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??

This happened in a couple of places I've worked. I always assumed they'd had a better offer and didn't want the awkwardness of telling us.

It is so rude when it happens though.

I worked in hospitality when my kids were teeny and we even had people show up for their first shift, eat the staff dinner and then fuck off 😂. So rude!

I've asked for my posts to be deleted on this thread because after sharing an anecdote about something that happened to me many years ago I've been jumped on by @nevernotmaybe who is calling me a liar, when actually I suspect she just doesn't recognise my experience of work because she's been involved in a completely different sector and was maybe even still at school when the situation I described happened. In coming to my own defence I've probably overshared, hence the deletion request. This sort of crap really spoils mumsnet for everyone so I am over and out on this thread. Sorry that I have been prevented from contributing to your discussion @WWLD- wishing you all the best and hoping that you didn't take being ghosted personally.

Not sure hiding everything, using a circumstantial ad hominem and other fallacies not supported by any information available, and ironically being so emotional over a stranger criticising what appears to be an issue in what you said that you then sound very young, is the amazing comeback and hit to me you think it is.

I stand by everything I said. More so from this latest post and behaviour, that matches exactly what I thought.

If I am wrong, you can be happy in that knowledge and carry on as though I dont exist.

I experienced this 15 years ago and was absolutely shocked someone would do this. I've had more than one job offer at a time on more than one occasion and have never messed people about.

Employers ghost job applicants all the time.

Maybe he died?

Seriously? This is a chat board not a court of law. You need to get a grip.

He got a better offer.

We recruited someone a few years ago. He accepted the job offer and was going through vetting then everything went very quiet. Eventually we got a call from his son who'd been going through his emails after he'd died unexpectedly, noticed we'd been trying to contact him and thought he should let us know. 😔