Ghosted by successful job applicant

[WWLD]

Inspired by the poster who is having difficulties with a house sale, this happened about a year ago, but it still baffles me.

I work in quite a niche, but growing field, and it can be difficult to recruit to. We advertised for a couple of posts, and got a small pool of applicants. One of the people we appointed had experience in an adjacent field, and said he was keen to transfer. He went through all the necessary checks, filled in forms with banking details etc, was sent all the details (start time, etc), and seemed really keen in all correspondence, but just didn't show up. We tried contacting him, and then his NOK, but had no response.

We obviously moved on, and readvertised, filling the post with a great person. I'm a believer in "what's meant to happen, does", but I'm baffled over why someone would do that. If there was an emergency or something, there's been plenty of time since, to explain.

Anyone got any ideas??

Who knows? Makes a change from employers endlessly ghosting job applicants.

You're obviously NBU. Some people are just flaky.

Who knows - it’s usually total radio silence from employers, not vice versa. Maybe they dropped dead. Maybe they got a better offer and felt too embarrassed to tell you. Maybe they had a bang on the head causing short term amnesia. Maybe there was a miscommunication.

MAYBE THEY NEVER EXISTED AT ALL (woooooooo, spooky!)

If there was an emergency or something, there's been plenty of time since, to explain.

If he had a very serious emergency (e.g. unexpected life-threatening diagnosis) then informing a company he didn't yet work for probably wouldn't have been top of the priority list.

Or he's a flake. Have you checked online to see if he's been active on LinkedIn etc?

I’ve actually been lucky in getting rejections from employers. I am going for jobs I’m over experienced and qualified for though.

To be honest I wouldn’t give it much thought. He’s dropped out, he has his reasons. Lots of people are flaky.

I imagine he accepted another job and could be bothered to inform you. My boss rang a new starter a few weeks ago on the afternoon before she was due to start and she told him that she wasn’t going to be turning up. Up until then, she’d been actively involved in the onboarding process. If he hadn’t rung, I’m not sure she would have bothered.

Would have been nice if he'd have declined the offer instead of ignoring but prospective employers do it to applicants all the time so perhaps he thought that it was the done thing? I'd just move on and assume he got a better job offer elsewhere

Got a better offer and didn't want to explain.

Have you tried googling him? If there had been something bad happened, it might have been reported. Or, more likely, if he got a better offer he may show in their website.

I would have thought you'd have more success looking on LinkedIn!

I work in an area that’s hard to recruit, not that well paid and anti-social hours. We get ghosted constantly! Basically people need a job, we offer then they get a better offer. People deal with this pretty often by ghosting, as opposed to telling us.
I’m guessing, from experience, this happened.
The nature of the job makes it more pronounced for us, but I think it is a way people deal with it. We’ve become fairly relaxed and factor it in.

I remember this happening in a former workplace. There was quite a rigorous process for applicants including a full day assessment centre. The guy was offered the role, accepted, completed all the paperwork required, provided references, agreed a start date but didn't turn up. Initially his intended manager and HR were concerned. Telephoned him at home (this was before mobiles were commonplace) and his mother said he was still in bed, he would not come to the phone and she had no idea he was supposed to be starting a job that day.

He never called back to explain but - this is the really odd thing - when the role was readvertised he applied again (and was swiftly rejected).

I've also in more recent times experienced candidates accepting a role and then informing us close to the start date that they would not be taking up the position for various reasons, usually that their employer had raised their salary and "beaten our offer" or they had secured another role in the meantime. I don't think that's unusual. Just not turning up is really not a good look.

It’s awful OP, they are just crap people. I had a cleaner who did this to me. She had got a great new job and I would have been delighted for her all she had to do was tell me but she just went radio silence. Really impacted me at the time as I would have classified her as a friend also.

I accepted a job, turned up on my first day, the job wasn't what was advertised, the person doing the handover even told me that when I started asking questions.
I turned up the next day, spoke in private to tell them I wouldn't be continuing, they couldn't believe I turned up to tell them and the company owners why I wouldn't be coming back.
Just said they would have just not turned up., and not got in touch.

I think they just changed their mind or had another offer.

I've noticed the last 10 years or so that many people don't feel obligated to inform people of their change of heart or that they can't do what they were intending to.

I’ve worked in payroll for a large company with a lot of employees. You’d be surprised how often first day no shows occur.

Kidnapped by aliens 👽🛸👾

I think we have all become used to ghosting in all areas of life instead of explaining ourselves or having hard conversations. When you make a restaurant booking or get a hospital appointment they remind you to actually tell them if you want to cancel.

I was offered a job in October, had a call to say start date was being pushed back until November and then never heard from them again. Annoyance and rejection is part of life so we should face it politely instead of inconveniencing people more through silence

I’d assume he was hurt/died tbh. I don’t think a grieving /overwhelmed NOK would think to inform you.

We’ve had applicants a few times who accepted the job offer then announced that their current employer had offered them a pay rise, so it became clear fairly quickly that they’d been playing us. Shitty thing to do.

Is that playing you? Or is it going for a job and then being retained - a pretty normal way for things to happen

We had this... Applicant wanted flexibility, we were able to offer that but her old workplace wasn't, ours would have been a slight drop in pay but worth it for the flexibility with children. Said in interview she loved her job and didn't want to leave, but had to prioritise herself/ family. Then turns out her old job offered the exact flexibility she'd been offered with us... Asked boss if he thought she'd used us to get her current job to agree to the flexible working request, he said no she didn't come across like that! Maybe I'm just more cynical...

One of my friends is very charming and always gets offered jobs at interview. She is also super flakey and has done things like this quite often. She was offered a great opportunity in a very coveted profession once but then her sister suggested they go for a one week holiday in Spain so she went to Spain instead of starting the job.

LinkedIn isn’t used in my line of work, so didn’t occur to me! That would also show in Google though? As well as an accident or death etc, which LinkedIn wouldn’t show