Applied for an executive role and received no meaningful communication or status updates for nearly 11 months before eventually receiving a generic rejection email indicating the company had decided to move forward with other candidates “already in the pipeline.” At the leadership level, recruiting processes are often interpreted as a direct reflection of how a company operates internally — how decisions are made, how priorities are managed, how teams communicate, and how accountable the organization is to timelines and follow-through. A nearly year-long delay to close the loop on a hiring decision signals significant operational inefficiency and disorganization. I was actively interviewing elsewhere and certainly did not wait on this opportunity, but strong senior candidates also evaluate companies during the hiring process. In this case, the lack of responsiveness and extraordinarily slow decision-making created concerns about leadership alignment, execution speed, and internal processes overall. No interviews ultimately took place, but the recruiting experience itself left a lasting impression — and not a positive one.

Was contacted by a recruiter for a 45 minute initial phone screen / zoom that went into a lot of detail about my background and was told she was talking to the CEO that day, and I'd have a yes/no on next steps within 24 hours. Well 3 weeks have gone by, and I've checked in with no reply. Ghosting candidates who spent 45 minutes with you is disrespectful and inexcusable.