Got ghosted after 5 rounds of interviews with a startup

I spent 2 months talking to this small tech company in Austin, did a coding test, met the whole team, even the CEO. The recruiter told me I was their top pick and they'd have an offer by Friday. That was 3 weeks ago and now nobody answers my emails or calls. I'm starting to think they never had a real budget for the position. Has anyone else had a company just vanish after that many interviews?

2 comments

2 Comments

davidh889d agoMost Upvoted

...and that's exactly why I've started telling people to treat the whole hiring process like a bad relationship. If they ghost you after five rounds, it says way more about them than it does about you. It's the same pattern you see everywhere now - people overcommit and then vanish when things get hard, whether it's dating, hiring, or even contractors showing up for a job. They were probably stringing you along while they figured out if they could actually afford you, and instead of being honest, they just went silent. That's the world we live in now, nobody wants to have the awkward conversation anymore.

noahhall9d ago

Got ghosted after a similar situation with a company in Denver once. They had me do this take home project that took like 15 hours, then nothing. I found out later from a former employee the CEO was basically running the company on credit cards and they had to freeze hiring right when I was supposed to start. It's a real mess when small startups get cold feet. Probably dodged a bullet overall, even though it felt terrible at the time.