I was aggressively approached by a recruiter a while ago and they managed to present me to a job that I figured I was a good fit for. I wasn’t really looking for anything new at the time but the salary and growth potential enticed me, so I entertained it. Phone screen with HR went fine. The recruiter reached out to me a week later to confirm a second interview with the team, so I gave him my availability. He said he’ll let the HR person know. Didn’t hear anything back a week, but I wasn’t trippin as I wasn’t even set on leaving my current job.

Then that Friday, I get a call from a colleague of the recruiter saying that the company reached out and told them that I completely no show’ed my second interview….but I was never given details of said interview. So we go back and forth, I confirm that I provided my availability the week before and that was the last correspondence I had with the recruiter. They own up to it but essentially lied to the HR person and said they sent it to another email of mine (not true) and I just happened to see that in a separate email thread.

Anyways, that ordeal is over with and I move on to have two more interviews with the company. Interviews go great. After the final one, the recruiter calls and says they should be ready to give an offer within 48 hours. I don’t hold my breath but I do anticipate good news. Then I don’t hear anything from the recruiter for 2 weeks.

He calls me finally and says that they’re ready to give an offer soon and asked me to provide references, so I do. It has been 2 weeks now and still have not heard a single peep from the recruiter. I’ve followed up again and again and have gotten absolute radio silence.

I’m pretty bummed to say the least. As the interviews continued, I got more and more excited for this job. I know many say that if a company ghosts you it probably has nothing to do with you, and I get that. I’m more so frustrated with this recruiter. Even if they haven’t gotten back to him, I still would’ve appreciated him letting me know that there was no update. When he reached out to my references he let them know I was likely going to join the new company, which was an overstep in my opinion. And now they’re asking me when I start and if I’m excited. And I have to tell them I’m probably not joining at this point.

Whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. This was my first time actually utilizing a recruiter vs. applying myself.