By Mona Zander | Founder & CEO, matchAmint
This is the first post in a 3-part employer series on hourly hiring and retention. Part 2 looks at why good candidates never finish applying. Part 3 covers what happens after someone says yes and how to make the handoff from offer to Day 1 stick.
If hiring for hourly roles has felt like trying to catch smoke with a clipboard, you are not imagining it.
Candidates disappear. Interviews get missed. Offers are accepted, and then Day 1 comes
around and the new hire is harder to find than a full pot of coffee in the break room. It is frustrating, costly, and exhausting for already-stretched teams.
But here is the part that deserves more attention: ghosting is not always a candidate problem. Very often, it is a process problem. Here’s the good news: process problems can be fixed.
Ghosting is not just a feeling: the data confirms that it’s both widespread and expensive.
76% of employers report being ghosted by candidates (Indeed, 2021). 54% of high-volume hiring teams say interview-stage ghosting is their single biggest challenge (Sense, 2024). And 60% of job seekers abandon applications because they are too long or too complicated (MokaHR / CareerPlug, 2023-2025).
The risks continue after the offer. 22% of candidates who accept an offer never show up on Day 1 (Interview Guys, 2025). Some organizations report interview no-show rates between 30% and 50% for hourly positions (CloudApper Al, 2026).
With an average cost per hire of $5,475 (SHRM, 2025 Benchmarking Report), each restart adds up fast – especially for a small business running lean.
It is tempting to look at those numbers and conclude that workers are unreliable.
Sometimes that is true. But not nearly often enough to explain the whole picture.
Hourly candidates move quickly. They juggle multiple applications, shifting schedules, transportation issues, family obligations, and competing offers. If your process is slow, unclear, or clunky, good people fall out before they ever reach the interview – much less the first shift.
A complicated application. A long wait for follow-up. Unclear next steps. Silence after an offer. These all produce the same result: the candidate disappears, and you are left with a hole in the schedule.
That does not mean you should lower your standards. It means you should remove the unnecessary friction.
Ghosting is often a process signal. If your application is long, your follow-up is slow, or your pre-boarding goes quiet, good candidates can disappear before Day 1.
Shorten the Path to the Front Door
If your application asks too much too early, people drop. For hourly roles, the first step should make it easy for a qualified person to raise their hand. Gather the rest later. If the path to your front door feels like a maze, many people will never make it inside.
Respond Like the Job Matters
A delayed response is not neutral — it can send a negative message. If a candidate applies and hears nothing, many assume the role has been filled, the employer is disorganized, or someone else moved faster. A quick confirmation and clear next steps go further than most employers realize.
Close the Gap Between “Yes” and Day 1
The stretch between offer acceptance and the first shift is one of the highest-risk points in the process. Another offer can appear. Doubts grow. Life gets noisy. If you go silent during that window, the candidate can drift
This is where pre-boarding matters. A welcome note, first-day logistics, what to bring, where to park, who to ask for, and a sense of what the first week looks like — these small steps make the job feel real and reduce the odds of a no-show.
Text, Don’t Just Email
Shorten the Path to the Front Door
If your application asks too much too early, people drop. For hourly roles, the first step should make it easy for a qualified person to raise their hand. Gather the rest later. If the path to your front door feels like a maze, many people will never make it inside.
Respond Like the Job Matters
A delayed response is not neutral — it can send a negative message. If a candidate applies and hears nothing, many assume the role has been filled, the employer is disorganized, or someone else moved faster. A quick confirmation and clear next steps go further than most employers realize.
Close the Gap Between “Yes” and Day 1
The stretch between offer acceptance and the first shift is one of the highest-risk points in the process. Another offer can appear. Doubts grow. Life gets noisy. If you go silent during that window, the candidate can drift.
This is where pre-boarding matters. A welcome note, first-day logistics, what to bring, where to park, who to ask for, and a sense of what the first week looks like – these small steps make the job feel real and reduce the odds of a no-show.
Text, Don’t Just Email
Many hourly workers are not living in their inbox. A simple text reminder about an interview, a shift, or next steps can be far more effective than an email sent into the void.
