As far as I can tell, the term “ghosting” started as a way to describe the phenomenon of one person suddenly and without warning completely cutting off contact with another person, typically in a dating situation. Texts and calls go unanswered, and eventually the ghosted person gives up, unsure what happened.
The same thing happens in the work world. A friend of mine who is a career coach has observed it with her clients. One week they’re heavily pursued by a recruiter, the next they can’t get an email back. A three-interview series seems to go great, then nothing. Crickets.
Here’s why I’m bringing this up: ghosting is a behavior that demonstrates a default intention. That intention varies, of course, but it’s often something like “to avoid a potentially uncomfortable conversation.” And like all default intentions, it is fundamentally selfish: the person who is ghosted pays the cost, in time and attention.
I’ll share an example. Recently someone booked a discovery call on my calendar to discuss one-on-one coaching. When it was time to meet with her, I opened my Zoom room and waited. She never came.
I called and emailed her, and she didn’t respond. I followed up a day or two later, in case her day had just blown up and she could use a nudge. Nothing.
Some of this is the cost of doing business, and I get that. But I had to spend time on her inaction, time I would have liked to use for something else.
There’s the time she put on my calendar, which blocks off not only the active call time but 15 minutes on either end (so I can prep before and summarize the call notes after). No one else could book that time.
There’s the time I spent trying to track her down and reschedule, under the assumption that she had forgotten.
In all, I spent more than an hour on someone who requested my time and expertise, then didn’t show up and ghosted my attempts to find out if she needed to talk to me or not.
If you’re tempted to ghost someone whose professional time you’ve requested or used, don’t. Instead, send a simple email saying: “Thanks for your time. I’m not going to pursue this right now, and I’ll be back in touch in the future if I change my mind.”
Choose the deliberate intention “to honor their time and effort,” and close the loop instead of ghosting.
