Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. A lot of people looking for work right now say the same thing. It's hard. It's outright dispiriting. The writer, Franklin Schneider, realized just how low the bar has fallen for employers dealing with job applicants when he felt oddly grateful to receive a rejection email. Not even a personal one, just a form letter, but he was grateful for the fact that someone bothered to send even that.

In his new piece for The Atlantic, Franklin argues that norms around courtesy in the job market have eroded to the point where both sides, employers and applicants, are ghosting each other, avoiding each other, and increasingly expecting the worst from each other. He argues the issue reaches into questions of power and technology, and even the sense that the social contract around work as people have known it has started to come apart. Let's talk about the job market now, including employer and applicant ghosting and humanity. We'll invite your stories, too. Franklin Schneider joins us now. His piece in The Atlantic is titled, When Did the Job Market Get So Rude? Hi, Franklin. Welcome to WNYC.

Franklin Schneider: Thanks for having me on, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, yes, you are invited. If you've been in the job market recently, applying, interviewing, waiting to hear back, what has that experience been like? Have you been ghosted? Have you sent back test work, maybe, and never heard back, or surprised by how employers handled the process? For that matter, if you've been on the hiring side, what pressures shape how you communicate with candidates and what your expectations are of them? 212-433-WNYC for Franklin Schneider, 212-433-9692. Call or text. You open the piece with the admission that you felt almost relieved to get a form rejection email. Why the sense of relief?

Did we lose Franklin? Listeners, tell us your story about that. He also wrote a book which, believe it or not, was called Canned: How I Lost Ten Jobs in Ten Years and Learned to Love Unemployment. [chuckles] Canned: How I Lost Ten Jobs in Ten Years and Learned to Love Unemployment. Does that make him a really good person to represent the trials and tribulations of applying for a job? Probably yes, because he's done it so much.

The book gets reviewed on the Amazon site, interestingly, as not just a confessional, but it says, "It's a book for you if you're a fan of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, the self-immolation of late-stage capitalism, the Cam'ron song, I Hate My Job, working for six months, and then getting unemployment checks for a year. Charles Bukowski, the 15-hour work week, getting blackout drunk, and hurling a lawnmower through the picture window of your ex-boss's house." That's not from this book. That's from some of those earlier references.

Putting it in that genre with Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn, that book. Even says this review on Amazon, "That scene from Seinfeld, where George and Jerry are trying to think of a new career for George, using lots of emojis and novelty fonts on your résumé, ironic poverty, and also Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. The more depressing stories in the Raymond Carver oeuvre or the Theory of Surplus Value." Well, whoever wrote that review knows a lot about a lot. We still don't have Franklin back, right? Okay, so we will figure out what's going on with that. People do have stories, so Tom in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tom.

Tom: Hey, hi. Yes, I told your screener. I am 65 years old. I'm in great shape. I don't plan to retire for at least five years. I'm unhappy in my current job, and I'm looking. Some recruiters have been honest with me. There is a whisper net. They know as soon as you walk in the door what your age is. One recruiter, I appreciate this. I wasn't mad at him.

He said, "Look, let's be up front. Nobody's going to talk to you at your age. Nobody's going to hire you, period. I'm not even going to put effort in on your behalf." I wasn't mad at him. I appreciated that, but that's a real thing, I think. While the most deepest forms of discrimination in our society are not age, but the broadest form of discrimination might be age discrimination. It's a thought. I wonder if your guest has any thoughts on that.

Brian Lehrer: When we get him back, I will definitely ask. Do you want to make your take? Do you want to make your case for hiring 65-year-olds?

Tom: Yes, absolutely. I'm in great shape. I'm fantastic. I'm really good at what I do. I'm an IT guy. I don't want to go into too much detail about where I work.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Tom: Again, my employer knows that I can't go anywhere. The opportunity for advancement or pay increases is not there anymore when I hear a recruiter tell me. To make the case, I'm really smart. I'm really good. I'm in great shape. I got a lot of good years ahead of me, and I don't feel like retiring right now. I like what I do, and I'm good at it.

