The job had been up in March, taken down, reposted in May, taken down again, back in August, and then again in January when I applied. Same title, same description, basically word for word. I noticed because I had actually applied the first time in March and got no response, so seeing it again I figured why not.

Got a screening call with an in-house recruiter. Went fine. Then a first round with the hiring manager, also seemed okay, he was pleasant enough. Near the end he did the “any questions for me” part and I asked, pretty straightforwardly, something like “I noticed this role has been posted a few times over the past year, is there anything you can share about what you’re looking for that maybe hasn’t come together yet?” I thought it was a reasonable question. I genuinely wanted to know if there was a revolving door situation or if they just kept losing the headcount approval or what.

The guy paused for a second and then said “we’ve just been very selective.” And then the conversation kind of wrapped up faster than I expected. No second round. Rejection came four days later, very standard template.

I’m not even that upset about it honestly, the role paid under market and the commute was rough. But I find it genuinely baffling that asking a factual question about a publicly visible pattern in their own hiring is apparently the wrong move. Like the information is right there on LinkedIn for anyone to see. I just asked about it.

Still not sure if I’d do anything differently, it felt like a fair thing to want to know before potentially joining.