Ghosting has glided into the workplace
There are many awful things that I would like to think I would never do at work. High on the list would be interviewing someone repeatedly for a job and never getting back to let them know they haven’t got it.我想，有很多恶劣的事是我在工作中永远不会做的。排在最前面的是反复面试一个岗位的求职者，却从来不回过头来让他们知道，他们没有得到这份工作。
I know a lot of people who have suffered this treatment but I was astonished to learn last week that things have flipped. Companies hunting for workers are finding candidates who sail through interviews and background checks, then abruptly cut off contact when an offer is made, or vanish after accepting a job.我知道很多人都有过这种遭遇，但上周我惊讶地了解到，事情发生了翻转。正在招聘人员的公司发现，有的候选人通过了面试和背景调查，但在拿到聘书之后突然失联，或在接受工作之后突然消失了。

This oafish behaviour is driving companies “crazy”, according to an account LinkedIn published the other day that suggested the problem is surging in fields from software and finance to food service. 根据领英(LinkedIn)不久前发布的一份报告，这种糟糕的行为让公司“发疯”。该报告还指出，这一问题正在从软件、金融到食品服务的众多行业急剧增加。
At first I thought this sounded like utter rubbish. So did the first two colleagues I mentioned it to at work, both of whom had suffered a crushing silence from organisations that had interviewed them for a job — three times in one case — then left them hanging with no word ever after.一开始我觉得这听起来简直是一派胡言。上班时最先听我讲这件事的两位同事也这么觉得，他们都遭遇过公司在面试他们之后便无声无息，让他们悬着心的那种令人难受的沉默——有一家公司还面试了三次。
If the tables had really turned, I thought it could only be in pockets of a country like the US, where the unemployment rate has sunk to an 18-year low and tech titans are hoovering up software engineers and other coveted workers by the planeload.如果情况真的发生了逆转，我认为它只能发生在像美国这样的国家——失业率已经降至18年来的低点，科技巨头们正在大批大批地抢走软件工程师和其他令企业趋之若鹜的人才。

I was wrong. When I asked around in the UK, where unemployment is at its lowest in over 40 years, I found a surprising number of victims of what is known in the online dating world as “ghosting”: sudden radio silence from a person you’ve been seeing.我错了。当我在英国四处打听——英国的失业率也处于40多年来的最低水平——我发现，成为网上约会世界广为人知的“幽灵”（你一直联系的一个人突然间进入无线电静默）的受害者的人数之多令人震惊。
One person said that twice this year he thought he had recruited a software engineer, only to have each candidate cease all contact as soon as a formal offer letter was sent. Another had spoken to a successful applicant the day before he was due to start his new job, then found that he had vanished. Not even the recruitment industry is immune. One person told of a candidate disappearing — after agreeing to become a digital recruiter.一名人士表示，今年他曾两次认为自己招到了一名软件工程师，但在正式的录用通知书发出后，两位求职者都立即停止了所有联系。另一位人士与一位成功应聘者在其预定开始新工作的前一天还联系过，然后就发现他失踪了。就连招聘行业也无法幸免。一位人士说，有位求职者在同意成为公司的数字招聘人员后就消失了。

But back on LinkedIn, flummoxed executives from Canada, Scotland and beyond said the problem was not confined to the tech industry. One man I tracked down, a commercial director in Oxford, told me he had arranged interviews a few weeks ago with five promising candidates for a proposal writing job paying up to £40,000, only one of whom bothered to turn up.但再回到领英，来自加拿大、苏格兰和其他地区倍受困惑的高管们表示，这个问题并不局限于科技行业。我一直跟踪的一个人，一位来自牛津的商业主管告诉我，为了招聘一位薪水高达4万英镑的企划书撰写人，他几周前安排对五位很有希望的候选人进行面试，但只有其中一人赏脸前来参加。
“It was a bit of a shock,” said Pete Moores of the Oxentia consultancy. One of the missing candidates was eventually found, but the other three just vanished. “I’ve never experienced this before and I’ve worked in this field since 2001,” he said.“这有点让人震惊，”咨询公司Oxentia的皮特•穆尔斯(Pete Moores)说。其中一名失联的候选人最终被找到，但另外三位却就此消失了。“我从2001年起就在这个领域工作，我以前从未经历过这种情况，”他说。

Jeanette Mash, a recruitment consultant on the island of Jersey (population 105,000) told me about a job hunter in the finance industry who approached her about a month ago. The pair met up. The candidate seemed keen, so an interview was arranged with a firm that had a “really good position”. But on the day of the scheduled meeting, the applicant failed to show. Emails, calls, texts and eventually Facebook searches failed to produce a body. “It was bizarre,” said Ms Mash, adding she never expected to see such behaviour in a place as small as Jersey. 泽西岛（人口为10.5万）的招聘顾问珍妮特•马什(Jeanette Mash)告诉我，大约一个月前，一位金融业的求职者找到了她。两人见了一次面。这位求职者似乎是求职心切，所以，她安排该求职者去一家拥有“很好职位”的公司去面试。但在预定面试的当天，这位求职者没有露面。电子邮件、电话、短信以及最终的Facebook搜索都找不到踪影。“这太奇怪了，”马什说，她从来没想过在泽西岛这样一个小地方会出现这种行为。

Another woman in London said the health store she worked at had just hired a young woman as a trainee supervisor who had vanished without a word a few weeks later. “I never did something so disrespectful at that age and doubt I ever will,” said Avril Coelho. Nor do I. Yet not all these ghosters are young. So what is going on? Why would anyone risk ending up on a company’s blacklist by behaving so atrociously? 伦敦的另一名女士说，她工作的那家保健品店刚刚雇用了一名年轻女士当实习主管，几周后，她一声不吭就消失了。“在那个年纪，我从来没有过如此无礼的行为，并且相信我永远也不会这么做，”艾薇儿•科埃略(Avril Coelho)说。我也不会。但这些“幽灵”并不全都是年轻人。那到底是怎么回事呢？为什么有人会冒着被公司列入黑名单的风险，做出如此恶劣的行为呢？

Perhaps applicants are so fed up with being treated as if they barely exist that they now respond in kind. Maybe younger people who have only known a tight jobs market don’t understand the importance of professional behaviour. Or have we become so used to anonymous online contact that we forget there are humans on the other side of the screen? 也许申请人已经受够了别人对待他们的那种几乎是视而不见的态度，所以他们现在也以同样的态度来回应。也许，那些只知道就业市场紧张的年轻人不明白职业行为的重要性。或者，我们已经习惯了以匿名方式在线联系，以至于忘记了屏幕的另一边还有人？
I have no idea. What I do know is that none of this is an excuse for what is ultimately simple rudeness. Turning people down is always awkward. No one likes to do it. But it is a fact of working life and no one, job hunter or hirer, should ever dream of skipping it. 我也不知道。但我所知道的是，这一切都不是最终采取简单粗暴行为的借口。拒绝别人总是很尴尬。没有人喜欢这样做。但这就是真实的职场生活，任何人，不论是求职者还是招聘者，都不应该梦想着跳过这一步。