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About a year ago I resigned from my ex-employer. After my resignation, my ex-employer hired some new people. As the work load in my new company increases continuously, my new employer decided to hire some new people. A person working for my ex-employer (from those hired right after my departure) sent his resume to my new company. My supervisor consulted me and based on his resume, we mutually decided to interview him. The appointment was set for today, but he never showed up. The administrative assistant kept calling him for a couple of hours but he never answered the calls or called back.

What I suspect is that the candidate checked on LinkedIn the employees of the company (during the weekend) I work for and verified that I had been working for his current employer. Probably he got afraid that he would meet me in the company premises and that I would not keep strict confidentiality (that I would share with my friends in my old company that he got interviewed). Of course, he doesn’t know that I was one of the persons to interview him and selected him for interview.

Is it a good idea to contact him separately on LinkedIn to tell him that he has nothing to be afraid of and confidentially matters are kept strictly, or just to forget about it?

My supervisor suggested the first but he had assumed that I know him better personally (I had just met him once in a friendly visit in my old employer to say hi to my old colleagues). I told him, I do not know him well to do that so.

UPDATE (4 business days later): he has not answered yet my Linkedin invitation to become connected although he viewed my profile...

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  • @user2284570 Administration assistant tried from 9 am to 2 pm
    – Ge Peace
    Nov 6, 2019 at 5:09
  • During only 1 day?
    – user2284570
    Nov 6, 2019 at 7:05
  • @user2284570 yes the day of the interview. According to your scenario, something might have happened and he might be ashamed to to answer a call.
    – Ge Peace
    Nov 6, 2019 at 7:34
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    What would stop you from "ratting" that they set up an interview? I don't see the point of your conclusions. IMHO even assuming he realised you were there it would have been safer for him to show up and explicitly tell you not to speak of the interview with other people at your old company.
    – Giacomo Alzetta
    Nov 6, 2019 at 8:28
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    I've had this happen several times. You shouldn't overthink this and assume this is the reason. Lots of people just ignore you, just like companies ignore applicants.
    – dan-klasson
    Nov 9, 2019 at 10:34

4 Answers 4

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Is it a good idea to contact him separately on LinkedIn to tell him that he has nothing to be afraid of and confidentially matters are kept strictly, or just to forget about it?

You're making a lot of assumptions about this candidate based on nothing more than what you suspect. You need to forget about what you think may have happened and only worry about what actually happened which is:

  • he agreed to interview
  • he did not show up to the interview
  • he did not contact your company in any way for an explanation
  • he is not responding to your attempts to contact him

You can give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he had some crisis or personal matter and give him a day or two to get a hold of him if you'd like. Otherwise, I would chalk this up to unprofessional behavior and simply forget about this candidate.

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    Absolutely; even if you were correct in your assumptions, going dark because you're worried about something is dangerously unprofessional behavior. Your new company probably dodged a bullet here.
    – Dancrumb
    Nov 5, 2019 at 17:01
  • @GePeace The candidate is "going dark" by not showing up for the interview and then not even following up with an explanation. You're under absolutely no obligation to contact him, and doing that simply because you're allowed to store the contact details for 6 months sounds rather stalkerish, especially if you use a different phone number. If you want to contact him, use LinkedIn or send a quick email to check if he's still interested. There's no need to share your theory with him, just act professionally.
    – Llewellyn
    Nov 5, 2019 at 18:58
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    I think a simple contact to confirm whether there was something beyond his control (family medical emergency, etc) that prevented him from attending the interview or phoning in his absence. Short of such a case, I agree with Dancrumb that your current company dodged a bullet.
    – Doktor J
    Nov 5, 2019 at 19:47
  • My paranoia would extend this also to the possibility that the candidate was a plant by the previous company to see if there was evidence of employee pilfering (based on the OP's previous move, for example). It's a bit of a stretch, but not unheard of in my industry, particularly if the two companies have common interests/markets/patents. Confidentiality goes both ways. Occam's Razor would agree with this answer, though. It's more likely the interviewee just didn't turn up because they aren't interested.
    – tudor -Reinstate Monica-
    Nov 7, 2019 at 1:02
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    Yeah, if he lacks the candor to email and say "Thank you for your interest but I must withdraw consideration. All the best in your search" then what's going to happen when he screws up a project and is embarrassed to tell anyone?
    – corsiKa
    Nov 7, 2019 at 4:45
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First, I want to reiterate the point that candidate did not show up for his scheduled interview. Additionally he did not contact the company to cancel. He is also not responding to repeated contact from your company.

My first instinct is that is a sign he is not interested in working there.

However, your suspicions may be right. Then again, they might not. Perhaps he had some sort of emergency. Give it some time. If he does not contact you, then you might consider contacting him. There is nothing unethical about reaching out.

Edit: I want to add one more thing. Even if you were completely correct in your suspicion, do you want to hire someone who handles conflict in this manner?

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  • You may find that contacting the potential interviewee, outside of the interview process, is against GDPR. The data that that interviewee was applying for the job was collected for the explicit purpose of an interview, to then use that data to contact them personally could be frowned upon and cause a potential fine.
    – Draken
    Nov 5, 2019 at 6:51
  • @Draken Oh? Considering this is part of the interview process, I don't think the GDPR is a problem here.
    – Mast
    Nov 5, 2019 at 8:07
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    @Draken: The GDPR does not work like that. The GDPR doesn't even mention interview processes, let alone define their boundaries.
    – MSalters
    Nov 5, 2019 at 9:04
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    @Draken: Indeed. So it doesn't even matter what the boundaries of the interview process are, since the purpose is the same (recruitment) you can contact the interviewee again. You can't contact him for sales purposes, but that's not the question here.
    – MSalters
    Nov 5, 2019 at 9:12
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    @MSalters I disagree, as the OP is talking about contacting someone privately about a subject they only know about due to their current position. They are not contacting them as the business. Whether that is allowed, I don't know but hence why I said you may find it is against GDPR.
    – Draken
    Nov 5, 2019 at 9:17
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I suspect is that the candidate checked on LinkedIn the employees of the company (during the weekend) I work for and verified that I had been working for his current employer.

you also assume he thinks:

that I would not keep strict confidentiality (that I would share with my friends in my old company that he got interviewed)

and you assume that he wants to avoid at all costs his employer finding out he's looking for opportunities.

and you assume that he didn't do the LinkedIn search of the company before applying,

and you assume that ghosting, rather than sending a short "I'm no longer interested in the position, please cancel the scheduled interview. Thank you for your time", is an acceptable reaction in such a scenario.

That's a lot of assumptions.

Here's a far more likely scenario: He sent CVs not just to your company but to others as well, while also negotiating with his current employer. One of these places made an offer. He accepted, so he no longer cares about your company.

Now, if you are desperate to hire the guy to cover a manpower shortage? Sure, go for it, contact him.

But if you're in a normal hiring situation your company can either chose to ignore him, or they can ask him about his wellbeing (to rule out medical or family emergencies).

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Is it a good idea to contact him separately on LinkedIn to tell him that he has nothing to be afraid of and confidentially matters are kept strictly, or just to forget about it?

Would it be a good idea to contact them? No. You're making a lot of assumptions about why they didn't show up, but the bottom line is that it isn't your place to determine why they didn't show up or to coax them into coming in for an interview. People bail out on interviews every day. That's their prerogative.

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