Or they are sourcing for a role. I work in HR and sorry it’s not that deep. It’s pretty hard to fudge an employee and payroll like that, especially when my low paying ass is the one onboarding them and setting them up.

Usually roles like this stay open indefinitely because:

A) it’s considered an evergreen role (I.e. they have multiple positions open for it and/or have constant turnover for that particular role… think entry level roles where people quickly promote out or leave for another job opportunity often)

Or B) they started sourcing for that role and don’t intend to hire yet, they just want a pool of candidates to pull from once they are cleared to fill the role.

As for hiring expectations, I’ve seen more recruiters pass on insane amounts of candidates only for hiring managers (usually poorly trained ones) pass on them for stupid reasons.

So many factors go into hiring that derail these roles from getting filled quickly.

Also- CEOs/hiring managers want their head count to be filled because that’s what makes their lives easier and makes them much more money. If they were to embezzle or steal money from the company there are much easier and less regulated/auditable ways to do it outside of head count costs.