Brian Lehrer: Tom, thank you. Good luck out there. Anybody wants to consider Tom in Brooklyn, you can call us up. Maybe we'll have a way to match you up. We do have Franklin Schneider back. Again, his article in The Atlantic is called, When Did the Job Market Get So Rude? Employer ghosting is on the rise now. Candidates are punching back. Franklin, we do have you back, right?

Franklin Schneider: Yes, I'm here.

Brian Lehrer: Good. Sorry about whatever happened. I was asking you about the opening of the article in which you admit that you felt almost relieved to get a form rejection email. Why did you feel relief?

Franklin Schneider: It was humiliating because I had applied to so many jobs, hundreds of jobs, hadn't heard anything. When I finally got something back, it was just a form rejection addressed to "dear applicant," but I felt strangely grateful. I was like an abused dog or something.

Brian Lehrer: What did that tell you about where the job market is, either economically or emotionally or etiquette-wise, for a lot of people right now?

Franklin Schneider: Yes, I think that's the norm, sadly, like if you talk to people. People apply to hundreds of jobs, and they don't hear anything. In some larger way, we've reverted back to an older mode of manners based on avoidance. For a long time, class divisions were enforced by-- It was like, "You stay in your tenements, we'll stay in our mansions, and we won't have any problems," and then, eventually, we started to mix and mingle. Our manners reverted to a mode of tolerance, self-regulation. We lost that recently, I think.

Brian Lehrer: Because one of the themes of your article is power, right? You point out that employers ghosting and applicants ghosting aren't equivalent. You want to go into that?

Franklin Schneider: Yes, I talked to a woman. She applied to so many jobs, didn't hear back, and she ended up losing her apartment, sleeping in her car. She was really, really injured by this rise of ghosting from the employer side, right? I heard from employers who said, "Well, we'll onboard people, and people will sign offers. Then the first day of work comes and they don't show up," but they're really only inconvenienced by that. They're not hurt by it in the same way that an individual is. There really is a power imbalance there. If we're both ghosting each other, it really hurts workers a lot more than it hurts employers.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think the ghosting is happening a lot more from the employee side? You just referenced a scenario where somebody goes through a job application process, gets the job, and then on the scheduled day, one doesn't show up. Why would that happen, except in the rarest of instances?

Franklin Schneider: Yes, that is a strange phenomenon, but I found that it is rising. In a way, it's a consequence of employer ghosting. Like the woman I talked to in the article, she had been ghosted so much. She was so desperate for work that she ended up accepting offers for multiple jobs. The first one that actually started, she would just ghost the others, right?

She needed these layers of security because, before, she had accepted offers, and then the first day comes, and they say, "You know what? The position has been eliminated." She started just accepting everything she could. When I talked to her, she had accepted two jobs. She was going to take one, go to the other, and she was still applying to Morris, so she could have a third or fourth security net.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another phone call from a listener. Sheila in Richmond, Va, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sheila.

Sheila: Hi. Delighted to be joining you. This happened to my daughter, who's 26 and lives in Brooklyn. Anyway, she works in the environmental sector. She has her graduate degree in public policy. She was interviewing for about a year, working as a server, et cetera, et cetera. She had applied to a job that seemed like a great fit for her at a nonprofit and never heard anything back, and then saw that they were having an event that people could volunteer for. She went to the event. She volunteered for some four or five hours doing some, I don't know, heavy lifting.

Afterwards, they had a little bit of a reception. She was able to go and went right up to the CEO or whatever the person's title was, somebody in a place of power, and was like, "I had an opportunity to apply for a job, and I've never heard anything, and delighted to be here today." I thought that that was so great. Now, I've really touched some flesh here and never heard anything after that either.

Brian Lehrer: What's the moral of the story? Sheila, what's the lesson?

Sheila: From me? I want to show up. What's the lesson is people must just be kinder. I'm a therapist. I'm just like, "Attention must be paid. This is not okay."

Brian Lehrer: Sheila, thank you very much. Franklin, do you think that this is new-- Here's a text from a listener. "My daughter finished her master's degree in 2009. A terrible job market." Of course, 2009, if you remember, was right after the financial crisis started. It was really a terrible job market. It says she got many interviews, many second and third interviews. Until the job she actually got, she received zero turndown letters. It makes me wonder if the scale of this ghosting by employers of applicants who've gone through a few steps is different from the past. Was it ever common in your research for the article or your life experience? Was it ever common to inform anybody but a few finalists that they didn't get the job?

