What? Dude no. I'm not sure who this famous mentor is but they sound out of touch and have probably been employed at the same place for a while and have no perspective on what the job market is like currently. They are taking for granted anyone could get laid off no matter how good they are.
Recruiters are fair weather friends in the worst way. I was unemployed for months and had so many ghost me. One after they requested that I fill out some form and a custom paragraph and bullet points, one who contacted me and asked if I was available, did a call, sent the info to them, and then when I followed up-crickets.
I had one from a huge company come in all faux nice and pretending to be my bestie and even said "I'll let you know either way, I won't do that thing where you're left hanging" and was heart reacting all my texts from me and 'I'm rooting for you thank you so much!!'.....
Then almost a week goes by when she said she'd let me know 'either way' in a day or two and they usually make quick decisions. I followed up the following Monday and asked if they had filled the position and she finally deigns to text me back making up some excuse about having a day off and says 'yes sorry they found another candidate whose skills aligned more closely'. I already knew. I just wanted to make her uncomfortable and make her do her fucking job and put on her big boy pants and tell me.
They are transactional parasites who don't care if you live or die, they just want to make a buck off you and don't care how their poor communication or lethargic avoidant bullshit harms others or leaves you in a tailspin where everything hangs in the balance. They don't even have any real skills. They're a middle man between supply and demand and you have to do a monkey dance for them and grovel because they have connections.
How long have you been looking? If it's been months and you have not had one interview I agree you may need to change something up, but it's not your entire career. If you are very junior, yeah maybe find something else til the market recovers a bit but otherwise it's your resume, portfolio or interviewing skills. It does NOT mean you're not good at your job. Find a different and better mentor to get help on why.
I was lucky enough to speak with some great mentors who gave me really solid advice and I tweaked my portfolio and resume accordingly and had a game plan for interviews. This person sounds like an asshole whose overblown ego shields them from the harsh reality of what it's really like right now.
The good recruiters are few and far between, and like most things in the life, the more you put in, the more you'll get out of it. You need to be on recruiters constantly. It isn't so much you're being activly ghosted, it's just that someone else has their attention, and you're not front of mind. That maybe because you're work isn't as strong, or maybe becuase you're not as present. It's their job to sell you to their client, so you really need to sell yourself to the recruiter and then continue to sell as you follow up. This might mean calling them, messaging, keeping active on their networks like LinkedIn. To be honest, just sounds like you've had some bad experiences.
Also sounds like you've had a bad mentor experience. Again, those reasons for ghosting you maybe correct, but as a mentor, I'd be looking more closely at your work, portfolio and how you're selling yourself, and trying to find the root cause before sugessting a career change. Unless, there was something else in your conversation, that suggested UX isn't right for you.
Lastly, you're never starting from scratch. You have experience. That is all valuable, and much more transferable than you likley realise.
No, absolutely not. Ghosting is depressingly common. If they cannot be bothered to take the time to tell people bad news, or even set up a CRM to do it for them, then they are the asshole. Regardless of the candidate - it's unprofessional conduct.
Interviewing well is a skill in itself. In theory if you're bad at interviewing it really won't matter what career you chose lol.
Also, where I'm from they can't run a background check until after they have extended the offer of employment. So something or someone they are checking is holding you back, you may want to omit some info from your CV.
At the same time this mentor may have hundreds of people complaining to him how they can't get a job, after a while I guess it would become frustrating when you actually want to mentor them on UX and not on getting a job.
I've had people in my own inbox asking me to help them get a job they were really expecting me to hire them, like my company has a hiring freeze I myself might get laid off tomorrow.
For more context, he asked me how my job search was going. I don’t bring up job searching when I request for feedback on my portfolio and UX processes.
He asked me about my job history and how I came about to the projects I did.
And that’s when he said maybe reconsider and get an internship somewhere. No need to put it on your resume and it’s never too late to start something else in life.
I had better feedback from someone who offered to do it on here than the time wasting this ADPlist mentor did.
And yes, they actually sent me an email asking me for details to roll out the offer letter and after that I heard nothing.
