and next steps upfront.
  • Respond promptly after interviews—even if it’s a no: Silence breeds ghosting.
  • Be transparent about salary and work model: Avoid surprises that lead to disengagement.

💬 Have you been ghosted before? Share your best tips to keep candidates engaged!

Courtney-Community Manager
Jeff Seidl
JackyeC

2 replies

Wendy Manninen
Community Expert
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  • Wendy Manninen
  • Community Expert
  • October 15, 2025

​@mmcquade I've definitely experienced being ghosted by more than one, and it’s especially tough when it’s a candidate you’re genuinely excited to connect with.

I focus on clear communication and believe in laying my cards on the table - I let candidates know when they can expect to hear from me, and if I don’t have a major update, I’ll often send a quick text just to stay on their radar. Once I have more concrete steps, I follow up with a phone call to keep things personal and transparent.

I make it a point to be honest about our interview process and share what the salary range may look like—just to ensure it aligns with their expectations early on

Sometimes when I have been ghosted it’s often they have changed their mind about the role after our conversation, cold feet or maybe the job wasn’t as exciting as they thought? I truly believe It’s all about building trust and keeping the lines of communication open with candidates.

Wendy Manninen
Maggie McQuade-LinkedIn
Maggie McQuade-LinkedIn
Certified Community Influencer
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I think you’ve hit on so many key ways to effectively communicate with candidates! Everyone should feel empowered to stay in touch with candidates, even when there aren’t updates to share. Sending them quick messages or texts to just to stay on their radar most go a long way in keeping candidates engaged.

I also really appreciate the empathy you’re bringing to the table in this response. As frustrating as ghosting can be, there are a multitude of reasons for why a candidate might do so, and many of them will have nothing to do with you or your effort. This is a great reminder for everyone to keep your heads up and remain focused on the ways you can make a difference, rather than getting in your head about the things you can’t change. 

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