I got ghosted. 👻👻
No, this isn’t a post about my dating life (though it’s happened there, too). This is about someone who reached out to me the day I first posted that I had been laid off.
SEO CEO
According to his LinkedIn profile, the person who reached out was the CEO of an SEO company. He said he wanted to chat for 15 minutes or so to get an idea of my background and skills, and see if maybe I was a good fit for his company.
I did my due diligence. As far as I could tell, he was legit. I’ve written quite a few LinkedIn bios for execs and other high-profile individuals, and I’ve seen enough fakes and imitations to be able to sniff out the phonies. At the very least, he was repping a real company that had a verifiable presence.
With the offer of a chat in my DMs, I looked up the open positions listed on his company’s website. I didn’t see anything that aligned with my experience, so I mentioned it to him. He said it didn’t matter, he was into “opportunistic hiring” and just wanted to find out more about what I had to offer.
So I said, okay, sure, why not? I gave him my contact info, we set up a time to meet, and that was that.
Fast forward to 3pm yesterday when we were supposed to have our chat. I had not heard from him at all. I checked my email—including spam—and my LinkedIn messages. No follow up confirmation. No calendar invite. Nothing.
I thought about reaching back out to him, but I decided against it. At the end of the day, I have no desire to work for a company who’s leader can’t follow up on even the simplest of commitments. Or at the very least communicate when an emergency or some other event requires a reschedule.
I let another hour go by, and when there was still no message, I blocked him. Some people might think this is tantamount to burning a bridge. In my view, no bridge had even been built yet.
True Connections
The good news is that there are a lot of people who have been absolutely wonderful in reaching out with support, referrals, and much commiseration. If nothing else, struggle tends to bring out the best of human nature, and I’m happily reminded of how many friends and fellow travelers I have.
(I won’t mention any names for those who reached out, either, mostly because it would embarrass many of them. However, for those of you reading this who have reached out to me recently, just know that I appreciate your message very much.)
I’ve already gotten several good leads on prospective new roles from folks in my network. I’m crossing my fingers that these result in quick turnarounds for something new, exciting, and if I’m allowed to hope big, even profitable for me and my family.
I was especially happy to get to meet up with a now former 😠colleague today for coffee. We spent several hours chatting about anything and everything old, new, and somewhere in between.
All that to say that while one fickle CEO ghosted me this week, I’ve been lucky to have many, many people show up exactly when I needed them to. And for that, I’m thankful.