Ninety-five percent of the way through the application, the form asked him to copy and paste the résumé he had already uploaded. He had a job. He was not in the mood. He typed “See Resume” in the first box, left the rest blank, and submitted anyway.
Then he did something he assumed would end the conversation: he emailed the recruiting team to tell them the process was losing them the best candidates. He expected nothing back but a closed door.
The rejection arrived soon after, and the reason was almost funny. The position itself had been rescinded.
A few days later, a recruiter from the same company emailed to ask whether he would like to apply for a higher position. He read it twice. She clearly had not looked at his résumé, and the role was a completely different discipline. He had been rejected for a job that no longer existed, then recruited for one he had never applied to.