We have all been there. Every time I have to open LinkedIn I see the stories. The template rejection email arrives at two in the morning. Thanks for your application, we have decided not to proceed, we wish you well in your search. No feedback. No context. No indication of whether you were close or completely wrong for the role. Just a copy-paste sent at a time when nobody is awake, as if the hour makes the impersonality easier to swallow — but at least you get some form of acknowledgement. At least you know.
Let us not get started on the companies that hoover up CVs while pretending to hire, doing it only to look active.
Newton's Third Law. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. Someone forgot to tell the hiring process. The energy goes in — the preparation, the research, the interview, the follow-up — and nothing comes back. Not even the most basic courtesy of a response. The universe, it turns out, does not always balance.
And behind all of it: the anxiety. The constant checking of emails. The brief lift when something arrives — and the deflation when it turns out to be anything other than the message you were waiting for. That is what this actually costs. Not just time and effort. The quiet toll of hope repeatedly disappointed.
These days it is becoming increasingly common to hear nothing at all. Complete radio silence. Not just sending an application into the void — that is understandable at volume. This is having at least one interview. Getting positive signals. Being told the call went well. And then nothing. Rude? Undoubtedly. Weird? Possibly. Sign of the times.
When I was recruiting — and I have been, properly, at scale — the people who did not make it to the final stage got a proper email. Not a template. A reason. Something specific, something honest, something that respected the fact that they had taken time to apply. Anyone we interviewed had a response within twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Every time. It might not have been what they wanted to hear and it might occasionally have been wrong — but it was there. It is not complicated. It is just manners.
(And why do you need more than two rounds, by the way? Why does a hiring decision require three, four, five interviews? What are you actually learning in rounds three through five that you did not learn in round two? But that is a separate argument.)
That is the baseline. What follows is what happens when even that baseline disappears.
There is a song by The Smiths called Work Is A Four Letter Word. It was their cover of a Cilla Black track, it was largely regarded as a throwaway, and it is widely credited as one of the reasons Johnny Marr finally decided he had had enough. Morrissey wanted to record it. Marr did not. The band ended shortly afterwards.
I have been thinking about it a lot recently. Not because of the Smiths (as I always think about them), but because of the way professional work — actual work, delivered work, work that took time and expertise and care — is increasingly treated as if it costs nothing. As if asking someone to produce it is a favour being done to them. As if acknowledging receipt is optional.
Four stories. Eighteen months. None of them unique, which is the most depressing part.
OneThe automotive industry
The role appealed immediately. The pitch was straightforward: a platform that handled the daily basics of SEO for businesses — the kind of tool that, done correctly, frees clients to focus on either their core business or engage at a higher strategic level. I have seen this model work well. I was interested.
As part of the process I was asked to perform a full audit on a potential client's website. About a week's turnaround, falling partly over a holiday period. Fine. I did it properly — technical findings, content recommendations, a framework for guiding the client through the fundamentals in a way that would make their SEO sustainable rather than a series of crises. Not everything, because at some point you still have to pay for the time. But thorough, considered and presented clearly.
The interview started. The MD stopped me within a few minutes.
The technical errors had already been identified and fixed. "What else is there?" I moved on to the content recommendations. Already scheduled in. "What else is in here?" Then: "I'm a bit disappointed — I wanted a full audit we could present to the client and win their business."
A bit disappointed.
I had spent several days on an audit where the recommendations were apparently already being actioned before I walked into the room. My process, my framework, everything else in the document — ignored. And the expectation, never communicated before the interview, was that I would produce a client pitch deck on spec, without any indication of a job offer, without any agreement about what the work was actually for.
I can live with abrupt. I can live with a difficult conversation. This one was simply awkward — the goalposts had moved before I had even walked onto the pitch, and nobody had thought to mention it. I did not hear back. After a week I sent a fairly direct email asking where things stood. Eventually an apology arrived. By that point it was difficult to see why it was worth offering.
TwoThe worldwide security company
Three rounds. Three separate conversations with three separate people. Questions about keywords. Questions about meta tags. Questions that would have felt dated in 2005 — delivered in 2025 with complete confidence, as if the person asking genuinely believed they were testing expertise rather than revealing the limits of their own.
After the third round I waited. Heard nothing. Sent a follow-up email asking politely where things stood. No response. Not a rejection, not a holding note, not even an automated acknowledgement. Just silence from a company large enough to know better.
