The Rise of Ghosting in Canada's Job Market: How Candidates Are Fighting Back

The Growing Problem of Employer Ghosting

Recently, I received an email that initially made me feel warm and human: a rejection for a job I'd applied to. But my thankful feelings quickly turned to self-loathing—the nausea one gets when looking back over pathetic, paragraphs-long texts to an ex. The rejection was a form letter, not even a personalized message. I was so accustomed to being treated with indifference that the barest acknowledgment of my existence felt like a win.

Illustration by Alicia Tatone

The Breakdown of Professional Etiquette

Putting aside whether the job market itself is in good or bad shape right now, the code of what behavior is and isn't acceptable seems to have broken down. Ghosting has become more rampant not just by employers but also by job seekers. In 2024, candidates reviewing employers on Glassdoor used the term ghosting nearly three times as much as they did in 2020.

A 2023 Indeed survey of job seekers found that 62 percent of respondents planned to ghost a prospective employer in a future job search, compared with only 37 percent in 2019. The disappearing act is not just in the early rounds, either. Employers routinely ask applicants to do multiple interviews and time-consuming test work, and are never heard from again.

The Impact on Both Sides of the Hiring Equation

A survey this year from Greenhouse, a recruiting-software company, found that nearly two out of every three candidates in the United States had been ghosted after an interview. Meanwhile, some applicants who make it through the onerous hiring process and accept jobs never show up for their first day. One California recruiter mentioned that some candidates who ditched had even signed offers for positions that paid six-figure salaries.

Today, many people on both sides of the hiring equation—whether because of convenience, self-protection, or resentment—have abandoned even the pretense of courtesy, resulting in a job market that's as rude as it is dysfunctional.