The Candidate Experience that wins: How to avoid ghosting

Written by Stine Øynebråten

More than half of young applicants expect a response within a week. Yet 53% of job seekers say they were ghosted by an employer in the past year.

In the October episode of Mojob Live, we looked at what young applicants expect and how to keep them engaged. Lene Bunes from Personalhuset shared insights from her daily work in recruiting, and Martine, our Customer Success, showed how Mojob put it into practice.

Here are the key takeaways from the webinar.

What is candidate experience?

Candidate experience covers every feeling, thought and impression a job seeker is left with throughout the recruitment process. It is the sum of every interaction they have with you as an employer, from the first time they hear about your company until long after the decision has been made.

Every step leaves an impression, and so does the silence between them.

We’re competing for people, and candidates moves fast

This year, Norwegian businesses are short 34,000 workers, and 60% of companies have competency requirements they cannot meet. On the other side is a generation that has never been more on the move: 26% of Gen Z changed jobs in the past six months. Opportunities are plentiful, and it is the candidates who get to choose.

This generation lives on Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, where short messages and quick replies are the new norm. These are the expectations they bring into the application process. And it’s not just young people: according to Greenhouse, more than 70% of job seekers will never submit an application that takes longer than 15 minutes to complete.

Recruitment, however, moves at a very different pace. According to HR Norge, 58% of Norwegian organisations take 30–59 days to make a hire, but candidates won’t wait that long. 62% lose interest if they don’t hear back within two weeks of an interview, and after three weeks without an update, that figure rises to 77%.

Silence is also an answer

The term “ghosting” has become a growing problem in recruitment, where candidates never receive a response, an update or an explanation before, during or after the recruitment process. According to Criteria, the share of job seekers who have experienced it rose from 38% in 2024 to 53% in 2026.

However, ghosting is less about intention and more about recruitment processes that haven’t caught up with how candidates apply today. An application can now be written in minutes with AI. When the time needed to follow up each candidate stays the same, recruiters drown in applications, positions are put on hold, and messages to candidates get forgotten.

Yet silence is exactly where candidates drop off. Talent Board found that the most common reason people withdraw is poor communication and a lack of feedback. And the silence often lasts a long time: in the same study, more than one in three candidates had heard nothing one to two months after applying.

What impression do we want to leave behind?

Candidate experience is closely tied to feelings and impressions, so every interaction shapes how people see your company. That makes it a key part of your employer branding.

Candidates don’t see how busy you are. They see the delays, and they read them as a sign of what it’s like to work for you. Almost four in five say the way they are treated reflects how a company values its employees. In other words, you can invest heavily in employer branding campaigns, but what really carries weight is the candidate experience people share with their network, as it comes from someone they trust.

This is especially true for those who don’t get the job. For every person you hire, several others are turned down, and they are the ones who shape your reputation the most. After a poor experience, more and more candidates say they will not apply again, recommend the company or buy its products. Talent Board has tracked this for years, and in Europe the share has grown from 11% in 2022 to 17% in 2024.

But it works the other way too:

  • 66% say a positive experience influenced their decision to accept a job offer.

  • 79% would apply again to a company that gave them feedback after an interview, even if they didn’t get the job.

In practice: What a great candidate experience looks like

Lene Bunes from Personalhuset joined us as a guest on the webinar. She recruits for education and hospitality, where both quality and volumes is critical. In her experience, you need to work just as systematically with the candidate as with the process itself. This comes down to five things:

  1. Transparency: clear timelines and honest job ads

  2. Speed: regular contact and quick feedback

  3. Fairness: an equal, structured process for everyone

  4. Personalisation: communication tailored to the candidate

  5. Humanity: a warm and respectful tone

With hundreds of applicants, it becomes harder to do manually. You need a system that works with you.

How Mojob helps strengthen the candidate experience

Mojob makes sure no candidate is left waiting. Four concrete approaches were discussed:

  • Clear expectations and personal communication. Set up automatic confirmation messages so candidates get an update right away. You can adapt the templates to different processes and set the timeline yourself. Adding a short video greeting from the recruiter gives the process a face from day one.

  • No one gets left behind. You can’t close a process until every candidate has received a response, and the system reminds you of those still waiting.

  • Chat instead of email. Candidates respond faster to chat and SMS. If plans change, you can update everyone in just a few clicks, and candidates feel seen.

  • Measure the experience. Candidates automatically receive a survey when they are hired or turned down.

The result? In Mojob’s 2026 NPS survey, with 2,708 responses, 74% of those who were hired are promoters of the company. But the most interesting finding is among those who were rejected: 37% of them are also promoters. That’s almost 700 candidates who didn’t get the job but still recommend the company to others.

Never forgotten

This isn’t about automating away the human touch. It’s about automating what can be automated, so you have time for what needs to be human.

Because in the end, a great candidate journey comes down to one thing: the candidate should never feel forgotten.

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See the full discussion in our webinar

Sources

Stine Øynebråten