Originally published on LinkedIn on May 15, 2026
When I was a child, my mother gave me a book titled “White Gloves and Party Manners.” Later, I graduated to the 879-page tome, “The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette” along with advice from Ann Landers, snipped from newspapers.
As a child, I was extremely polite in elementary and middle school, making me a target for bullying. By high school, I became an introverted outsider. College gave me the chance to grow and get involved in everything from student government to speech team.
My training in manners made me comfortable in social settings and interacting with others. Scrolling through LinkedIn, however, reveals etiquette isn’t the norm for job candidates, it’s the exception.
LinkedIn posts have become like the thousands of unemployed Americans who stood on street corners during the Great Depression, hawking apples for 5 cents each. The words are the same, “I am desperate and need to pay my rent and bills,” “I’ve applied to well over a thousand job postings by now, and I’m just so tired of this fight,” and “I’m still unemployed, and with every job I apply for and don’t get, it feels like a little piece of my confidence disappears.”
While a candidate might receive a thank you for submitting their application, it’s highly likely they’ll never hear from the company again. Worse, following an interview, the outcome of their performance is the whoosh of a ghost. Yet, the expectation is to send a thank you letter, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to interview and enthusiasm for the potential role.
While it’s easy to discount the need for courtesy when a company receives hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of applications for a single job, the world is circular. What goes around comes around.
Ages ago, I had a full day of interviews with a mobile carrier. Everyone seemed enthusiastic about my skills, sharing they’d contact me soon, and were excited about my joining their team. Then crickets.
Would I ever subscribe to this mobile carrier? Say anything nice about them? No. Multiply that “no,” by hundreds (perhaps thousands) of ghosted candidates who end up talking negatively about the company, sharing their experience with associates and on Glassdoor, Indeed, and other platforms.
Going a step further, devaluing and disregard for candidates proliferates into other aspects of society. The barista, waiter, and associate at a box store are marginalized. Common courtesies like holding the door, saying “excuse me” when you accidently bump into someone, and putting away devices when talking to someone are disregarded.
In 2013, Harvard Business Review published, “The Price of Incivility,” co-written by Christine Pearson, a professor of global leadership at Thunderbird School of Global Management who regularly writes about dysfunctional behavior at work.
Over a 14-year period, thousands of workers were surveyed about their treatment at work. Ninety eight percent reported experiencing uncivil behavior, and half said they were treated rudely at least once a week.
The article contends, “The costs chip away at the bottom line. Nearly everybody who experiences workplace incivility responds in a negative way, in some cases overtly retaliating. Employees are less creative when they feel disrespected, and many get fed up and leave. About half deliberately decrease their effort or lower the quality of their work.”
While having white gloves and party manners might be outdated, treating everyone from job candidates to co-workers and customers with respect, dignity, and courtesy is always in style and makes sense.
Note: All incomplete sentences, grammatical mishaps, and bizarre thought patterns were made by a human. The image was created by AI because it’s highly unlikely these individuals would be in the same room. And besides, it’s fun to use AI image generators.
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