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And then they were ‘gone’ – ‘ghosting’ is not just the demise of a fruitless dating process, but is seeping into the candidate market too. Many employers are reporting an uptick in the number of time-wasters that are merely window shopping for jobs with no real intentions of following through with their application. HR Grapevine reports on how to tackle the glut of fickle applicants.
The CIPD’s August 2024 Labour Market Outlook report shows that one in five employers anticipate significant problems filling roles in the next six months. Further to this is the two-thirds (66%) of employers that plan to recruit in the next three months. While the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that job vacancy listings actually declined in the three months leading up to June, the number of available positions still exceed the pre-pandemic level of 96,000 recorded in the three months to March 2020.
What all these figures mean is that the UK labour market has remained in generally good health by historical standards. It sits around 74.5% - if you compare that to a national dip in the mid-1980s when it was 66%, it’s easy to argue that it is still a candidate driven market. This means that for many applicants they get to call the shots and many are playing the game well, applying for many and ghosting some in favour of a better deal.
Labour market shortages is triggering candidate ‘ghosting’
David Balls is an experienced Chief People Officer having worked for Equifax, Rank and Newcross Healthcare.
He says, “The post pandemic labour market has exacerbated shortages in some sectors resulting in a number of employers experiencing ‘ghosting’. This is supported by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) survey in 2019 which found that about 84% of recruiters had experienced candidates disappearing without a trace.” While this was some time ago now – the pattern has continued.
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