Failing to take a moment to respond to an unsolicited resume is rude enough. But, what of schools that interview a candidate 2 or 3 times, insinuate or make promises & then go radio silent, never to be heard from again?
Despicable behavior such as this, known as ‘ghosting,’ demonstrates a complete lack of professionalism & a complete lack of respect. Most devastating, ghosting leaves candidates floundering. Imagine rejecting an offer from your second-pick school while waiting for a decision from your top-pick school, only to never hear back after 2 encouraging interviews & the promise, “We’ll be in touch.” It happens!
Teachers are sharing recent ghosting experiences on the ISR Member FORUM. They are naming schools & administrators guilty of ghosting. Excerpts from that thread appear here with names withheld. To learn the names of Directors & schools being discussed, log into the ISR Member FORUM & scroll to Schools Ghosting Candidates After Interviews.
K »Ghosting by xxx School has become the norm – even for internal candidates. The HR department is most likely to blame: With a focus on protecting the business, and a decisive voice in who is interviewed and hired, their understanding and support for individuals is woefully lacking. Any candidate applying should be aware that no answer may ever be received…
Zulme »Four schools for me so far that have not replied. One even told me to start getting my paperwork together, unofficially. Never heard back! It’s distressing to not have any job prospects. 😦
sciteach12 »Like most of us here … I’ve had what I thought was great interviews and was told that ‘We will be in touch.’ I’ve contacted them after a week and got no response. This has happened both in Skype interviews and at job fairs. I flip it with this idea: If they don’t contact you now then what would it be like to work there?
member101 »Interviewed and Ghosted by 3 schools in my career so far: 1. xxx 2. xxx 3. xxx
Kim »Just thought I’d add here my most demeaning incidence of ghosting…Search Associates Bangkok Fair in 2018: I interviewed with xxx, the Head of xxx International School.
We had our initial interview, which went tremendously well….so much so that xxx rearranged the interview following my time slot so we could have more time to chat. The second Interview went just as well as the first, and at the end I was told… “You need to speak with my head of humanities, but if the conversation goes as I think it will, then our next conversation will be about the paperwork.” He asked me would I be in the following day, the final day of the fair? I said I had no appointments lined up but I would, of course, be more than happy to come in. He asked me to wait in the candidate’s lounge and he would make contact by mid-morning. I waited in that lounge from 8 am to 4 pm and he made no contact whatsoever either by email or in person. I emailed him to follow up and received no reply. I never heard from the man again. So yes, Mr. xxx, Head of xxx International School….if you ever read this….%#$#!# you!
readmore »Happened to me and my spouse. We both had 2 interviews and a mini lesson with the HOS and a panel interview over 3 weeks, then nothing. I emailed them to inquire 2 weeks later. Waited another 2 weeks; still nothing. I posted a review of the HOS (I just said something like ‘FYI this school/director will ghost you’). ONE DAY after it posted, he sent me a 5 paragraph email, cc’ing my spouse, his principals, the panel and his school board where he went ON and ON about how terrible he was, how much work he had on his plate, but how that was no excuse for not replying, he should be more organized, and more kind, and more professional…seriously. It went on for 5 paragraphs. Then, in the last line, he said, “But you still shouldn’t have posted on ISR.” I never replied.
Markus »Ok, just to summarize; So far we have a list of 10 Administrators and/or schools who have been named, who have willfully ghosted candidates after interviews. They are as follows:
To learn the names of Directors & schools being discussed, log into the ISR Member FORUM. Then scroll to
Schools Ghosting Candidates After Interviews.
Comments? Please scroll down to participate in this ISR Discussion
ISR Discussion Boards 
Two schools in Qatar. Both interviewed me. One school had me have an initial meeting with HR to discuss suitability, then an interview with head of primary and two others. They insisted on a lesson observation or video. Finally they wanted an interview with the Head of school. No final response or information. These schools forget that I am interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me. Ham***on school and the new school at the pearl, thanks but no thanks.
LikeLike
Need to polish your skills and up your game mate. Whining on ISR won’t help much.. 🙂
LikeLike
GM….ISR is a school review site aimed at discussing various experiences, both positive and negative, and helping colleagues avoid the bad schools and focus on how to improve their job search techniques. Comments like yours do little to advance that mission and in fact, telling your colleagues to stop “whining” is the sign of an arrogant, indifferent administrator or “teacher” who is a smart-ass and is looking for badly needed attention. Go polish up your people skills and avoid disgracing yourself on ISR.