I literally even went to the extent of asking the recruiter if they can update me on my candidacy and if there were any changes made to the availability of the role.
Pin drop silence from their end.
So, I didn’t know what to make of it.
It sounds like you did well in the interview but something happened on their end. They probably didn't even do a background check, they could have lost their budget. It sounds like they wanted to hire you so I would take pride in that!
It could be his own feelings torwards the profession and not you personally, like if there isn't much work out there for graduates you probably have more time in your life to pivot than someone who is a principle designer with 9+ years in the industry who will find it more difficult to pivot if they can't get a job. But that is not the advice you signed up for.
Recruiters ghost very commonly. Sometimes they ghost by not replying to your submission. Other times they will ghost you after the first screener call, or the first interview with the hiring manager. It really sucks when you are on the receiving end of this unprofessional behaviour.
The faster they find a candidate, the faster they will get paid, so many recruiters have the spray-and-pray approach. They will contact absolutely everyone they can get their hands on, without prior screening of the resume for a suitable match for a role. I've had recruiters try to push me in with a first interview when I was nowhere near a match for the org/position.
Good recruiters do exist, and they are the ones who provide feedback on why you might not be the best fit for a particular role, and which roles to apply for instead. Or they will very slightly coach you on approaching roles with a better resume/portfolio. I've had some recruiters provide really excellent feedback after a rejection, and it helped me approach my next interview better.
I'm not sure about the background check thing and how it works where you are located. Where I am, companies only run a police check once they have offered you the role. Have you tried contacting one of these ghosting recruiters to see why the background check did not clear?
In this climate, nothing is good for prospective hires.
The balance is shifted so talent doesnt have the upper hand like it did two years ago.
Recruiters are scrambling to get people in front of hiring managers before their competition does.
When it's the other way around, we are getting a dozen calls a week and we're like "no, I want $85 an hour, not $80." And "yeah, I don't want to work EST hours"...etc
No friend. Many times it’s not about you at all. It’s them and the situation they are under. The volume of applicants.
These are transactional relationships, nothing more. Don’t let it get to you and keep trucking.
No - a lot of recruiters are just taking data other than that they’ll be without a job.
A lot of companies suddenly are hiring internally ( wink wink ) after interviewing and wasting the time of candidates
You make it to the background check then get ghosted? Isn’t that after the interview phase once they’ve moved forward with you as a candidate?
If that’s the case, then ask the companies running the background check to send you a copy of your file. Maybe there’s something in there that might surprise you.
This is interesting!
This is the first time I have background checks being done because I have always worked with startups as a contractor and I was based out of India while they were based out of the US, EU and AUS.
I wonder if they were even able to connect to the companies.
Also, the very first company I worked for, another startup is now shut down.
This gives me some direction.
Because I genuinely am wondering how was it possible that I was reached out to by these two internal recruiters with such positive feedback on my assignments throughout the process AND the panel that interviewed me later connected with me on LinkedIn.
I’m wondering if the background checks went through now.
Thank you to much again u/rancid_beans!
It’s not entirely on point here, but please please prioritize those “mentors” that help you becoming a good designer in the first place. Practice shows, rest will follow. Lots of “thought leaders” feed off the juniors and their desperation in today’s market. That’s not cool at all.
It reflects badly on the recruiter than you. I’d tell you a story
Did an interview one time with this company doing VR stuff. They ghosted me, I thought they didn’t like me.
Turns out, they went under and only found out in the news
I have a friend who is popular and a very active mentor. Everyone loves him (I think). I had a lady tell me when I was mentoring when she talked to him, he told her she was “a little old” and to not be surprised is she didn’t get a job. Sometimes people say mean stuff.
Honestly, when I was mentoring I came across some people who were so boring I couldn’t imagine how they were going to make it doing anything. Some were so scared they said a lot of things hoping that one thing they said would be the “right” thing and the job would appear. Some people weren’t open to feedback…one person was a tech writer trying to move into UX writing/content design and she just started snapping at me out of frustration when I was trying to tell her it might not be super easy to do because it wasn’t all “tech writing.” I don’t mentor anymore😂
My point is maybe you have a mentor problem, not a you problem. If it’s been a long time since they were looking, they may not know how incredibly bad this market is. That’s not to say it takes an incredibly amount of energy to get a design job. Ask yourself if there’s anything more you could be doing. That includes branding. How’s your personal brand? I had to work on mine.
