Now You See Them, Now You Don't: Understanding New Hire Ghosting and Its Antecedents

ABSTRACT

New hire ghosting, in which applicants accept an offer and then quit before their first day without notice, is an emerging and consequential staffing phenomenon. Drawing on job embeddedness theory, we conceptualize new hire ghosting as a form of pre‐entry withdrawal influenced by dispositional risk and the fragile fit, links, and sacrifice factors characteristic of the post‐offer, pre‐entry phase. Across two complementary studies, we examine ghosting's prevalence, drivers, and implications. In Study 1, using a multi‐year archival dataset ( N  = 157,154), we found that 4.1% of accepted offers at a large telecommunications company ghosted, resulting in staffing disruptions costing over $6.9 million each year. Hires with longer offer‐to‐start delays and customer‐facing roles experienced greater ghosting risk. Building on these findings, Study 2 surveyed a broad sample of adults in the US to compare recent ghosters to employed non‐ghosters ( N  = 434). Fit (lower perceived organizational attractiveness), links (non‐referral hires, weaker pre‐entry communication), and sacrifice (greater financial insecurity, the presence of external offers) were all associated with ghosting outcomes, with impulsivity further attenuating the protective benefits of embeddedness effects. Collectively, these findings extend embeddedness theory into the post‐offer, pre‐entry period and help identify targeted staffing practices that can mitigate ghosting.