The main reason candidates stop replying is that the employer did it first

That candidates ghost as well is no longer news. That half of them point to the employer as the reason, is.

The second question was this. Think back to the last time you stopped replying to a recruiter yourself. What was your main reason at that moment? Of the candidates who answered that question, 47% say they never do this. The rest gave a reason, and those reasons sit somewhere other than recruiters tend to assume.

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The employer had already stopped

Top of the list is that the employer stopped replying, named by 31% of the candidates who went quiet. Second is that another offer had already been accepted, with 26%. Third is that the employer communicated slowly or unclearly, with 21%.

The first and the third reason are about the same thing, because for 52% of the candidates who stopped replying, silence or slowness from the employer came before their own silence. There is little to argue with there, because it is the only point in the process where the employer is fully in control.

Only after that come the reasons that have to do with the job or the company. 11% lost interest in the role or the company, which comes down to an employer brand that did not convince, and 10% dropped out over the terms of employment.

That makes candidate ghosting a response time problem and not an image problem. Five times as many candidates drop out over how an employer communicates as over what it projects.

The explanation that comes up most often, that candidates disappear because saying no feels uncomfortable, barely plays a part. Of the candidates who stopped replying, six named that reason.

Silence is contagious

The reason candidates name is connected to what they have experienced themselves. Of the candidates who have never been ghosted, 8% point to an employer who stopped replying. Among candidates who have been ghosted more than once, that is 25%. Three times as many.

The same pattern sits in the behaviour as a whole. Those who have never been ghosted stopped replying themselves in 45% of cases. Those who experienced it more than once, in 61%.

Of all candidates who went quiet themselves, 65% had been ghosted before. What employers see as unreliable candidate behaviour was, in two thirds of cases, learned in an earlier application process at another employer. What candidates do next after being ghosted is in the earlier research in this series.

What this means for recruiters

Add up the reasons that are essentially about speed and you arrive at 77%. More than three quarters of the candidates who stopped replying did so because the employer stayed silent too long, replied too slowly, or because someone else got there first. The job itself, the terms of employment and the discomfort of turning someone down together make up the remaining 23%.

That is bad and good news at the same time. Bad, because it means that most of the candidates you lose did not drop out over what you offered, but over how long they had to wait for it. Good, because your response time is the only part of your process that is entirely yours. You will not change your salary structure in a week, but you can change your follow-up time.

On top of that, two thirds of the candidates who go quiet on you picked up that behaviour at another employer. So you inherit the habits your colleagues taught them, and you pass them on to the recruiter who calls after you. In this market, ghosting is not an incident between one employer and one candidate, but a way of working that the profession has taught itself.

Whoever steps out of it first does not need to write a better job ad, only to reply faster.