Three rounds of your time. Zero minutes of courtesy.
ThreeAn agency in the South of England
This one falls squarely under the Weird category.
The initial call with one of the owners did not exactly set the pulse racing. It felt less like an interview and more like they were trying to work out what role they actually wanted — and had decided to involve me in their thought process while they figured it out. Slightly odd. I was not particularly enthused afterwards.
Then the day after: could I speak urgently to one of the Heads of — limited availability, only a few days to arrange it? Odd, but also encouraging. Clearly his opinion carried weight.
The call with the Head of was stranger still. He essentially spent it selling the company to me and asking what I could bring. It was left with arranging to meet one of the owners in person, and I left with a genuine tinge of excitement about what I might be able to contribute.
Met the MD for a coffee. Good conversation — or so it seemed. A beer followed. It would have been rude not to. Then, mid-drink: we are having our Manchester office opening party this evening, do you want to come along?
I went. Of course I went. A room full of people, a drink pressed into my hand, good energy. Left feeling like something might actually come of it. Thought: well, that was a genuinely enjoyable evening and this might be the start of something.
Never heard from them again.
Not a message. Not an email. Nothing. An entire evening — travel, time, genuine engagement — and then nothing. I do not know whether the role was filled, cancelled, or whether I was ever seriously considered. I have no idea, because they did not tell me. And no, I was not drunk. Or rude.
FourThe former colleague
This one stings the most, because it came from someone I knew. We had worked together years ago at an agency. He came out of nowhere — a message out of the blue, warm, catching up, how are things. Then: I am getting a lot of pressure from clients about AI and GEO and all of that. I think we could work together on this. Are you interested?
I was. So I put together a thirty-slide deck. Not a rough outline — a proper piece of work covering where AI search actually is, what the data shows, what it means for organic strategy and what clients should actually be doing rather than panicking about. Then I did a full review of his agency website — content gaps, structural issues, the lot. Sent it over.
Got a thanks. But then nothing.
Thirty slides and a website review, produced because someone I trusted asked me to. He had the work. He had the answers. So I followed up — could we have a call to go through it, discuss next steps, work out where this goes? No response. Followed up again. Still nothing. No explanation. No "not right now." Nothing.
The thanks made it worse, not better. It confirmed he had seen everything. He just could not find the time to tell me what he intended to do with it — or whether he intended to do anything at all.
To be fair
I have had my own shockers. Interviews where I was not the right fit and probably knew it before I walked in. Introductions that were never going to become working relationships and both sides could sense it within ten minutes. These things happen and there is no dishonesty in them.
The best example of how it should work: an interview years ago at a well-known London media agency for a role I was not suitable for. About fifteen minutes in we both looked at each other, shrugged, said something to the effect of "well, never mind" and shook hands on the way out. No drama. No follow-up process. No pretending. Two adults recognising the obvious and parting without wasting any more of each other's time. That is the standard. It is not a high bar.
There was also an American agency earlier this year. Their process involved something closer to a final university exam than a job application — a multi-part written submission covering how you would approach content strategy, technical SEO, reporting, the lot. Not a CV and a cover letter. Not even a structured case study. A couple of days of work, unpaid, before they had spoken to you properly. I emailed them after about ten minutes of reading the brief. Something like: I am going to save us both some time here. This is not a serious process. You need to reconsider this because you are just wasting people's time.
Never heard back, which was rather the point.
What this is actually about
It is tempting to frame this as a job market problem, or a post-pandemic communications problem, or a generational thing. It is none of those. It is a respect problem.
When someone delivers work — real work, not a speculative chat, not a fifteen-minute call — they have spent something that cannot be returned. Time. Expertise. Attention. The minimum acknowledgement of that is a response. Not a job offer, not a contract, not even positive feedback. Just: I received this, thank you, here is where things stand.
The hiring process is also, it turns out, a preview of the working relationship. An agency that ghosts candidates is an agency that ghosts clients. A company that asks three rounds of questions and cannot find the time to send a rejection email does not value people's time — anyone's time. An MD who invites you to a party and disappears will do the same when a project gets difficult.
None of this is new. But it does seem to be getting worse. And for those of us who take the work seriously — who produce the audit properly, who build the deck to the standard it deserves, who show up to the party in Manchester — it is worth saying out loud.
Work is a four letter word. Treat it like one and eventually the people worth working with will stop showing up.
It is the hope that kills you.