Hamid Ali has applied to multiple jobs every day for over a year, using all the hacks he can to improve his odds. That includes leaving his age off his résumé and cutting out parts of his work history to make his 25 years of experience less obvious.
The 52-year-old job seeker said he’s had several interviews for different tech business-services roles, almost all of which have resulted in silence. That’s led him to assume that the employer realized his age and deemed him too costly, he said. While getting rejected is never fun, Ali told Business Insider the hardest part about his job hunt has been this routine ghosting.
“If you don’t want me, I don’t meet your criteria, at least have the courtesy to tell me,” Ali said.
Workers of all ages get ghosted, but the silence can feel deafening for Gen X job seekers like Ali. Business Insider spoke to seven Gen Xers about being ignored by employers and how it’s shaped their experience.
An unfamiliar market
Younger job seekers who have grown up in the digital era may not remember a time where ghosting wasn’t common — whether on dating apps or job platforms.
A December 2024 report from hiring software platform Greenhouse found that 61% of job seekers had been ghosted after an interview, up 9% from earlier that year.
One reason ghosting has become more prevalent, the report said, is that employers are inundated with applications, thanks to a tough job market and the ease of mass applying in the AI era.
But for Gen Xers who started their careers before the internet and AI transformed hiring, being met with silence after an interview widens the gap further between the job market they used to know and the one they’re experiencing today.
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Christian Maiberger, 54, lost his job in January and took on a job for about half his usual salary about five months later. He continues to apply for other IT sales roles and has had his résumé professionally edited multiple times, but struggles to make sense of a system he said he no longer recognizes.
In the past, “you got a person face-to-face,” Maiberger said. “Now, you’re just a number.”
Colleen Paulson, the founder of Ageless Careers and a career coach who mainly works with Gen X and boomers, said that experienced workers are used to a dynamic where they would hear back in a timely manner, even if they didn’t get the job.
Now, job seekers are sending online applications into what feels like a “black hole,” and it’s unclear if anyone even received their résumé or when they’ll get a response, Paulson said.
Tina Wise, 55, said she gets ghosted about 25% of the time she speaks to recruiters, even if they express interest during the conversation. That, combined with scam postings, had made the experience “devastating” for Wise. She said she gets dozens of scam calls every day and has stopped answering unknown numbers altogether.
It feels personal
Bob Barton was 60 years old when he got laid off in November 2023. He spent nearly a year job hunting before landing a part-time position in customer service, which recently turned into a full-time role in IT administration. While he’s grateful for the promotion, he makes less than a third of what he made in the past and has less vacation time than when he entered the workforce over 40 years ago.
Up until his job loss, Barton had worked as a sales engineer for 22 years and typically found new roles within a couple of months. This time around, his experience changed, he said, and he has been routinely ghosted after interviews.
“It affects your confidence because I thought I was good at what I did,” Barton said. “I thought I provide value and I thought my résumé showed that.”
For people like Barton, who spent decades honing their expertise, it can be jarring to feel like they no longer hold the same credibility.
“When you don’t hear anything, it’s just kind of like, what’s going on? Did I somehow lose relevance?” Barton said.
Are you a Gen Xer struggling to find a job? We want to hear from you. Reach out to the reporter via email at [email protected] or through the secure-messaging app Signal at aalt.19.