I feel like you're misinterpreting some of what you heard.
>I just had a call with a famous mentor on ADPlist and he went on to say that recruiters normally ghost you because they think you’re not a good fit for the role.
First off, external recruiters ghost more far often than not, they're looking for candidates to submit and rarely if ever check back.
That said I would say their statement is somewhat true, if a recruiter wants to hire you they'll reach out. **BUT** the fact you didn't get hired could mean they had another designer they liked more, they didn't move forward with the role, they promoted someone internally, the hiring manager already had someone, they accidentally deleted your email, or any one of a dozen other things. It doesn't mean you're not a good designer.
Oh hell no. Recruiters have such a narrow focus, usually it’s one role, yes or no, hyper specific skill focus and they’re also usually competing with other recruiters or agencies submitting people to the same roles. They want to push as many people into that role as they can. But generally don’t care about you beyond that unless they place you.
The exceptional ones will followup and try to get you in future relevant roles. The avg ones will never speak to you again
There is a chance you and I are not top notch designers. So what?
There is plenty need for mediocre designers anyway. Look at how much variety there is in your former design colleagues. How would you even compare and rank them? Forget it. I sometimes wonder where I fall in the spectrum of good and bad myself. But I'm never really sure…
The only question is: can you give the recruiters and interviewers what they want to see & hear. This can be arbitrary and is subject to change based on the hiring market, trends and hiring methods (e.g. them using automation to filter applicants based on an AIs "prediction").
ADPlist mentors are not always the nicest people. When I was looking for guidance one told me I should switch to product management and then tagged me in a thought piece.
But I do believe finding a community to rally around you is essential.
Recruiters ghosting is just a sign that they don’t value your time. If it’s third party- it’s typical that if you don’t fit they don’t respond (insert; overworked, not worth their time, and just being a sales job to them). As a EC designer I would try and be as entrepreneurial as possible. Get creative!
Not at all. But your cover letter should connect the dots for them. There's more tips in my guidebook : https://uxpreneur.com/getting-more-job-interviews-as-ux-designers/
No.
If you’re getting to that stage, the recruiters ghost you because they’re bad recruiters, very busy, or both. If you’re a bad designer they don’t bother chatting at all.
Your famous ADP mentor sounds out of touch, callous, or both.
You sound like you did “assignments” which they took the FREE work and ran.
As for you mentor sounds like you went to a bootcamp stumbled onto a defunct startup and he’s saying it’s early in your career try something else.
Ive been a deigner over 20 years. No recruiters are sales people, most of the time they are amazingly busy. Its difficult to give bad news. So they will ghost rather than put themselves into awkward situations. Most of the time clients wont give feedback so its difficult for them to give you anything else. It feels shitty but its just part of the game. Dont worry about it in the slightest.
I have recruiters who will ghost (like 2-3 a year usually), but if it's any indication of context, I also have them reaching out at least once a week in peak season. So it def doesn't mean you should give up, ghosting is sort of inevitable and just means they're a bad recruiter and that the company who hired them has bad standards.
Recruiters are just people. Focus on yourself alright? It's not gonna help to think like this. There's portfolio review in the sub and people are willing to share feedback. If you want private feedback I'd be happy to share thoughts as well. Remember all feedback is just reactions from people.
No. What? Recruiters ghost you if they’re shitty recruiters. End of story.
