Ghosted for a Phone Interview?

How to maintain dignity and move on

About five minutes before the phone interview, my heart starts racing. I rustle through my notes and rearrange them once more as I recite the canned interview responses I’ve prepared.

While I wait for the call, I try to distract myself with a game on my phone, but the risk of inadvertently hitting the decline button, mid-candy-crush swipe, is much too high.

So I gently set my phone down on my bed and stared at it.

T-minus 2 minutes. The phone goes to sleep.

I quickly double-punch my phone to wake it up and, in doing so, I shock myself with another dose of anxiety as I see the clock turn to “go time.”

I’m so keyed up that I almost have an out-of-body experience at this point.

I keep staring at the time until the phone goes black again. I punch it twice more, and it wakes.

11:02

Two minutes late. I quickly swipe to settings to ensure I haven’t turned on the “silence unknown caller” settings. Nope. All good. Be patient.

Now, I’m scribbling on my notepad, trying to keep myself from jumping out of my skin. Just be yourself. You’re qualified for this job. Be chill, Amanda.

But as I try to “mindfulness” myself into a state of calm confidence, the time ticks by.

And the call never comes.

Between the annoyance and self-doubt, there’s a feeling of relief because now I don’t have to put myself through another interrogation consisting of ridiculous questions that most people answer exactly the same way.

So, I take a deep breath, climb out of bed (where I typically perch for interviews), and descend the stairs to the kitchen to reheat my now-cold coffee.

“What in the world?” I mindlessly ask Winnie, my perky border collie, who is staring up at me as I shake my head over my crummy cup of coffee.

And, as I stare a little more into her eyes, trying to decode the ghosting experience, I realize that, even though waves of self-doubt are rushing over me, this has nothing to do with me. It’s completely out of my control…

Read on to learn how Amanda followed up and brushed off the self-doubt…