Ghosted by a Vet Practice? There’s a Website for That.
Veterinary employers have long complained about applicants disappearing during the hiring process. Now, candidates who are ghosted after an interview have websites where they can publicly report the employer.
This week, Dr. Ernie Ward and Beckie Mossor, MPA, RVT, explore what these anonymous reporting sites reveal about hiring culture in the U.S., and perhaps in veterinary medicine.
Beckie explains why silence after an interview can create more than frustration. Candidates may put other opportunities on hold because they believe a decision is still pending. Ernie argues that while practices may not owe every applicant a personal response, anyone who has invested time in an interview deserves a clear and timely answer.
They discuss the risks of unverified online reports, when a simple email is enough, and why post-interview communication should be part of every practice’s hiring process. They also offer practical advice for candidates handling rejection without damaging future opportunities.
In a small profession, failing to respond doesn’t just end one conversation. It can affect a practice’s reputation and cost it a strong future hire.
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Summary of: You Ghosted a Candidate. Now There's a Website for That.
We've all heard about job seekers ghosting employers. But what happens when the practice does the ghosting?
This week on The Veterinary Viewfinder, Dr. Ernie Ward and Beckie Mossor, MPA, RVT, dig into a LinkedIn post Beckie came across about a growing category of websites built for a single purpose: naming employers who interview candidates and then go silent. The reports are anonymous. There's no obvious vetting. And for veterinary practices, that's a reputational exposure most owners and managers haven't considered.
Beckie's first reaction wasn't outrage. It was a question: what if employers did the same thing to the people who ghosted them? Ernie has heard those stories too, including the practice that hired someone who simply never showed up and never responded again. Ghosting runs in both directions.
But the conversation lands somewhere more uncomfortable and more honest. Beckie admits she has ghosted interviewees herself as a practice manager, not out of malice, but because telling someone they didn't get the job is genuinely hard. What she understands now is the real cost of that silence. Candidates who believe they're still in the running often pause their search and hold off on other opportunities.
You could really affect them economically and emotionally.
— Beckie Mossor, MPA, RVT
Ernie has been making a version of this argument in print and lectures since the early 2000s. His practice drew a clear line, and it's a line worth borrowing. At the application and phone-screen stage, candidates were told up front: we'll reach out if we're interested. After a face-to-face interview, the obligation flips. Both sides have now invested real time and real money, and the employer owes a timely response.
The usual defense is that managers are stretched too thin. Beckie makes that case fairly, then dismantles it. A canned email, a template, a blind-copied list of names, none of it requires the dreaded phone call where you hear the disappointment in someone's voice. In a culture of constant text, email, and instant reply, the excuse has gotten thinner, and the expectation of a response has gotten higher.
How much should you actually say? Here, Ernie channels Bud Powell, the attorney who shaped much of his early career: never explain more than you have to. A brief, courteous note that the practice is moving in another direction is enough. Detailed reasons don't help the candidate nearly as much as they expose the employer.
Candidates get direct advice too. Be gracious when the answer is no, because the ungracious responses are the ones hiring managers remember years later. Don't call every week. Don't call back demanding to know why. A check-in six months or a year down the road is a different story, and it has worked.
Ernie also makes the case for building some armor. Before veterinary medicine, he auditioned for plays and television, fifteen or twenty reads during his busiest stretch when he was doing more television, with nothing to show for most of them. Rejection is a skill, and it's rarely the verdict on you that it feels like in the moment.
Then Beckie delivers the argument most likely to change an employer's behavior on Monday morning. Your new hire doesn't work out. Someone resigns. You reach for the two or three strong candidates you already interviewed and already liked — and realize you never called any of them back.
It's a burnt bridge in a very small community.
— Beckie Mossor, MPA, RVT
Ernie's fix is unglamorous and effective: write it down. Around 1997, he put the practice's hiring communication process into the employee manual, which forced him to decide what the standard actually was and to tell every manager and team leader how it would work. Good intentions drift. An SOP holds.
Because the era of venting to a small circle is over. Employers are now searchable, and the way a practice treats people it doesn't hire is increasingly part of its reputation for hiring anyone at all.
Have you been ghosted after an interview, or been on the other side of it? Tell us how you handle it, and share your advice for colleagues still stinging from a rejection. Find us on Facebook and Instagram @VeterinaryViewfinder or email veterinaryviewfinder@gmail.com.
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