His profile cleared the shortlist. An interview was scheduled. He showed up.
The panel, it turned out, was unavailable. The interview was cancelled on the spot — not before he arrived, not with a courtesy call, but at the moment he was already there. The company rescheduled for the following week, which is the kind of gesture that reads as commitment right up until it doesn't.
The following week came and went. What arrived instead of a conversation was a generic rejection email: the standard 'we've decided to move forward with other candidates' template, no feedback, no mention of the cancelled slot or the wasted morning.
He had been shortlisted. He had been rescheduled. He had, by any reasonable reading, been wanted. Then the process simply forgot he existed — and mailed him the boilerplate anyway.