Employers, unsurprisingly, do not like this. It’s rude, they say, and unprofessional. And sure, it is. But employers have been doing this to workers for years, and their hand-wringing didn’t start until the tables were turned.

In today’s topsy-turvy job market, a strange new thing is happening. Employers are increasingly grumbling about job seekers “ghosting” them. These job candidates just don’t show up for their scheduled interviews. And in some cases, new hires accept a job only to disappear.

Honestly I LOVE seeing potential employees treating employers the way employers have been treating their candidates for years! And then seeing the employers get all upset about it like they haven’t been behaving exactly the same way. … I really really hope that employers learn a lesson from this and start respecting job seekers a little more (although I’m not optimistic).

If employers wanted to be treated better, they shouldn’t have spent the last three decades treating candidates with such little humanity. You can’t treat an entire class of people like crap for decades, strip them of rights and protections, and then be upset when we don’t show enough deference to the people asking us to beg for work.

It remains to be seen how long these market conditions will last. But if getting ghosted helps employers better understand what they’ve been doing to job seekers for years, that’s a good thing. And if it reflects a real shift in power toward workers, that’s even better.

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