Job hunting as punishment: humiliating interviews and ghosting

Job hunting: group tests, ghosting, and humiliating processes

Naiara Puertas, 39, sat at a table with twelve others. A paper face down. Flipping it revealed a case on workplace harassment and child bullying, with the task of assigning sarracena responsibility to characters while two observers took notes. The role was a communications technician at a cultural center in San Sebastián. The position, a few months' cover. The process, outsourced. "Knowing it is for a public institution, it feels very humiliating, so much that it didn't even make me angry," summarizes Puertas, author of At Least You Have a Job. Job hunting has become, in sectors with surplus candidates, a long, opaque, and psychologically devastating procedure.

What is job ghosting and why has it become common?

It is the response that never comes. After several tests, weeks of waiting, and sometimes unpaid real work, the company disappears without saying anything. The phenomenon is explained by a mix of factors: a more tense labor market, technological advances that have spiked the number of candidates per role, and the outsourcing and automation of processes. The most repeated comparison is with dating apps: aspirants passing successive filters without receiving any reply.

From the other side of the counter, the lengthening is admitted. Alberto Gavilán, Adecco's Talent Director, argues that companies are increasingly aware of how important onboarding a person is and take many precautions. Human resources consultant Juan Martínez de Salinas adds that many candidates have stopped looking for work because it means time, sacrifice, and mental exhaustion. Virginia, 39, from the advertising sector, has gone ten months without allowing herself even a week of rest: "I have passed the rejection stage and reached exhaustion: it is a loop of life where you constantly exert effort and see absolutely no reward."

In which sectors is the selection process toughest?

It depends on the role and sector. Where there is a large supply of workers—administrative, human resources—the company can afford to neglect candidates. For profiles like engineers or IT specialists, the relationship reverses, and the candidate can afford to treat the recruiter differently. Even so, the tech sector drags out eternal processes: "If I have been in a process for a month and a half and have no clear end, will I have much desire to stay when I have other offers on the table?" asked Eduard Teixidó, CEO of Opground. The exhaustion also reaches junior roles: tests are repeated equally for a salary of 20,000 euros as for one of 150,000, according to the cases reported.

The 50-euro note and the broken vertebra

There are episodes that surpass any script. In 2014, a candidate named Clio Almansa sued the company Ecoline 2010 because, during the selection process, the interviewer pulled out a 50-euro note and announced the job would go to whoever grabbed it first. In the competition, Almansa broke a vertebra. Puertas describes these processes as another "space of impunity" where companies act because they can. This is added to psychological judgment: evaluations that judge the resume, decisions made, and also periods of unemployment, with aspirants admitting they ended up in tears after hanging up a video call.

What changes with the EU working conditions directive?

The Government approved the transposition of the EU directive on working conditions, which mandates transparency in selection processes and dignified treatment of candidates. The problem is the timeline: it will likely not be implemented until 2026. Among the expected measures is publishing salaries in job offers, something viewed positively because there is a suspicion that some companies collect salary expectations from aspirants throughout the year via offers that never materialize. Until then, the process remains at the mercy of the hirer.

Is it a matter of expectations or competition?

Here lies the rift. One current holds that the central problem is one of expectations: if the probability of being hired when you start looking is minimal and control over the result is scarce, rejection should be the expected outcome, not a personal affront. Humiliation, in this reading, disappears by understanding that the decision-maker has no idea of your professional worth. The rebuttal is immediate: finding employment is not comparable to winning the lottery, and treating work as a random prize is precisely the underlying problem. Another line of analysis points to the abundance of candidates in certain sectors and the lack of succession in trades; a fourth insists on training, languages, and willingness to relocate. The response is that many qualified people have no choice but to emigrate.

The exhaustion of profiles outside the 24 to 28 age range and the feeling of being part of a catalog with too many choices explain much of the phenomenon. And then there is the fine print of the model: dismissal compensation dropped from 60 days per year worked under Franco to 45 under Felipe González, and then to 33 under Mariano Rajoy. With this ladder, demanding that the entry process be dignified sounds almost revolutionary.