Why Tech Companies Are Ghosting Candidates
This is our first “behind the scenes” post.
Some context: My teammate Jackson and I are meeting daily as we work to grow our new business unit, Before You Apply.
This moment is taken from a recent conversation. Nothing is scripted and sometimes things get uncomfortable.
Here we go…
When COVID hit, the tech industry anticipated a crash, so companies laid off tons of recruiters.
Come to find out, the tech sector is benefiting from the lockdowns.
Hiring hasn’t stopped. And at many companies, it has increased.
But now these companies are working with skeleton recruiting teams.
And on top of that, they’re getting more applications than ever—sometimes thousands per week.
So if you’re a recruiter, what do you do?
Do you look at all those resumes? Nope!
It turns out that filtering thousands of resumes is extremely expensive.
So recruiters fall back on what’s fast and cheap: referrals and outbound to passive candidates.
The result is a more insular, less diverse candidate pool where the people who already have money and jobs are getting all the opportunities.
And *millions* of smart, unemployed people are getting shafted.
COVID is amplifying the worst parts of the tech recruiting model.
It’s exposing an industry that, despite its words, only gives access to a very select group.