It began as a dating term — the act of abruptly cutting off all communication with someone you’d been seeing, without explanation or warning. But ghosting has migrated from Tinder to the corporate world with alarming speed, and HR professionals across Singapore and the region are dealing with its consequences every day.

Candidate ghosting — the phenomenon of job applicants accepting interview invitations, offer letters or even onboarding processes, then simply disappearing without contact — has escalated from occasional annoyance to a systemic recruitment challenge. In a tight labour market where employers are already struggling to fill positions, the reputational, financial and operational costs of ghosting are substantial.

The scale of the problem

A survey by Indeed of over 4,000 candidates and 500 employers in the Asia Pacific region found that 76% of employers had been ghosted by a candidate in the previous six months, with 28% reporting it happened “frequently” or “very frequently.” Even more alarming: 47% of candidates who accepted job offers reported that they had ghosted an employer at some point in their career — including ghosting after accepting an offer.

The costs are not trivial. Each ghosted recruitment process represents spent recruiter time, hiring manager hours, assessment costs and, where an offer was extended, potential backfill delays. Companies estimate the average cost of a ghosted mid-level hire — accounting for all sunk costs and the need to restart the search — at S$15,000 to S$25,000.

Why candidates ghost

Rather than dismissing it as rudeness, HR leaders are finding value in understanding the candidate’s perspective. Ghosting is typically a response to one of several experiences:

• A better offer arrived — In a competitive job market, candidates receive multiple offers simultaneously. Rather than negotiating or declining gracefully, many simply take the better offer and disappear.
• A negative candidate experience — Long response times, impersonal processes, poor interview experiences or perceived disrespect all increase the likelihood that candidates will not feel obligated to provide closure.
• Offer-acceptance as safety net — Some candidates accept an offer as a backup while continuing to interview elsewhere, intending to ghost if something better comes along.
• Anxiety and conflict-avoidance — Particularly for younger candidates, the fear of an uncomfortable rejection conversation leads to avoidance.

What employers can do

The antidote to candidate ghosting begins with the candidate experience. Research consistently shows that candidates who receive timely, respectful and personal communication are dramatically less likely to ghost. Specific tactics include: keeping the process moving quickly, providing a named point of contact, sending personal (not templated) follow-up messages, and building genuine rapport before extending an offer.

Some employers have also introduced candidate commitments — mutual agreements at the offer stage that formalise both parties’ commitment to communication. Others have used pre-boarding engagement to keep candidates warm between offer acceptance and start date, reducing the risk of counter-offer ghosting.