You crushed the interview, then heard nothing. Here's what to do next.

• Should you reach out if you get ghosted after an interview? We asked career coaches and recruiters.
• While two job coaches said it's a waste of time, one recruiter encouraged candidates to do so.
• A recruiting leader at Zapier shared a template you can send if you do decide to follow up.

Getting ghosted is all too common when submitting job apps — but the silence feels even louder when you don't hear back after an interview.

After all, if you've taken the time and effort to prepare, the least a company can do is send a rejection note once they hire someone else, right?

While it may be best practice to let candidates know where they stand, sometimes hiring managers let follow-ups "slip through the cracks," said Bonnie Dilber, a recruiting leader at Zapier. Recruiters might accidentally archive everyone from the role once they've filled it, she said.

"It's general disorganization. It's not someone trying to be cruel," Dilber said.

What should you do if it happens to you? Is it a good idea to follow up with the company if you haven't heard anything for weeks? Or is it best to stay quiet?

To respond or not respond

Two job coaches told Business Insider that candidates should not waste their time sending a response to a company after they've been ghosted during the interview process.

"The likelihood that they actually care or going to change anything is very low," T. Brad Kielinski, founder and CEO of IT Pros, a tech recruitment and outplacement firm, told Business Insider.

Kielinski said that even if dozens of applicants provide the same feedback, it probably won't make a difference in the company's practice, unless the employer received public backlash. However, it's generally not a good look to publicly badmouth a company, Kielinski said.

If you had a bad experience with a company, you're probably not alone, however. Eventually, word will probably get out about the company's practices, Kielinski said, whether it's on Glassdoor or other channels.

Alan Stein, CEO of Kadima Career, Life, and Mindset Coaching, echoed the sentiment. He said that while it may feel "cathartic" to give feedback, most companies don't care. Stein, who has had 31 jobs, said that every company he worked for cared about whether the role was filled in time and within budget, not the kind of feedback that candidates gave.

However, Dilber encourages escalating the situation to a manager or department leader if there's been no follow-up from the recruiter after a week of asking for an update.

"As somebody who manages a recruiting team, I would want to know if my recruiters are ghosting people," Zilber said, adding that she's had candidates reach out about not hearing back from anyone and has asked recruiters on her team to follow up.

What to say if you choose to speak up

If you decide to speak up after getting ghosted, it's important to first consider your motive.

If the intention is to get closure about the job, sales coach Josh Braun suggests this template:

It seems like you decided to move forward with someone else. I'm guessing my dog barking in the background sealed my fate. I know you have a lot of candidates interviewing for the VP of sales job, so I appreciate you considering me.

He said the first sentence may elicit a response confirming that the decision has been made. The second brings humor into the conversation and lowers the stakes, and the third ends the conversation gracefully.

If your goal is to improve the process for candidates who follow, think carefully about your tone, said Dilber. As a recruiting leader, she said she's been on the receiving end of aggressive messages from candidates who haven't gotten a response from recruiter. That signals the candidate assumes negative intent and can't manage their emotions, she said.

Dilber said candidates should instead take an approach that assumes the best and provides constructive feedback on how companies can improve their processes and better retain engaged candidates. She said that she's successfully followed up twice with employers after being ghosted herself.

Dilber said candidates should first follow up to the recruiter they've been speaking to with a short and direct message that says something along the lines of, "I know it's been a while, so I can probably guess what the decision is, but just wanted a final update," or, "I've enjoyed our conversation and was curious if you had an update for me." Candidates should usually give it a week if they haven't heard back before sending that kind of message, she said.

Dilber said she's then contacted people in the C-suite of the organization and said, "Hey, I know you spend a lot of money on leveraging these folks, and it's a negative candidate experience, and it reflects negatively on your experience, and it reflects negatively on your organization."

Dilber said that both times she sent those messages, the company apologized and followed up with her.