Treat the First 90 Days as Part of Hiring
The offer is not the finish line. 43% of frontline workers quit within 90 days, costing roughly $7,000 each in recruiting, training, and lost productivity (Trisearch / Fountain,2025). The real hiring process includes onboarding, early check-ins, manager follow-through, and helping new hires settle in. People who feel expected and supported are far less likely to vanish.
| 43% of frontline workers leave within 90 days. The hiring process does not end at the offer. It ends when someone stays. |
It is not about adding complexity. It is about removing the unnecessary kind.
A cleaner application. Faster follow-up. Better reminders. Clearer expectations. Stronger pre-boarding. A smoother handoff from recruiting to onboarding. None of that is flashy. it in hourly hiring, practical wins beat flashy ones every time.
urly hiring gets harder when everyone is guessing. Employers are guessing who is serious. Candidates are guessing what happens next. And somewhere in the middle, good people slip away.
matchAmint helps make the process clearer from the start: simpler applications, better-fit candidates, faster communication, and fewer loose ends between “I’m interested” and
Day 1.
Less chasing. Less guessing. More real matches.
That is not magic. It is just a better process.
| Hiring hourly workers and tired of the runaround? Let’s talk about what’s not working — and how to fix it. matchamint.work |
Mona Zander is the Founder and CEO of matchAmint, an hourly hiring platform built to connect reliable workers with good employers.
Before founding matchAmint, Mona led businesses and product launches at DuPont, Hewlett-Packard, and Signify, formerly Philips Lighting, where she drove turnarounds, built new markets, and delivered results at scale. A certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, she holds an MBA from Wharton and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia.
As an immigrant who rebuilt her life in the U.S. at age 11, Mona believes hiring systems should work better for the people and employers who need them most.
Connect with Mona on Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/monazander
Sense, “2024 High-Volume Hiring Candidate Experience Report,” 2024. Survey of ~250 talent acquisition professionals.
Indeed, “Employer Ghosting: A Troubling Workplace Trend,” February 2021. Survey of employers and job seekers.
MokaHR research summary, April 2025; corroborated by Apploi (2023) and CareerPlug candidate experience research.
The Interview Guys, “The 2025 Ghosting Index,” January 2026. Synthesis of 50+ studies including
Greenhouse, CareerPlug, Resume Builder, and SHRM.
CloudApper Al, January 2026. Industry data and client case studies on hourly interview no-show rates.
SHRM, 2025 Benchmarking Report, October 2025. Average cost per hire for non-executive roles: $5,475.
Trisearch, “Frontline Recruiting and Hiring,” December 2025, citing Fountain.com retention data.
The information provided in this article is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Statistics cited are drawn from third-party sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication; however, matchAmint makes no representations or warranties regarding their accuracy, completeness, or current applicability. Hiring practices, employment regulations, and workforce conditions vary by jurisdiction and industry. Employers should consult qualified legal or HR professionals before making changes to their hiring processes. matchAmint is not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this article.
matchAmint is an equal opportunity platform and does not discriminate based on citizenship status, national origin, or any other protected characteristic.
© 2026 matchAmint. All rights reserved.
So Why Can't You Fill the Role? More applications have not meant more good hires. Here is what is really happening in your inbox, and how to fix it. By Mona Zander | Founder & CEO, matchAmint | 7 min read Picture it. You post an opening on Friday. By Monday you have fourty applications. By Wednesday, ninety. It looks like good news. Then you tart reading, and the good news quietly comes apart. You call the promising ones. Most do not pick up. A couple say they will come in, then do […]
So New Hires Show Up, Settle In, and Stay By Mona Zander | Founder & CEO, matchAmint In the first two posts in this series, we looked at why candidates ghost and why many never finish applying. This post picks up where those leave off: what happens after a candidate says yes, when the hiring process still is not over. You posted the job. You screened candidates. You made the […]
And It's Costing You the Candidates You Actually Want. By Mona Zander | Founder & CEO, matchAmint 6 min read This is the second post in a 3-part employer series on hourly hiring and retention. Part 1 covers why candidate ghosting happens and what it costs. Part 3 covers what happens after someone says yes and how to make the handoff from offer to Day 1 stick. In a recent post, we looked […]