Ghosting and icebergs

I had dinner last night with a former student who recently interviewed for a new job. He had gone through round one, round two and final-round interviews, the last with the company`s CEO. Then silence. No call-back, no offer, no rejection. He followed up and still nothing. He had been ghosted. My young friend thought it was rude, but I subscribe to the iceberg theory. You only ever see 1/9 of the full picture.

Several years ago I was courted by a recruitment consultant, aka headhunted by a headhunter. I say courted, but I mean relentlessly pursued. In fact, I received the offer for the position but ended up not accepting it. During one of our discussions, I discovered this recruiter had placed a former Deputy Principal of mine who I then looked up on LinkedIn. I had been on the point of dismissing this individual for inter alia falsifying his resume when he resigned. His LinkedIn page not only contained this particular claim, which I knew to be false, but also misrepresented the role he had when he worked with me.

I pointed this out to the recruiter, adding that the person in question could not have a had a reference from his time with me since neither I nor the school`s owner would have supplied one. The recruiter then cut off all contact with me, ie ghosting me. I am sure he had taken a placement fee which he did not want to repay, and he had done little or no checking of that candidate's background. So of course, the little I glimpse I had of him and of his professional practice made me wonder how many other undeserved fees he had taken and dissemblers he had placed. The recruiter is still around, but has few clients and those he does have seem to be both low-level and dubious in terms of educational and operational ethics.

My second experience was with a highly-rated independent school which wanted to launch a new programme. I had exactly the qualifications, skills and experience sought so submitted an application. I received a positive, almost enthusiastic response from the HR assistant and shortly after, from the Director's secretary. A month or six weeks later I had heard nothing, so I visited the school`s website to see that an appointment had been made. The appointee had no advanced degree, and only two years` post-baccalaureate experience and not in the field. 

I emailed the head of HR politely seeking feedback. Silence. I then re-sent my message, copy to the Director. This time I received a reply saying that she had never heard of me nor had she received an application. I replied with copies of the two email acknowledgement of my application, and again silence. I wrote once more. Nothing.

A year or so later I looked up the school as I was interested in the programme and wanted to see how it had developed. It had already closed, lasting one year only. All that remained was the fanfare announcing its launch and introducing the appointee, the celebration of funds and support from the alumni association to establish the programme, the declaration of the effect it was going to have on the school and on the town etc.

Again, the little I had seen spoke volumes of the school's recruitment and administrative practices, its leadership and management, how and whom it hired and so on. The school is still there, the HR person I had "met" has departed, the Director has moved on. The school still has a good name but doesn`t seem to have launched a new programme or initiative since the above fiasco.

In both my experiences, something had happened which would have been neither here nor there if it had not been for the ghosting. That I think is the 1/9 we see. If a school is so incompetent or so rude that they cannot send a "thanks but no thanks", where and how else would they be incompetent or rude? 

**Please leave your comments and queries below.**