Even 2-5 person companies will sometimes receive ~20-30 resumes a day for an open job, and 90% of them will be obviously inappropriate for the job even just from glancing at their resume.
It's a positive feedback loop: People have learned to "shotgun" their resume everywhere, and as a result even small companies have learned to process resumes as "efficiently" as possible (which often includes not sending responses to rejected candidates at that stage). This leads to more shotgunning, etc. etc.
Or at bare minimum, automatically mail them when the position is set to closed?
None of that can be claimed due to efficiency.
1. You're assuming they're using an ATS with that feature, which isn't as common as you'd think. You'd be surprised how many companies track incoming candidates using spreadsheets and email.
2. Part of that "efficiency" is not actually taking the 5 extra seconds to reject candidates, but instead just ignoring rejected candidates.
Think of it as leaving something read in your email inbox vs. choosing to archive it. Imagine you're getting 100 emails a day. Now imagine how many people you know (not necessarily you) who would leave those emails as unread in their inbox and quickly scan for important ones vs. choosing to go through each one and archive them as necessary.
> Or at bare minimum, automatically mail them when the position is set to closed?
Many places will leave positions open for opportunistic hires, e.g. see how many places are constantly hiring for "software engineer". Many job positions never actually close.
This is a good point, and while it's weird and a little frustrating from the outside, it's awesome from the inside:
The right time to hire is not when you're ramping something up or strapped for time and really need someone immediately. The right time to hire is when you've got someone awesome who is really interested in the job.
Keeping the req open gives you a better chance of grabbing that awesome person: whenever they are ready, the position is waiting. If you have to align the stars so that you're looking at the same time they are, you're going to miss some opportunities.
However, in my own hiring I always send a thank you for the candidates time, because I'm old, and manners, etc. but also I consider it the long game. You never know when you will run into someone again and in what context, and the extra effort to email a "thanks for interviewing with us" is tiny compared to potential upside/downside.
> it's not like the candidate can do anything to the interviewing company
It's true to a point. However, when you ghost someone, you've effectively as a company burned your bridges with someone, all for want of a simple and not at all burdensome small amount of courtesy. Even if you're not interviewing them in person, a simple notification that the application will not be considered further means they aren't left hanging on pointlessly.
If you want to hire them in the future, they might just blow you off.
If they pass on their bad experience to others, your reputation has suffered and you'll make it harder to recruit others in their social circle.
You might be immune to the effects of rude behaviour in the short term, but it will come back to bite to some degree later. As an example, after some really rather abrupt telephone interviews with Google, and a really rude on-site interviewer, I told them never to contact me ever again. I have no intention of considering them again in the future.
I think your point about considering the long game is spot on. I had the dilemma of interviewing with two companies and getting two good offers. The company I ended up rejecting were really nice, made a really great effort to sell themselves, and I left with nothing but positive feelings. Nearly a year later, they would still love to have me on their team. Should I need to in the future, I'm fairly certain I could give them a call and start work the next day, all because they did a really good job of building a good relationship.
Phone call with hiring manager or team members? I expect a rejection of some sort.
The irony of the automated hiring process for me is that it is more unlikely than ever that I would ever get a job any other way than through personal contacts.
A form letter, email, whatever would be better than what I experienced in my last job hunt. It was silence after silence. Was the rec closed/filled? Am I even in the running or was I rejected early on and now I am just waiting for no reason?
A lot of the companies used automated submission systems, which confirmed they received the resume, but they never sent out a notification that the position was filled/closed/rejected. Just a one line email would have been better than nothing. I feel even that common (and super automatable) courtesy has been lost.