# An Onboarding Email Three Years After the Offer

**[TRUE STORY]** — by Candidate · via r/recruitinghell

The offer came, and then nothing. Not a rejection, not a scheduling note, not a reply — for three years.

Then, out of the blue, a hiring manager emailed to confirm the start date. As if a weekend had passed. As if the candidate had been waiting by the phone since the offer and simply needed to name a Monday.

The candidate pushed back. The reply that came was long, defensive, and, readers suspected, machine-written: a lecture explaining that the candidate should have kept following up, and should have formally withdrawn if they were no longer interested. The three years of silence were not the subject. The candidate’s handling of them was.

Jobseekers lit up the thread with the obvious view: after three years, a start date is not a scheduling request, it is a resurrection. One commenter gave the phenomenon its real name. This was not ghosting. It was necromancy.

*Source: [r/recruitinghell · viral post](https://coding4food.com/en/post/ghosted-for-3-years-candidate-gets-onboarding-date-and-ai-lecture)*
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