How Ghosting Is Hurting Your Career

Everyone does it.

But that doesn’t make it right.

Sometimes you do it intentionally.

Sometimes you get too busy and forget.

Whether you were on the delivering or receiving end it needs to stop.

Let’s start by breaking it down from an employer’s POV.

Your reputation is everything.

It’s the foundation of your personal brand.

Once you’re ‘red flagged’ because of ghosting you can lose future job opportunities.

But it goes both ways (let’s not let companies off the hook).

As an employee/candidate, ghosting can be a sign of a toxic work culture or lack of respect for its workers.

At its core ghosting sends the message that you’re avoiding conflict or just don’t care.

You may not have pondered the impact of ghosting, so that’s why I’m addressing it now before it stains your career.

Now that the problem is out in the open, here’s what you can do about it.

1. Communicate - ghosting can be avoiding when you communicate (it’s literally the opposite). Even if you don’t know what to say acknowledge you received their message and you’ll get back to them by a specific timeframe.

2. Follow-up - this one hits home for me. For example, networking is 10% meeting the person, 90% follow-up (most don’t do the latter). You can’t control if someone gets back to you, but you can control if you follow-up or not.

3. Be clear when you say “yes” and “no” - no ambiguity here. Once again if you’re unsure or processing an answer let the other party know. Also, keep you word! If you say you’re going to do something, do it. Otherwise people won’t’ trust you.

Ultimately ghosting is viewed as immature and unprofessional.

That’s not the look you want.

I’m going to assume you don’t intend to ghost people.

Maybe you’re unsure, still thinking about how to respond or prefer not to engage in potential conflict.

Like most things in life when you fail to address something sooner than later it gets worse.

I’ve helped clients (and even my daughter) come up with a system that helps them remember to get back to people.

So if you’ve been guilty of ghosting someone (we all have at one point) and need some help changing your behaviors, reply to this email.

Remember when it comes to communicating effectively - no system, no results.

I hope this helps & God Bless,

Scott

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