Franklin Schneider: I got the impression through my research that it was much more common in the past. Now, I think back then, yes, I think it was more standard if you went through several rounds of interviews, that you would at least get a phone call or just a letter. Now, I heard over and over from people who did two, three rounds of interviews, they did panel interviews, they provided work samples, sample assignments, whatever, and they heard absolutely nothing.

Brian Lehrer: I want to take a phone call from Susan in Brooklyn, who wants to follow up on the first caller we had. This was when we were having connection problems, Franklin. I don't think you heard this caller, but we had a 65-year-old caller who said he keeps being told he will never get any job that he applies for because of age discrimination. I think Susan in Brooklyn has a word of advice either to him or those employers who wouldn't consider him. Susan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Susan: Good morning. Hi, Brian. Yes, I wanted to point out to that caller. I am a lawyer. I also do recruiting specifically for the legal side of things. That said, age discrimination is not okay. It is illegal in New York State under federal law, under city law, under state law. From the perspective of hearing a recruiter telling him, "I can't find you a job. I'm not going to try to find you a job. The clients I'm working with aren't going to want to work with you," that's illegal. That's flat-out not okay.

Certainly, age discrimination is out there. It's something I see quite a bit as well. I found that part of my role as a recruiter is when I'm working with clients who perhaps say-- Let's say, for instance, there's a receptionist role, and they're like, "Yes, we really want someone who's a recent grad." I will say, "Let's look at the job spec. Let's look at what the qualifications for this role are, and what does recent grad have anything to do with it?"

Let's look at the skills tied to the role to determine. Someone can be 65 and be a fantastic receptionist. Saying, "Someone needs to be young," in my mind, there are certain code words, too, where they'll be like, "Lots of energy. We want someone really fresh." No, those are code words to me. I try to have a conversation with a potential client or client saying, "Listen, I'm going to send you the best qualified candidates," and that is the way it should be.

Brian Lehrer: Short of putting those things in writing or saying them out loud, as in the examples you just gave, can't any employer just commit age discrimination while just saying, "Well, we thought that the applicant who got it was better for the job"?

Susan: Yes, absolutely, they can. At the end of the day, it's an issue like, "Please know, I'm not suggesting that it's a quick fix. It's out there. It's a problem." I do find having a conversation with clients in particular, and I always say to my candidates, "I will always be straight with you. I will be honest with you. I'm going to submit you. I'm going to do my job. My job is to put you forward in the best light. If you are qualified for this job, I want you to get that interview. I want to make sure that the client isn't missing out on a fantastic candidate, regardless of age."

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and then you do the best you can to snuff it out or sniffing out. "Sniff it out" is the term if you think age discrimination is involved. All right, thank you for that. Franklin, on the other end of the age spectrum, you highlight in your article that Gen Z is the most likely generation to be ghosted, but also the most likely to ghost back. What do you think is driving that dynamic?

Franklin Schneider: One thing I found was that a lot of studies have discovered that being ghosted actually makes you more likely to ghost others. It does seem that Gen Z, they're in this spiral of ghosting, where they've been ghosted so often that they are now doing it back to the employers, sometimes just out of resentment, revenge, or just to get a little payback.

Brian Lehrer: We have two callers who are citing COVID as a dividing line between old mores and new mores. Let me take one of them. We'll see if we have time to get to both. David in White Plains, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hello. Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to take my call. Yes, my point being that pre-COVID in the beauty industry, everybody worked five days a week. Now, post-COVID, everybody wants to work two or three days a week. We have to employ twice as many people to cover what would be one normal position. We need two people for that.

Brian Lehrer: This isn't about remote work in that case. This is about just how much they work at all?

David: Yes, exactly, showing up. If you work in a hair and beauty salon, you have to be there every day doing hair, doing beauty treatments. No remote working in our industry.

Brian Lehrer: Then you wanted to say ghosting. Go ahead.

