I keep hearing more and more horror stories from people who are looking for work and being completely messed around by prospective employers.
It’s made me think a lot about the link between the recruitment process and workplace culture, and the message these employers are sending before someone has even stepped inside their organisation.
And it’s more than just a slow reply or the occasional delay.
People are going through four, five, sometimes even more interview rounds. They’re being asked to complete presentations, case studies or strategy exercises, many of which take hours to prepare. Then they wait weeks for an update, only to find out the role has been paused or cancelled… or worse, they never hear anything at all.
These aren’t isolated incidents anymore. They’re becoming a pattern. I’m hearing more stories like this than I’m hearing the opposite.
And these kinds of patterns are often pointing to something deeper and much more concerning than just a few recruitment process issues.
At some point, you have to ask the question.
What might this recruitment process be telling me about how this organisation operates?
The Emotional Toll Nobody Acknowledges
A lot of people going through this aren’t just casually browsing jobs.
They’re coming out of redundancy.
They’re trying to leave environments that have already drained them.
They’re financially stretched.
They’re rebuilding confidence after burnout.
So when the recruitment process itself feels chaotic or dismissive, it doesn’t just feel inconvenient, it affects the candidate experience in a very real way.
After enough of it, people start second guessing everything.
Maybe I’m not good enough.
Maybe I’m expecting too much.
Maybe this is just how work is now.
And that’s where this becomes more than a hiring issue, it becomes a human one.
If You’re Being Treated This Way
If you’re in the middle of this right now, I want to be very clear about something:
A poor recruitment experience is not a reflection of your worth.
It does tell you something about the organisation at that point in time, whether that’s poor communication, unclear decision-making, competing priorities or a lack of respect for candidates.
A workplace that treats you badly before you even work there is giving you data. Not nice data, not easy data, but useful data – because many of these behaviours are actually hiring process red flags.
If they don’t respect your time, communicate clearly, or follow through on what they say during the stage where they’re trying to attract you, that tells you something.
Because the recruitment process and workplace culture are not completely separate things.
The hiring process is often your first real experience of what it feels like to deal with that organisation, and if it already feels disorganised, unclear, or dismissive – there’s a decent chance that carries through internally.
That doesn’t mean every imperfect process equals a toxic workplace culture, but patterns tell a story. And too many people ignore those patterns because they need the opportunity.
I get that, but basic respect is not a luxury – it should be the baseline.
What Workplaces Need to Understand
This is the part many organisations need to hear.
Your recruitment process is not just admin.
It’s not just HR’s job.
It’s not just a funnel to move people through.
It’s one of the clearest expressions of your workplace culture. Every single interaction shapes the candidate experience.
When you ghost candidates, you send a message.
When you delay decisions without communication, you send a message.
When you ask candidates to spend hours completing work that closely resembles real business tasks, you send a message.
When you drag people through endless rounds of interviews without clarity, you send a message.
And that message is often far louder than anything written on your careers page.
Culture is not what you say. It’s what people experience.
What Better Workplaces Actually Do
You don’t need a perfect recruitment process, but you do need a respectful one.
And even if you don’t think of it as part of your formal recruitment process, if you are interviewing someone, be a decent human being. Treat them with respect. Don’t ghost them. Keep them updated. Be honest. Don’t give them false hope just because it feels easier in the moment.
Remember that people looking for work are often not coming from a neutral emotional baseline. They may be anxious, financially stressed, recovering from redundancy, trying to leave a difficult workplace, or rebuilding confidence after burnout. A little kindness and clarity can make a bigger difference than you realise.
Be clear about the role, salary range, and what the process will involve.
Set expectations early and stick to them where possible.
Communicate when things change.
Keep interview rounds focused and purposeful.
Respect people’s time and energy.
Close the loop properly, even when the answer is no.
And if you’re asking candidates to do substantial work, be honest with yourself about whether it’s really necessary or just convenient. Because from the outside, it often looks like free labour.
How you treat people in these moments says more about your organisation than you might realise.
The Bigger Issue Underneath It All
Some organisations have become so focused on efficiency, cost cutting, and performance that they’ve lost sight of the human experience entirely.
In other cases, a poor recruitment experience may reflect competing priorities, restructuring, or poor planning rather than the broader workplace culture.
Either way, candidates still experience the consequences.
Hiring becomes transactional.
Candidates become interchangeable.
And in some places, there’s an unspoken attitude that people should feel lucky to even be considered.
That’s where toxic workplace culture starts to reveal itself early.
The irony is that organisations often spend a lot of time trying to attract the right talent, while overlooking the fact that their own recruitment process may be pushing good people away.
The strongest organisations understand that candidate experience is an extension of their reputation. And yet plenty of workplaces still behave as though recruitment is just a process to manage, rather than a human experience that people will remember.
Research from groups like the Society for Human Resource Management has found that a positive candidate experience can improve how an employer brand is perceived, reduce candidate ghosting, and strengthen an organisation’s ability to fill workforce gaps.
In other words, how you treat candidates doesn’t stay contained within recruitment – it ripples outward.
Final Thoughts
People are no longer just looking for a salary. They’re looking for environments where they can function, contribute, and stay mentally well.
Your recruitment process is often the first experience people have of your culture.
If a workplace can’t show basic respect before someone is even hired, it’s worth considering what that might look like once you’re inside.
Sometimes rejection hurts.
Sometimes it saves you.
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