Ask HN: How often are you ghosted by potential employers after talking etc.?

I ask as I am back in the market, and have had 3 companies ghost me (2 from HN who's hiring) after either a couple of calls or for 1 I did a small "test" project (which I almost always refuse but this one was reasonable and very specific plus easily time boxed to an hour or so).

I ask as I have not been in the market applying for positions in quite awhile. I have generally been the hiring person for the last > 10 years, minus going from founder to employee 5 years ago. Even then that was only the second company I talked to that time so never got ghosted. I am not claiming I am perfect, there were people I never got back to as well, but it was a tiny fraction of people we interviewed, so just curious if this is common today; if not I guess I need to figure out what to adjust.

It happened a few times during my last job search, though my current one was a ghost that came back after a long time. It seems that if reqs are placed on hold, many (but not all!) employers will just go silent rather than update candidates.

For as long as I've been tracking (76 applications since 2018), my numbers for PM/design/research roles are roughly:

- 1/3 will either never acknowledge your application or ghost you mid-process

- Two weeks between human contact is about the average for a company with its shit marginally together

- It's taken as long as 238 days for a formal rejection, but the mean is more like two months