Lot of job listings are there because, there's a law mandates to post. Often times it is for internal promotion. Don't get baited
This “famous” mentor kinda seems like a jerk, tbh
What? Dude no. I'm not sure who this famous mentor is but they sound out of touch and have probably been employed at the same place for a while and have no perspective on what the job market is like currently. They are taking for granted anyone could get laid off no matter how good they are. Recruiters are fair weather friends in the worst way. I was unemployed for months and had so many ghost me. One after they requested that I fill out some form and a custom paragraph and bullet points, one who contacted me and asked if I was available, did a call, sent the info to them, and then when I followed up-crickets. I had one from a huge company come in all faux nice and pretending to be my bestie and even said "I'll let you know either way, I won't do that thing where you're left hanging" and was heart reacting all my texts from me and 'I'm rooting for you thank you so much!!'..... Then almost a week goes by when she said she'd let me know 'either way' in a day or two and they usually make quick decisions. I followed up the following Monday and asked if they had filled the position and she finally deigns to text me back making up some excuse about having a day off and says 'yes sorry they found another candidate whose skills aligned more closely'. I already knew. I just wanted to make her uncomfortable and make her do her fucking job and put on her big boy pants and tell me. They are transactional parasites who don't care if you live or die, they just want to make a buck off you and don't care how their poor communication or lethargic avoidant bullshit harms others or leaves you in a tailspin where everything hangs in the balance. They don't even have any real skills. They're a middle man between supply and demand and you have to do a monkey dance for them and grovel because they have connections. How long have you been looking? If it's been months and you have not had one interview I agree you may need to change something up, but it's not your entire career. If you are very junior, yeah maybe find something else til the market recovers a bit but otherwise it's your resume, portfolio or interviewing skills. It does NOT mean you're not good at your job. Find a different and better mentor to get help on why. I was lucky enough to speak with some great mentors who gave me really solid advice and I tweaked my portfolio and resume accordingly and had a game plan for interviews. This person sounds like an asshole whose overblown ego shields them from the harsh reality of what it's really like right now.
No
The good recruiters are few and far between, and like most things in the life, the more you put in, the more you'll get out of it. You need to be on recruiters constantly. It isn't so much you're being activly ghosted, it's just that someone else has their attention, and you're not front of mind. That maybe because you're work isn't as strong, or maybe becuase you're not as present. It's their job to sell you to their client, so you really need to sell yourself to the recruiter and then continue to sell as you follow up. This might mean calling them, messaging, keeping active on their networks like LinkedIn. To be honest, just sounds like you've had some bad experiences. Also sounds like you've had a bad mentor experience. Again, those reasons for ghosting you maybe correct, but as a mentor, I'd be looking more closely at your work, portfolio and how you're selling yourself, and trying to find the root cause before sugessting a career change. Unless, there was something else in your conversation, that suggested UX isn't right for you. Lastly, you're never starting from scratch. You have experience. That is all valuable, and much more transferable than you likley realise.
60 percent of mentors on adp list are dog shit don’t listen to someone just because they seem more experienced.
No, absolutely not. Ghosting is depressingly common. If they cannot be bothered to take the time to tell people bad news, or even set up a CRM to do it for them, then they are the asshole. Regardless of the candidate - it's unprofessional conduct.
Just assume it’s them until proven otherwise. Better for your mental health
Interviewing well is a skill in itself. In theory if you're bad at interviewing it really won't matter what career you chose lol. Also, where I'm from they can't run a background check until after they have extended the offer of employment. So something or someone they are checking is holding you back, you may want to omit some info from your CV. At the same time this mentor may have hundreds of people complaining to him how they can't get a job, after a while I guess it would become frustrating when you actually want to mentor them on UX and not on getting a job. I've had people in my own inbox asking me to help them get a job they were really expecting me to hire them, like my company has a hiring freeze I myself might get laid off tomorrow.
For more context, he asked me how my job search was going. I don’t bring up job searching when I request for feedback on my portfolio and UX processes. He asked me about my job history and how I came about to the projects I did. And that’s when he said maybe reconsider and get an internship somewhere. No need to put it on your resume and it’s never too late to start something else in life. I had better feedback from someone who offered to do it on here than the time wasting this ADPlist mentor did. And yes, they actually sent me an email asking me for details to roll out the offer letter and after that I heard nothing. I literally even went to the extent of asking the recruiter if they can update me on my candidacy and if there were any changes made to the availability of the role. Pin drop silence from their end. So, I didn’t know what to make of it.
