Dear Work It Out,
What do you do when you’re in the running for a new job and HR ghosts you after going through a million rounds?
Ghosted
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Dear Ghosted,
I was laid off at the end of 2018, and though luckily I started a freelance job in January 2019 that covered my bills, I was looking for something full time and a little more permanent. A HR person had reached out to me to interview for a job at a website I was really interested in, so I met with the editor who would be managing the open role. The interview went well, and I was cautiously optimistic that I’d soon have a job that would cover my health care.
We then moved on to the next stage, an edit test comprising four prompts that required me to put together, at a minimum, nine story ideas, plus images to go along.
I put in the work and submitted an 11-page doc. I received an email from the hiring manager that acknowledged she had received it. And then … nothing.
I’m going to give you three pieces of advice — two I didn’t follow but wish I had, and one I did.
- Reach out
- Work your connections
- Don’t take it personally
There’s a whole range of events that may have led to your lack of response. Yes, they could have hired someone else and not let you know, which is rude but often just business as usual.
Or they could have gotten a budget update that put hiring on hold. A staff change could have altered what they were looking for. The hiring manager could have moved on to another position or gone on parental leave. From the outside, it’s near impossible to know the full story.
Back when I was ghosted in 2019, I saw a couple months later that the person who interviewed me had a new job at another publication. Chances are, she gave her notice, HR needed to hire for that role before the one I was interviewing for, and they were back to square one.
I technically have no idea if that’s true because I never reached out. But the fact that I didn’t feel compelled to follow up after weeks of silence also showed me that maybe it…
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