“It’s across all job types,” said Kevin Grossman, president of Talent Board. “Professional candidates, especially those that are in the running for multiple jobs, with multiple offers, may verbally accept, and then never respond again, because they took another job somewhere else.”

More jobs than workers

That number of jobs available to applicants is one of the factors powering this trend, he said. “For every candidate, there are two or three jobs available. So there’s a lot of jobs in the market, across industries.”

Compared to two years ago, more than four in 10 respondents (43%) to a previous survey said it’s more common for job candidates to cut off communication.

“There is a higher level of ghosting of these individuals that are [thinking] ‘I can get paid higher’.”

Pay them

In order to prevent this, what about compensating candidates for their time? “We just need to reset, and really think about people as people and as valuable assets to companies, and they need to be treated like that from the start,” said Allison Venditti, founder of Moms at Work and My Parental Leave.