A month of interviews with two employers, and one clear preference: the new company, the role, the work. The conversations had gone well — there was chemistry. The process was set at four rounds, the last a presentation built on a case study. A format the candidate, a product manager, had never encountered in their field, but one they were willing to prepare for anyway.
Then, on a Monday morning, an offer arrived from the other employer: the one they had worked for before. They asked for two days to wrap things up. The new company was still the first choice. So they wrote to the recruiter. An offer was on the table, the deadline was Thursday; could the remaining steps be expedited? They would make themselves available at any hour.
The recruiter said she would ask the team.
Three hours later came the rejection.
No explanation, no counter, no offer to skip the case study. The candidate read it as a no rather than a negotiation, and accepted the job with the former employer. They said they understood: a company may not be able to move that fast, or may already have had someone else in mind. But the timing felt like a slap — a month of good conversations, ended by an email three hours after a polite question.