The Victim;

You have been presented with a solid candidate for an opening in your company. You get through the interview process and everybody is showing thumbs up including the candidate. A verbal agreement is struck with written offer to follow.

Offer is sent with a deadline for signature. Deadline arrives and all you receive is silence. Maybe he/she didn’t get the Email, let’s call him/her. You get voice mail. You send an Email. No response. You leave other messages, no response. You ask the recruiter to make contact, but the recruiter gets the same result….SILENCE.

The Why from the Victim:

You are entertaining a new opportunity.  A hiring manager likes what he/she sees on your resume.  Takes the time for a telephone interview, possibly a second interview by phone.  Then an onsite visit with the team members.  Your airfare, hotel, food, parking and travel incidentals are paid for, not to mention the cost of the hiring teams’ time.  You accepted and showed up.  You leave giving the impression this is exactly what you have been seeking and indicate you are ready for the next step.  The basic terms of the potential offer are verbalized, and you don’t waiver.  Everything about you says, “let’s move forward.”

The offer arrives, exactly like they promised and is everything you discussed. And then you play the cowardly game….Silence. You refuse to acknowledge the receipt of offer, do not return phone calls or Emails. Is this the way you would want to be treated? If one day you become a hiring manager, would you like this childish cowardly act purported upon you? Do you think your parents would be proud? The reason(s) for this cowardly act escapes me.

Here is the part you forget: One day, maybe not today, this action will come back to haunt you in your business life. One day, the hiring manager or people on that hiring team will be reviewing your credentials again, and their memories will be jogged. Guess where your candidacy with them goes? It goes in the same spot your reputation went at the last interview they were part of.

The Guilty Party: You meet telephonically with an outside recruiter about your corporate talent acquisition needs. You like everything the recruiter says about their services. He/she makes perfect sense and has candidates that would be a fit. You tell the recruiter you like what you hear, and you will speak with your team get back to him/her by end of the week. Recruiter hangs up thinking, “how refreshing, this is going to be a good client.”

End of the week comes, and the return call doesn’t come. Recruiter sends an Email, but no response over the weekend. Monday arrives and recruiter telephones. Gatekeeper says you are in and will forward the call. It goes to voice mail. You leave a cordial message, but to no avail. Several Emails, phone calls and days pass by. Recruiter gets one sad result….SILENCE!

Here is what you forget. People talk. This scenario is bad enough in dealing with a recruiter. But what if you signed a recruiting agreement, received candidates and then YOU went silent for days on end. No feedback, nothing for the recruiter to tell the candidate. Just SILENCE! And you did this because it was/is just your style. Or you were just too busy to send a quick Email, which would certainly speak volumes of your lack of respect to the candidate pool as well as the recruiter working for you.

The Why From The Guilty Party: Candidates will spread the word like wildfire if they think they were mistreated. Not only will they mention you by name, but they will name your company, over and over again. Guess where the reputation of the company goes when a future candidate or even a community wonders if this is really going to be an employer of choice. The end result just might not be pretty.

Therein lies the biggest question of the century. Why do professional highly paid, highly skilled management folks’ coward down and put their heads in the sand? It makes absolutely no sense. Why not tell the truth? Why not the professional courtesy of a response, whether it be a Yes or a No? Why put another human being through the mental anguish? Why toy with another working person’s time and cost of doing business, especially if you know you will not be moving forward? Is this the way you want to be treated? Does exercising this faux power make you proud? Would your parents be proud of you?