New Hires Ghosting

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal called, “Hiring is Hard Enough. Now New Workers Are Vanishing Before They Even Start” highlighted the issue of new hires not showing up for their first day. The introduction to the article tells the story of a no show for first day orientation and summarizes the firm’s learning — a job isn’t filled until a new hire shows up for work.” If you’re a contingency recruiter, you would also add in the statement “and works there for 90 days” (to reflect the guaranty period you offer your client (the new hire will work for you for 90 days for us to earn our fee in its entirety).

It relays stories of a firm speeding up its hiring process after realizing its offers were being turned down too frequently (it may not be the speed of the process, but your wage scale), a cleaning service that couldn’t get people to show up for paid training and 80% just stop showing up (Can you believe it. People don’t dream of a life cleaning as a career for them!).

Embedded in the story are two sentences about new hires: “They claimed they discovered the pay was lower or the hours or conditions different than what they were told. Some even complained that the hiring companies had previously ignored them after interviews or applications.”