If you ghost, they’re likely going to continue to contact over multiple channels. Because they want an answer so that they can take next steps. Same as a candidate.

If you say thanks but no thanks, they’re going to want to know why, is there anything they could have done differently, or try to convince you that you have it wrong.

There’s basic human reasons for these very common reactions, we just put a construct in front of one of those groups and tried to explain it away as being acceptable.

There are too few jobs now. Paul Krugman called it a "savings glut". There are no opportunities to invest the cash you are holding productively, consequently interest rates are low and the best thing you can do is buy back your own stock.

There's asymmetry from the other side too.

What's preventing someone from trying to extract $3M in settlement money from a rich company that doesn't want its reputation tarnished in a long running discrimination lawsuit?

And $3M is a lot of money that lawyers would eagerly represent someone that has an evidence of discrimination.

When I did hiring, I had several top candidates take a different position, so I had to go to a second or even third choice.

Anyway, no answer is sometimes preferable to some of the nonsensical standard doublespeak letters you might receive ("niet weerhouden...").

Respect is far to be found in these HR practices, in my experience. It usually reflects in the business who took them on board. Once you see through all these efforts to make people behave exactly like they want, I doubt there will be much workplaces left considering.

If the first company rejects you and tells you so, you can immediately accept the second choice. If the first company rejects you and ghosts you, you instead wait a month hoping the first company will get back to you, then accept the second choice.

If you are willing to completely burn bridges, you could accept the second choice, with the intention of immediately leaving should you hear back from the first choice. While possible, I'd have some qualms about doing so.

Be specific with the details, to make it clear there is no bluff. (If they are so inclined, they could call XYZ and confirm everything you said.) And if they don't respond, then go through with XYZ.

Anyway, unless the first versus second choice thing is about something concrete like compensation/benefits, or work location, a lot of it is just in your head; you have not actually worked at either place.

Sometimes they'll dangle candidates if they're waiting to hear whether their first choice accepts, but even then it's rare not to communicate at all once you've done an on-site.

I was expected to prepare (in advance) a number of things including a technical presentation and detailed answers to a large number of questions, which took me several evenings and most of a weekend. I flew there on a monday for what was an exhausting full day of interviews before my return flight that evening. The recruiter phoned me the following day to say they were very impressed and would be making an offer, but there were some other people who wanted to meet me.

So a few days later I took another day off work to fly down for a second round of meetings. At the end of this second day I was told that the senior manager was abroad and they would finalise the offer when he returned.

I flew back home and waited a week or 10 days before emailing to hear how things were progressing. The recruiter responded "to recap, we are waiting for $manager to return before finalising the offer".

That was about 7 years ago, and it was the last thing I heard from them. I get that employers can't be bothered responding to every CV that crosses their desk, but this was a demanding process that cost me several days effort and 2 days salary. Maybe they lied when they said they liked me, I have no idea and don't really care. But I certainly didn't expect to be ghosted after all that.

A year or two later I had a new colleague who had been working there around the time of my interview, and I told him this story. His response? "You dodged a bullet".

It's probably at least 50% of my interviews. Roughly 1/4 of my interviews have any kind of follow up at all.

It doesn't hurt to tell people that someone else was hired. Closure is important to job seekers.

The only reason I called was because they stiffed my the reimbursement for travel expenses which they had agreed to pay for. The HR turnover was so high that everyone I had talked to before the interview was gone by the time I put in for the reimbursement.

Clearly things went your way if you didn't get the job in that environment.

Funny story about that, I'd set up a macro to fire off said email with one keypress. Finishing up a phone screen that went horribly, I thanked him for his time and all the other niceties, and pressed the key right as I was about to hang up.

"But wait! I have some questions for you, too!"

Cue the longest 5 minutes of my life.

After reading some of the comments here about candidates who want to debate the interviewer's decision, it seems to make sense.

This attitude it toxic and feels like you're looking to turn an interview into a lose-lose situation. It doesn't have to be.

You, on the other hand, are quite possibly still thinking about it every day, and turning down or delaying (and missing) other offers.