LikeLike
North London Collegiate Jeju. Was flown there over night , accommodation not ready, didn’t get any rest. Did a show class later that day. Flew back. Never heard from them again. 2012
LikeLike
ISB (Bangkok) and SJI International, Singapore. So much for being elite schools. They didn’t even have the courtesy of notifying me even after attending two interviews.
LikeLike
Yup
ISB Hi-So snobbery is the norm. Never received one reply from them in over 20 years of applying for positions for which I was a match. Zero response. Nothing. Absolutely shameful behavior.
LikeLike
It is a shame you had a bad experience with ISB (Banngkok). They were one of the most professional organizations I have ever dealt with. Regular communication on the process when it was delayed and professional throughout. My interactions were with Justyna McMillan and in the fall of 2021.
LikeLike
The American International School in Japan about 8 years ago. The former principal interviewed me by phone. Then he said he was flying to Doha for an event at his previous school and could I travel to Doha to interview with him? I said I could be at the Bangkok fair in 2 weeks because I didn’t want to leave my current school without a teacher for the 2 days it would take to go to Doha and back . Principal said, “Sure, we can meet at Bangkok.” So, at the Bangkok fair, I approached the table and the Director looked surprised. Director said, “Didn’t he tell you? He hired someone that he met while at the airport”. I’m not complaining that I didn’t get hired. School can hire whomever they want. I AM complaining the school, after my 1st interview, was so rude as to not let me know the position had been filled. What if I had spent the ton of money to fly to Doha on the whim of a principal who makes a lot more money than a teacher and he still hired someone else? Personally I think if a school interviews a candidate, that school has an obligation to email candidates when the position is filled. If a school doesn’t interview a candidate then there is no obligation other than to acknowledge receipt of application.
LikeLike
I completely agree, but a universal protocol for responding to applications does not exist YET, at the international schools level. Nor do ethical and moral restraints exist in far too many so-called “international” for-profit and OM schools. Even Embassy schools and non-profits fail to respect their candidates on occasion. I have already suggested that ISR add such a protocol to their Charter of rights they published a few years ago and promulgate that protocol to as many schools as they can. We can’t force them to be civilized and polite but we can educate them on how to respect their candidates. Imagine if these schools treated their parents and students like they treat us! They’d be closed in a year!
Basically we’re just showcase English-speaking hires and easily replaced peons for many of them. Far too often, the owners or directors aren’t educators but entrepreneurs who see us as necessary costs, not people.
LikeLike
We should all remember, if we use a placement service like Search or UNI, for example, our “agent or representative” is obliged to contact their “client school” and ask about your status as a candidate. If you don’t use a placement service, then ensuring you do your due diligence and also getting numerous contact numbers at the school will help you get an answer, one way or the other. Also be aware that our recruitment service representative is interested in placing us, asap, since they usually only get paid when that happens, so they are often more interested in their client school than us. There are few protections and even less integrity in the international arena so don’t expect standards to be high when dealing with so-called “international” schools.
LikeLike
Ghosting is happening all over the world, and it is a serious problem in the United States. I am not sure it is because millennials are coming of age, and societal norms have changed since.
LikeLike
SEARCH does not follow-up with schools. The SEARCH associate Sally Gordon always told me to contact them myself. There was such a glut of candidates, SEARCH got paid no matter what and had little interest in facilitating placement. In the early 90’s there were few candidates and SEARCH was very much interested in candidates well being and placement process.
LikeLike
Anonymous…..All recruitment agencies will follow up IF you insist they do. I forced my Search “associate” to follow up twice and he did it, but reluctantly. UNI were less resistant. You are absolutely right about their indifference to their candidates, and from firsthand experience, I can attest to their lack of support. They get paid no matter what so we should insist they support us, no matter what. They don’t like negative publicity and being exposed as less than enthusiastic with their candidates, so we must put the pressure on. It worked for me.
LikeLike
I have been using Carney, Sandoe, and Associates, and I still get ghosted. Recruitment firms on this side of the world don’t follow up with schools. That said, using recruiters to promote you does not work.