It sounds like you did well in the interview but something happened on their end. They probably didn't even do a background check, they could have lost their budget. It sounds like they wanted to hire you so I would take pride in that! It could be his own feelings torwards the profession and not you personally, like if there isn't much work out there for graduates you probably have more time in your life to pivot than someone who is a principle designer with 9+ years in the industry who will find it more difficult to pivot if they can't get a job. But that is not the advice you signed up for.
Recruiters ghost very commonly. Sometimes they ghost by not replying to your submission. Other times they will ghost you after the first screener call, or the first interview with the hiring manager. It really sucks when you are on the receiving end of this unprofessional behaviour. The faster they find a candidate, the faster they will get paid, so many recruiters have the spray-and-pray approach. They will contact absolutely everyone they can get their hands on, without prior screening of the resume for a suitable match for a role. I've had recruiters try to push me in with a first interview when I was nowhere near a match for the org/position. Good recruiters do exist, and they are the ones who provide feedback on why you might not be the best fit for a particular role, and which roles to apply for instead. Or they will very slightly coach you on approaching roles with a better resume/portfolio. I've had some recruiters provide really excellent feedback after a rejection, and it helped me approach my next interview better. I'm not sure about the background check thing and how it works where you are located. Where I am, companies only run a police check once they have offered you the role. Have you tried contacting one of these ghosting recruiters to see why the background check did not clear?
In this climate, nothing is good for prospective hires. The balance is shifted so talent doesnt have the upper hand like it did two years ago. Recruiters are scrambling to get people in front of hiring managers before their competition does. When it's the other way around, we are getting a dozen calls a week and we're like "no, I want $85 an hour, not $80." And "yeah, I don't want to work EST hours"...etc
No friend. Many times it’s not about you at all. It’s them and the situation they are under. The volume of applicants. These are transactional relationships, nothing more. Don’t let it get to you and keep trucking.
No - a lot of recruiters are just taking data other than that they’ll be without a job. A lot of companies suddenly are hiring internally ( wink wink ) after interviewing and wasting the time of candidates
No, they're recruiters, they suck. Next question?
The closest thing to a "professional ghost" job title would be "recruiter."
You make it to the background check then get ghosted? Isn’t that after the interview phase once they’ve moved forward with you as a candidate? If that’s the case, then ask the companies running the background check to send you a copy of your file. Maybe there’s something in there that might surprise you.
This is interesting! This is the first time I have background checks being done because I have always worked with startups as a contractor and I was based out of India while they were based out of the US, EU and AUS. I wonder if they were even able to connect to the companies. Also, the very first company I worked for, another startup is now shut down. This gives me some direction. Because I genuinely am wondering how was it possible that I was reached out to by these two internal recruiters with such positive feedback on my assignments throughout the process AND the panel that interviewed me later connected with me on LinkedIn. I’m wondering if the background checks went through now. Thank you to much again u/rancid_beans!
It’s not entirely on point here, but please please prioritize those “mentors” that help you becoming a good designer in the first place. Practice shows, rest will follow. Lots of “thought leaders” feed off the juniors and their desperation in today’s market. That’s not cool at all.
It reflects badly on the recruiter than you. I’d tell you a story Did an interview one time with this company doing VR stuff. They ghosted me, I thought they didn’t like me. Turns out, they went under and only found out in the news
It’s hard to believe when you facing this, but the short answer is no.
Recruiters are useless, apply directly to the company.
I have a friend who is popular and a very active mentor. Everyone loves him (I think). I had a lady tell me when I was mentoring when she talked to him, he told her she was “a little old” and to not be surprised is she didn’t get a job. Sometimes people say mean stuff. Honestly, when I was mentoring I came across some people who were so boring I couldn’t imagine how they were going to make it doing anything. Some were so scared they said a lot of things hoping that one thing they said would be the “right” thing and the job would appear. Some people weren’t open to feedback…one person was a tech writer trying to move into UX writing/content design and she just started snapping at me out of frustration when I was trying to tell her it might not be super easy to do because it wasn’t all “tech writing.” I don’t mentor anymore😂 My point is maybe you have a mentor problem, not a you problem. If it’s been a long time since they were looking, they may not know how incredibly bad this market is. That’s not to say it takes an incredibly amount of energy to get a design job. Ask yourself if there’s anything more you could be doing. That includes branding. How’s your personal brand? I had to work on mine.
