At that point, she had no way of knowing that Meals-On-Wheels would shut off all further contact with her.

When Friday came along and she hadn’t heard anything, she decided to be proactive and call Meals-On-Wheels to express her enthusiasm for the position. According to Sphar, she left a voice message with HR. When the Monday deadline passed and she still hadn’t received a phone call, she became concerned. On Tuesday, she said she left a second message with HR.

Later that week, she came to the maddening realization that the organization had no plans to get back to her.

After having sent a personalized thank-you note and made two follow-up phone calls, Sphar wondered how a non-profit with a professed commitment to “high standards, effective services, and accountability” could seemingly be so inconsiderate.

Yurii Horton, Vice President of HR By The Hour, a human resources consulting firm in Carlsbad, said that the answer may lie in today’s corporate culture.

“Human Resources departments are chronically understaffed,” he stated. Their budgets are tighter than other departments because of the prevailing view that Human Resources is a cost center. As a result, candidates occasionally fall through the cracks.

Marc Camras, Vice President of HR By The Hour, offered a more sociological take. “There’s a general cultural shift we’re experiencing,” he stated, “where common courtesy, politeness, and decency have taken a turn for the worse.”

Camras said that companies could, at the very least, have on hand pre-printed postcards that they could send to unsuccessful candidates thanking them for their time while conveying the undesirable news.

Not contacting a candidate at all, added Camras, “is a way companies do business with people who aren’t needed.”

For those candidates who suspect that they are being given the cold shoulder by potential employers, Horton had one word of advice: proactivity.

“It’s not enough to send your resume,” he stated. “It’s not enough to wait for them to call you back. You need to call and follow up.”

“You want to walk that fine line, though, between being proactive and being annoying.”

He cited repeated and increasingly hostile phone calls as an example of when a candidate might have crossed that line. Regardless of a candidate's tenacity, though, he indicated that anyone who's been in for an interview deserves the finality of a call, e-mail, or letter.

Roger Bailey, CEO and President of Meals-On-Wheels San Diego said that he was unaware of Ms. Sphar’s experience. “That’s not the way we generally handle it,” he commented. “Unsuccessful candidates are typically notified by phone.”

“I can’t imagine any circumstances under which a person would call and we wouldn’t return the call.”

He conceded that there’s always a chance that someone “slipped throught the cracks”.