Methodology

Candidate experiences

Blanked uses candidate experiences to show how employers respond and what their hiring processes may involve. Experiences vary by role, level, location and year. Figures describe the experiences included in the dataset and are not employer offer rates, hiring probabilities or guarantees.

Live roles and published hiring information

A role is shown as live only when it appears on an employer-controlled careers site or official applicant-tracking system and was checked within the last three days. Hiring guidance is matched by role family, career level and market. When exact-role guidance is unavailable, the broader company process is clearly labelled, and conditional stages are never presented as guaranteed.

One candidate-experience dataset

Every published candidate experience contributes equally to the same public counts, response findings, reported outcomes and hiring-process themes. Each experience is counted once.

Experiences submitted to Blanked

A submission records an employer, whether the candidate only applied or reached an interview, and whether they were left waiting or received a reply. “They replied” includes a rejection, offer or confirmed application closure. Optional structured answers can add a broad response-time bucket, waiting-duration bucket, reported outcome, round count, interview formats or whether the candidate would apply again.

Anonymous and updateable

No account is required. A random browser identifier lets the same browser update an experience when the candidate hears back later. Experiences attached to different live roles at one employer can remain separate; an employer-only submission is one general experience per browser. Clearing browser data breaks that update link, and Blanked does not fingerprint people to recreate it.

Ranking thresholds

Percentages describe candidate experiences included in Blanked, not all applicants. A numbered response ranking needs at least five experiences with a known response; smaller samples are labelled as early data. The after-interview and response-timing views use their own relevant samples. Total candidate experiences are shown separately from the experiences included in each calculation.

Which companies appear

The contribution feed uses a broad selected market, optional role interests, companies skipped and where more experiences are needed. This changes which company appears next. It never changes a company's percentage or rank.

Calculations

• Heard-back rate: replied ÷ (replied + ghosted). Pending and unknown responses are excluded, and the denominator is shown.
• Ghosted rate: ghosted ÷ (replied + ghosted). Pending and unknown responses are excluded.
• Blanked after interview: interviewed experiences marked ghosted ÷ interviewed experiences with a known response status.
• Reached interview: interview-stage experiences ÷ published candidate experiences.
• Reply speed: timed replied experiences in each rough duration bucket ÷ all timed replied experiences.

An experience submitted to Blanked whose optional waiting-duration answer is under two weeks is treated as pending rather than ghosted. It remains updateable by the same browser. Percentages are withheld for denominators below five, subgroup patterns require at least three experiences containing the relevant detail, and speed labels use their own minimum sample.

Finding-specific denominators

Each interview finding uses only experiences containing relevant structured information. For example, a coding-theme finding excludes experiences with no coding information. Aggregate findings always show a numerator and denominator.

Employer information and candidate findings

Employer-published hiring information and what candidates experienced are clearly labelled and never blended together. General hiring guidance is not presented as a promise for every role, and a company-wide finding is not presented as a finding about one specific job.

Responsible interpretation

Reported outcomes are raw counts, not employer offer rates or hiring probabilities. A candidate finding describes one experience and does not become a company-wide claim. Advertising and sponsorship never affect employer selection, percentages, visibility or rank.