David: Yes, sorry. Yes, I was just going to say, and then the same thing. We employ people, and after two days, to say, "Oh, I can't do this. This is hard work," and yet they've just spent maybe a year in beauty school training to do this.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. David, thank you very much. I'm going to take the other one, citing COVID as a dividing line. Nina on Long Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nina.

Nina: Hi, so my office made us go back into the office July of 2020 in the midst of COVID. Our company was having a record-high year because we were able to pivot. What we saw was a disregard for our health and safety. We saw our executives getting bonuses while we all got pay cuts. It was a real clarifier in that feeling, like when we were starting out in our careers, you want to feel like a family with your fellow employees and with the company.

It was a realization that the company will never care about the employee the way that they say they do. In that sense, it shifted my mindset and the mindset of my colleagues, where we realized, "If they don't care about us that way, why should we care about them that way?" I'm not going to go above and beyond because they don't go above and beyond for me.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think it relates to what the other caller was saying about people not wanting to work as much, period, since COVID? Does it relate?

Nina: I don't think so because we want to work. We want to be valued. I think that's the thing, is that we want to be seen for the valuable employees that we are. It was just this magnifier of the differences between people's positions, people in power took advantage.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Nina. Thank you very much. Franklin, there's your power critique again. I don't know if it comes up in your article that COVID was a demarcation point for ghosting from either employers or employees in the job application process.

Franklin Schneider: I don't touch on that specifically, but I do think COVID, it was a turning point for-- That was one of the rare moments in recent history when workers, they had a lot of power, right?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Franklin Schneider: They could get the jobs they wanted. A lot of people had multiple jobs. I think, today, there is a little bit of-- I don't want to say revenge, but I think that employers are trying to rebalance that power equation a little bit. Ghosting is a part of that.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk a little bit more about power, which is, I think, the deepest sociological core of your article in The Atlantic because you pull back and connect manners in the workplace to centuries-old ideas about class and psychological difference. You talked about this a little bit at the beginning of our conversation, but talk more about what you see. I think you hung it before on more class integration in the workplace than there were in whatever you consider the old days. That causes new kinds of tensions. Go further there for us. When we were trying to reconnect your mind, I was reading a review of your book to the listeners. They were comparing your book to George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London as a class critique, workers and employers, and stuff. Take us as deeply there as you can.

Franklin Schneider: Okay. Yes, the power relations, they've shifted more recently just because in the 20th century, people were-- they were forced to work together, like physically together in the workplace. People of all classes and races. Tolerance was a byproduct of that. As I was doing this, as I was researching this article, I found that a lot of people thought that ghosting in the job market was downstream of ghosting and dating, which is also a real problem that people complain about. Eventually, I found that a lot of it was related to tech because tech, it makes it very easy to be callous to each other, right? It makes it very easy to dismiss.

Brian Lehrer: In fact, a listener just texted, "Isn't AI and automation a big part of this? Most applications aren't even seen by a human."

Franklin Schneider: Exactly, exactly. Everything's being filtered by tech. There's no face-to-face interaction anymore. It just makes it very easy to be cruel to each other. I think it exposed the power relation that was already there. Things weren't very equal before, but we hid things behind this facade of good manners and smiling to each other and being nice and being courteous. Now that that's been stripped away by tech, we really see those power relations as they are, and they're not pretty.

Brian Lehrer: We're almost out of time. If this stripped away this era, stripped away the illusion that I think he was suggesting, manners created, which is better? Having this raw reality or the facade of the manners of yore?

Franklin Schneider: Well, that comes down to what we're going to do about it going forward. If nothing can change, I think that it's better to at least have some fake smiles and be nice to each other. If we can use this moment where the power relations have been exposed and use this moment to change that and rebalance things and move forward, it could be very valuable.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it could. If we could only. New York City-based writer Franklin Schneider, you can read his story in The Atlantic, When Did the Job Market Get So Rude? That was your book, too, right? Canned: How I Lost Ten Jobs in Ten Years and Learned to Love Unemployment?

Franklin Schneider: [chuckles] That's right. That was my book.

Brian Lehrer: You had a lot of experience leading up to this Atlantic piece. Thank you for sharing with us. Really interesting.

Franklin Schneider: Thanks for having me on.

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