Ask HN: Want thoughts on an experimental tool to discourage recruiter ghosting
I've been job hunting lately, which means, naturally, I've been dealing with recruiters who ghost.
When I look online for discussions regarding this, folks sometimes hypothesize that ghosting could reduce if the recruiters and companies experienced reputational consequences.
I want to build a quick MVP browser extension to test this hypothesis, and I'd like people's thoughts on whether it will actually do anything to solve the problem (when it scales).
The ideal tool will warn job hunters about the ghosting patterns of companies/recruiters as they visit websites, job postings, LinkedIn pages, etc.
There are 3 main things I this MVP to have:
1) Being able to aggregate user-provided ghosting instances (proof has to be provided) on a per-recruiter basis. Then, when users encounter this recruiter online (email, LinkedIn, etc), they get a banner at the top of their page summarizing the aggregation. For example: "X has 100 instances of ghosting people in the last 2 months." Clicking on this banner allows you to see all the instances, along with their proof (like email threads or something).
2) Having some notion of ghosting severity: being ghosted after a face-to-face video call is worse than being ghosted after initial email contact.
3) Being able to aggregate the ghosting behavior of recruiters on a company wide level: if someone goes to a company careers page or a job posting, they get a similar banner showing the aggregation summary across their recruiters. For the sake of discussion, let's disregard the caveat that recruiters change jobs often: assume this is handled.
As mentioned above, before I even think about the technical nuances of how some tricky aspects would work, I'd like thoughts on whether people think this would even move the needle to reduce ghosting or not. Looking for the thoughts of devs and recruiters alike. Comments suggesting devs to just move on since ghosting is ubiquitous won't really be helpful here :)
For me, I have a couple hypotheses on how this could make the experience better for devs:
1) Curbs their expectations
2) Gives them better insight into which recruiters to prioritize when handling multiple at once. This, in turn, may change recruiter behavior once they start to know this is happening. This may also affect which recruiters get hired by employers (I am not totally convinced about this last one).
EDIT: I want to clarify something:
If someone applies to a role via a portal or something and the company doesn't respond, that's not ghosting (or, rather, that's not the ghosting I'm talking about). This is more tackling the case where there's been some communication between you and the recruiter, and then they just drop it. That's the rude case I'm focusing on. The recruiter is perfectly in the right to want to move on at any point. But a quick 5 work message or email vs ghosting makes a big difference for the recipient. Even outside of being less rude, it makes things easier because you know which doors are actually still open or not. This seems like retaliating against someone who doesn't want to date you after some online chatting. I think you focus on the wrong thing. Ghosting doesn't happen because the recruiter or employer has a problem you need to identify and fix. It happens because you don't stand out enough to get their interest. Recruiters get paid a good commission for making a placement, so it follows they focus their attention on candidates they can place. They don't spend time on candidates who look weak, or just like every other candidate. Sometimes recruiters and employers place ads for jobs they may or may not actually hire for, to fill their database with candidates who might match future job listings. You can't do anything about that -- going through recruiters comes down to part numbers game and part standing out from the crowd. If your job hunting strategy focuses primarily on filling out online applications and responding to jobs listed on LinkedIn and other sites, you already put yourself in the most competitive and least effective game. You should start with personal and professional contacts. You should cultivate real relationships with competent recruiters (you find those through word of mouth). You should find out about the jobs that don't get posted on job boards -- the majority of openings for a lot of fields. Identify a few recruiters who have worked for colleagues and invite them to lunch if you want them to remember you and put you on their short list. Spending your time trying to identify and maybe punish recruiters who ghost you won't help you find a job, which is what I assume you intend to do. Why waste time doing that? Thanks for responding! What you're saying is correct. Obviously you should stand out. Of course recruiters shouldn't move on with or make initial contact with folks that aren't good candidate. That's not really what I'm working against though. If someone applies to a role via a portal or something and the company doesn't respond, that's not ghosting (or, rather, that's not the ghosting I'm talking about). Maybe I should make that clear in the original post - I'll do that. This is more tackling the case where there's been some communication between you and the recruiter, and then they just drop it. That's the rude case I'm focusing on. In both the recruiter case and the dating case, the recruiter is perfectly in the right to want to move on at any point. But a quick 5 work message or email vs ghosting makes a big difference for the recipient, I'd think. Even outside of being less rude, it makes things easier because you know which doors are actually still open or not. For the record, I already do what you're saying, and it is good advice in general. I have dozens of calls with people inside companies I'm looking to work at and look for internal roles. How well that works though depends on a number of things even outside of how qualified you are. I agree that getting something from a recruiter or employer you've spoken to, or emailed back and forth with, seems the polite thing. Having done a fair amount of screening, hiring, and working with recruiters I can give one reason you never hear anything back. If a potential employer or recruiter (who could qualify as an agent for the employer, because they have a contract) says anything to a candidate they open themselves up to lawsuits (at least in the USA). Suppose a recruiter does call or send an email: Sorry, we don't think you qualify for the job. Or, Sorry, the employer chose someone else. Many candidates will pursue that with more questions -- What did I do wrong? What skills don't I have? How was the other person better than me? That kind of thing. And any answer the recruiter gives can open a can of worms, from negative social media posts to lawsuits. A person who doesn't want to date you might make up a white lie -- I have to wash my hair that evening, I can't get a sitter for my dog, etc. because they don't want to say "I don't find you attractive." Employers and recruiters can get sued if they tell the truth, and sued if they lie, so they often just say nothing, or send out some generic email like "We'll keep you in our files." Candidates should understand that and not take it personally. A good recruiter can coach candidates and help them fine-tune a resume and cover letter, but as I mentioned before recruiters will only put that kind of effort into candidates they strongly believe they can place. Everyone else gets ignored.