- Advertising, Marketing, PR and Media companies are the most likely to ‘ghost’ prospective employees – a whopping 30% have ghosted applicants.
- Applicants in Business, Finance and Legal spheres ‘ghost’ the most employers – 24% have ghosted a company in the job searching process.
- Government and Healthcare sectors experience the least amount of ghosting from employer and employee.
We’ve all heard of the term ‘ghosting’. But while originally linked to dating, this action is taking form in the professional sphere too.
General causes for increased workplace ghosting include: Improved economies and low unemployment rates, increasingly competitive job markets (more and better jobs means searchers can afford to be picky), and changing employee attitudes.
But which sectors are being affected most by this failure in communication?
Education and training specialists TheKnowledgeAcademy.com surveyed 1,257 full-time employees from a range of sectors* in the UK, between March and May of this year (2019). They sought to discover how many had ‘ghosted’ a company and how many had been ghosted by one.
What are the results?
The sector which saw the most applicants ghost their respective employers is Business, Finance and Legal – 24% (301) of the people asked said they had ended communication in the interview process.
This is followed by Advertising/Marketing/PR/Media which saw 22% (271) of applicants ghosting an employer at some stage of the interview process.
In descending number of ‘ghosters’, the remaining sectors placed as follows:
Retail/Hospitality (19% – 239), Miscellaneous other (12% – 154), Technical services (10% – 126), Education (5% – 65), Healthcare (5% – 63) and finally Government (3% – 38).
Flipping the tables, the applicants that have been ghosted the most by employers come from Advertising, Marketing, PR and Media companies – a whopping 30% (382) of applicants.
Next in line is Business/Finance/Legal companies in which 21% (265) have ghosted prospective employees.
The remaining sectors place as follows, in descending numbers: Retail/Hospitality (14% – 176), Miscellaneous other (9% – 107), Government (8% – 101), Technical services (7% – 88), Education (6% – 81), and finally Healthcare (5% – 57).
Speaking exclusively to The Knowledge Academy, experts across a range of industries have shared stories on workplace ghosting:
* The Knowledge Academy took inspiration from Clutch’s What Causes Workplace Ghosting? report by surveying employees from the same range of sectors.
If you publish the research included in this release, please credit www.theknowledgeacademy.com.