LikeLike
Laurel….I can only speak from my experiences with recruiters. Whenever I signed onto a recruiter, regardless of what they pretend to offer, I always stipulated in writing that I wanted them to be the go to between me and their client schools. Often they would say that was my job but I am insistent bugger and made them agree to be the contact point by reminding them what bad publicity could do. It usually worked, since I also had a long list of friends in overseas schools to warn.
LikeLike
I always get “We have decided to go in another direction.” What…were they lost to begin with? Another direction???? Do they need a road map? I didn’t know I was a direction.
LikeLike
I like you have such a great senses humor! At least you got a response. Ghosting is when a potential employer or some cases an employee gives the impression that they are serious and then disappears without a trace.
LikeLike
At least you get a reply…..ghosting someone is far worse. Saying they wish to go in another direction is a polite way of binning your application without saying honestly that you didn’t fit their needs. Why not just say that and be done. Don’t forget, you don’t get la crème de la crème of administrators overseas since many could not make it or succeed in their home countries!
LikeLike
I got ghosted by North London Collegiate School Singapore. After an extended interview and the promise of hearing from them within a week, I heard nothing back. When I emailed them to ask about my interview feedback, no reply. Strangely I was then contacted by their sister school in South Korea (2 months later) and asked to interview with them.
LikeLike
British International School, Riyadh – Diplomatic Quarter. It’s a new campus and there have been a couple of less than positive reviews posted on this site recently.
Firstly they were late to start the online interview, with me sitting with a spinning wheel on my screen, emailing to work out what was going on. Then when I was having the interview the head was often muted while I was answering the questions, with their head turned talking to somebody else in the room – awful conduct; the questions themselves were often cryptic as if designed to trip you up and make the interviewer look informed and me stupid. I then heard nothing back for weeks and had to chase up through the recruitment site which they used before getting a fairly snotty excuse and confirmation that I hadn’t been selected.
Totally unimpressive.
LikeLike
I was ghosted by the International School of Jakarta, after a long phone interview where they said they’d be sending me a preliminary contract proposal within the week. Three weeks later, nothing so I called the original interviewer and he said they’d found someone better (cheaper?) and hung up. Glad I dodged that bullet.
LikeLike
You have such a positive attitude. And I want to thank you for your kind words. I could not reply to your other post , for some reason. Yes, I have been ghosted over a hundred times, and I am not being hyperbolic. It is terrible on this dude of the pond as well. I don’t understand this ghosting business— all extremely weird.
I am thinking of starting my own business so I don’t have to deal with emotional abuse anymore
LikeLike
This happened with oeiras international school in Portugal. I interviewed with them and was told I would hear back from them within 24 hours. They never contacted me.
LikeLike
Internatuonal School of Osaka ghosted me
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wellington Shanghai, very eager to interview quickly but then completely ghost you. I then reached out for feedback and only then did they tell you that they are no mr proceeding. I know of a few people this has happened too.
LikeLike
That’s surprising considering how hard it is to get teachers in China at the moment.
LikeLike
I am delighted to see there is an open discussion about ghosting. I want to let everyone know that it is happening in the US as well. I had my third round with a school located in Marin County, CA. I was advised to look for housing in X cities. Thought they were serious. They love bombed me as well. Told me they would get back but never did.
I am always getting ghosted. Always. The incident from the school in California is one of the many. I am extremely depressed as I feel hopeless, and I can’t trust anyone now. And I am certainly not happy educators are behaving so poorly. It is one thing if a large corporation ghosts but educators should be role models in society.
LikeLike
Don’t get discouraged Laurel just because a few schools lack the savoir vivre to at least respond. Consider that you’ve dodged a bullet and that you’ll find the right opportunity if you do two things energetically and aggressively: your due diligence by asking to speak to a staff member immediately, once the interviewer shows interest and mention that, should they fail to get back in touch, regardless of their decision, you’ll be in touch regardless of their indifference. They’ll get the message and realize that they may not be serious but you are.
LikeLike
I once got ghosted by the British School of Alexandria. Had a first round interview and never heard back from them again. I consider that to be completely disrespectful, especially if you have given up your time and answered personal, probing and challenging questions. The least they owe you, even if you did terribly in the interview, is an email along the lines of “you have not been successful”. Of course if a school neglects basic etiquette at the interview stage then it means you don’t want to work for them anyway because it shows how inconsiderate HR and the senior leadership likely are.
LikeLiked by 1 person