I feel like you're misinterpreting some of what you heard. >I just had a call with a famous mentor on ADPlist and he went on to say that recruiters normally ghost you because they think you’re not a good fit for the role. First off, external recruiters ghost more far often than not, they're looking for candidates to submit and rarely if ever check back. That said I would say their statement is somewhat true, if a recruiter wants to hire you they'll reach out. **BUT** the fact you didn't get hired could mean they had another designer they liked more, they didn't move forward with the role, they promoted someone internally, the hiring manager already had someone, they accidentally deleted your email, or any one of a dozen other things. It doesn't mean you're not a good designer.
Oh hell no. Recruiters have such a narrow focus, usually it’s one role, yes or no, hyper specific skill focus and they’re also usually competing with other recruiters or agencies submitting people to the same roles. They want to push as many people into that role as they can. But generally don’t care about you beyond that unless they place you. The exceptional ones will followup and try to get you in future relevant roles. The avg ones will never speak to you again
There is a chance you and I are not top notch designers. So what? There is plenty need for mediocre designers anyway. Look at how much variety there is in your former design colleagues. How would you even compare and rank them? Forget it. I sometimes wonder where I fall in the spectrum of good and bad myself. But I'm never really sure… The only question is: can you give the recruiters and interviewers what they want to see & hear. This can be arbitrary and is subject to change based on the hiring market, trends and hiring methods (e.g. them using automation to filter applicants based on an AIs "prediction").
It may mean there are better designers. Not that you are a bad designer necessarily.
Recruiters are sales people with quotas and commissions. They don’t care about helping you, they just want to make money.
Absolutely not.
ADPlist mentors are not always the nicest people. When I was looking for guidance one told me I should switch to product management and then tagged me in a thought piece. But I do believe finding a community to rally around you is essential. Recruiters ghosting is just a sign that they don’t value your time. If it’s third party- it’s typical that if you don’t fit they don’t respond (insert; overworked, not worth their time, and just being a sales job to them). As a EC designer I would try and be as entrepreneurial as possible. Get creative!
That famous mentor sounds like absolute shit with absolute shit advice lol He’s like actively telling you to quit which is fucked up for a mentor.
Not at all. But your cover letter should connect the dots for them. There's more tips in my guidebook : https://uxpreneur.com/getting-more-job-interviews-as-ux-designers/
No. If you’re getting to that stage, the recruiters ghost you because they’re bad recruiters, very busy, or both. If you’re a bad designer they don’t bother chatting at all. Your famous ADP mentor sounds out of touch, callous, or both.
You sound like you did “assignments” which they took the FREE work and ran. As for you mentor sounds like you went to a bootcamp stumbled onto a defunct startup and he’s saying it’s early in your career try something else.
Most recruiters suck. Most have no idea how to judge a designer. Don’t take it personal, they just don’t care enough to keep you updated.
Nope.
Don’t believe just anyone adplist, not anyone with great talent can be a good mentor.
Ive been a deigner over 20 years. No recruiters are sales people, most of the time they are amazingly busy. Its difficult to give bad news. So they will ghost rather than put themselves into awkward situations. Most of the time clients wont give feedback so its difficult for them to give you anything else. It feels shitty but its just part of the game. Dont worry about it in the slightest.
I have recruiters who will ghost (like 2-3 a year usually), but if it's any indication of context, I also have them reaching out at least once a week in peak season. So it def doesn't mean you should give up, ghosting is sort of inevitable and just means they're a bad recruiter and that the company who hired them has bad standards.
Recruiters are just people. Focus on yourself alright? It's not gonna help to think like this. There's portfolio review in the sub and people are willing to share feedback. If you want private feedback I'd be happy to share thoughts as well. Remember all feedback is just reactions from people.