There's about 2x more people on the market right now vs pre pandemic around 2019 and at least 1/3 as many positions available.

So it's at least 5 times as many applicants per position.

When you got 10 people to pass step 1, and 5 people to pass step 2, and 3 people to pass step 3, its not that hard to send a "thanks but we need someone with xyz skill".

Now, the reasons are even more random and arbitrary.

Now you might have 100 people pass step 1, and 50 people to pass step 2, and 30 people to pass step 3. So companies are pickier, but also they tend to reject you more randomly.

I've done a few interviews and they would say stuff that basically said "i'm not really listening just browsing reddit while you're talking"

Kinda sad

This isn't anything new. Been working for a couple decades and the only times I would hear feedback was for internal job postings at a large company. And that's because you might run into those folks in the hallway or end up working together on a project later on.

There are time constraints on the hiring manager/team with the numbers of applicants and legal ramifications for the company if something is misstated or could be construed as against hiring laws.

It is just better to assume that ghosting is usual practice and any deviation is a welcome change. You, as a candidate, are trying to make a sale. Buyer has not obligation to get back to you, just like when you take a quote from someone for home repairs.

Younger people are making hiring decisions. Young people today tend to be afraid of confrontations of any kind.

let me share the hiring manager side when you’re at a medium sized company without a super organized process - writing that email takes 20 mins of hard focus (to very carefully give feedback without blowback) assuming they even remember the interview, and that the person writing the email even made the decision. most interviews are ambiguous and the hiring manager is doing 3 to 5 interviews over a few weeks, by which point earlier candidates are forgotten, and hiring manager is staring at a list of candidates to reject that they don’t even remember and this is the least important thing on their todo list that day. very easy to just close that laptop and go home

Consider the organization. If all steps are managed by the dev team expect to be ghosted. If there is a HR staff involved expect to receive a response.

Developers, despite everything they claim, are more likely to fear confrontation. Denying a person a job is highly confrontational even when exceptionally polite. On the other side of the table it will likely be viewed as an unnecessary inconvenience.

I try to think about this optimistically. I wouldn’t want to work with people who are cowardly about talking to people or expressing business concerns openly. If it’s how they behave during hiring it’s how they will behave at work.

It's baffling to be honest, since it feels like there's less feedback the further you get into the interview process, not more. About 40-50% of jobs I've failed to get to the first stage in have sent rejection emails in at least some form, yet somehow far less of those where I've reached the second, third or even fourth stage in have sent a rejection letter.

That doesn't make sense to me. You'd think candidates you don't even care to interview would be the ones you'd ignore/ghost, not the ones who are probably in the last 5 or so candidates for the role.

But hey, I guess that sort of strange behaviour isn't entirely new. I still remember getting ghosted by a company that gave me two phone interviews and two in person interviews in the office.

Lots of companies are posting fake positions:

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/27/4-in-10-companies-say-theyve...

Recruiters strike again.

Ghosting requires no effort, but giving any response requires some effort.

> they didn’t give me any feedback or anything about the challenge

Reason 1: It’s generally safer, liability wise to ghost. The more information you share, the more information that can be used against you.

Reason 2: They give feedback and you want to debate why you’re right and why their feedback isn’t valid. They’ve got a job to do that isn’t going back and forth with you.

Reason 3: They just found somebody they liked better for whatever reason and don’t care enough to tell you.

I always write, “Thanks for your time and interest but we’re moving ahead with other candidates.” Any response I get where the first words aren’t “Thank you” gets insta-deleted.

> It’s slightly soul-crushing

You already answered.

You see yourself as a human being, but companies see you as an asset.

Assets don't have a soul, they don't need feedback, they are just assets, things to be used in their strategy to make profits.

When companies give you feedback they are just saying you are or can be useful for them to reach their goals,just that.

Ghosting cost is low.

Increasing this cost can make non-ghosting prevalent.

Because it takes time, return nothing and people are busy.

I prefer it frankly, as notifications that my app is not proceeding are not useful for my time and attention. I just keep applying constantly under all circumstances. Job hunting is eternal.

It is because people only remember the time they were ghosted, not when they ghost.