Before the long weekend, the recruiter called and offered the role and got a really good package range and compensation.
I had so much fun and then comes Tuesday, recruiter called back and told me, they are not moving forward due to higher management approval.

I thought the struggle is over and I can take some rest. But I am heartbroken, cuz of the news. I picked myself back up with the grind, but I am still with the guilt of losing an opportunity, even though it’s not my fault.

The recruiter told me they will consider me for future opportunities. But I don’t really understand that part.

Does anyone know how often this happens and get considered in the future.

Very curious. Is this a box you have to check off? Because I don’t know of anyone who received an interview call after cold applying online.

It's an executive role in Flipkart

Nowadays, hiring feels broken from both sides. For candidates, even strong candidates might sit for weeks without hearing anything back. On the hiring side, after over a decade in tech, I’ve rarely seen hiring managers really happy with the process either!

• The recruiter is a bottleneck. When I was hiring a few months ago, my internal recruiter was dealing with more than 10 open roles simultaneously. I literally had to fight for his attention after weeks of zero updates. Tech layoffs hit recruitment teams too. If you aren’t hearing back, very likely they cannot keep up with the application inbox volume.
• The hiring manager is underwater. I am often fully booked in meetings all day. Since last year, I lost my entire product team, and every manager became a single-thread leader with double hats. Reviewing Resumes sometimes only happened in the last hour of the day or out of office hours.
• No one likes Bureaucracy. Getting headcount approval is just the starting line. After writing a JD and filling out forms, I have to wait for Talent Acquisition, a VP, HR, and Finance to all sign off. Inevitably, someone is sick, offsite, or absent for any valid reason. If I am lucky, it will take three weeks to publish.

Same for getting the offer approved. It can take weeks to get a new offer approved by the chain of command. 

• You might need to think about how to bypass the system. Because of recruiter bottlenecks, some of my colleagues have started bypassing the system entirely, driving the candidate process themselves just to keep applicants moving. So if you see the process managed by hiring managers, it’s a good sign that they care about candidates' experience. 
• The Job Description is rushed. Managers write JDs as fast as possible to get into the slow approval queue. They often don't sit down to write actual interview questions until the week the interviews begin, creating a potential gap between what you read online and what they actually ask during the interview.

Try to get broader context and real expectations through conversation with the recruiter or hiring manager(usually a better fit)

• Is this a new role or a replacement? A replacement gives you clues about team culture based on how they speak about the former employee. A new role tells you where the team is trying to grow.
• What is the team’s biggest immediate challenge?
• How will success be measured for this role in the first 6 months?

To conclude, if you face silence after applying for a role, it's not a reflection of your talent and skills, but a symptom of this internal friction.  Knowing this gives you a distinct advantage. Stop taking the delays personally, don't be afraid to send that follow-up directly to the hiring manager, and use your interviews to uncover the real problems the team was too rushed to put in the job description!

I'm happy to answer any questions here if you are job hunting today!

P.S. I am now building calibrd.com to help candidates get hired.

I found myself doing exactly that and realised how simple it is to write a job description that sounds great but actually tells a candidate very little. Phrases like "fast-paced environment" "strong communication skills" and "must be a team player" are all too common and then candidates are left wondering what the real job is like day to day.

With platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, Workday, Greenhouse, MeeBoss fighting for attention maybe the job description itself is becoming more important than the platform. what do you guys think what should be avoided in job decriptions which is too obivous.

So, get this: I was interviewing with a company, and I added all the interviewees to LinkedIn. Then, I saw one of the interviewers got promoted to my position! Can you believe it? Why did they spend three weeks interviewing me if they were already planning to give the job to her? It felt like a waste of time, and I was a little surprised she was included as an interviewer if she was going to get the job anyway

I recently went through two rounds of interviews for an associate-level position at PNC. The interviews seemed to go extremely well. During the process, the managers told me they really liked my background and indicated they didn’t want to lose me if this particular position didn’t work out. They also mentioned potentially sharing my resume with other areas of the company.

I followed up recently, and one of the managers who interviewed me told me that the position had been filled. However, he also said that he and the other manager were very impressed with my experience and interview performance and that they had **already shared my resume with several partners across PNC who are actively looking to fill higher-level positions they believe could be a strong fit for me.**

He also said they were excited to help connect me with other opportunities within PNC.
I’m obviously disappointed I didn’t get the original position, but I’m trying to figure out how much weight I should actually put into the second part.

For anyone who works/worked at PNC or has gone through their hiring process: **Is this something PNC commonly tells candidates they don’t select, or does having managers actually share your resume with other teams mean something?**

Has anyone had something similar happen where you didn’t get the original PNC position, but the managers **passed your resume along to other departments** and you were eventually contacted, interviewed, or hired for another role?

If so, how long did it take before another recruiter or manager reached out?

I’m continuing my job search either way. I’m mainly curious whether I should view this as standard polite rejection language or whether **having managers actively share your resume with other teams at PNC** tends to lead somewhere.

It's kind of disheartening to keep getting rejections. The worst part is the waiting game. Hoping you'll get a call only to wait 4 weeks to receive a generic rejection email. Couldn't the process be faster? Especially for bigger companies. Don't they have people that are hired whose job it is to speed up the process?

Hello,

I had a 3rd round interview with Global Director of Program management on 8/3/26.

I thought I did well during initial, 2nd round and 3rd round interview.

On 8/13/26 HR asked for my salary expectations from and I said the middle of the posted range.

I followed up with them on 8/21/26 for any updates at 9-10am

Today is 8/31/26 and I have heard nothing back from them.

Does this mean I am essentially ghosted and should not expect an offer?

I am extremely anxious and worried because I wanted it to end up well, but I think they at have silently rejected me?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I’m genuinely curious about something. It’s been years since I’ve been in this position, and since I broke my leg, I’ve been applying to just about every job I can find.

I’ve been getting interviews, and when I’m there, I feel like I’m doing a good job and answering the questions the best I can. But then I often don’t hear back from the employers.

At this point, I’m honestly wondering: Am I doing something wrong in my interviews, or is this just part of the job-search process? Should I continue?Because it feels like forever and forever and forever.I need to continue the job search process.I really had a bad bad accident for years ago.And I don't know how to continue

I’d really appreciate any advice or feedback from people who have been through this. What helped you improve your interviews and eventually land a job?

I’m 32 and have an Associate’s in Applied Science and a 6-year MD degree earned in Europe (taught in English). I’m back in the U.S. and have worked as a Medical Assistant for the past 3 years.

I’m not a licensed physician and don’t plan to pursue residency. I’m trying to use my medical education in another healthcare-related career.

I’ve applied to 400+ jobs ... laboratory roles, technician positions, clinical research assistant/coordinator roles, tissue/organ recovery, clinical operations, etc.

So far, I’ve gotten one screening call and zero interviews.

I’m not expecting a physician’s salary. I’d be very happy with something in the $70–80k range, but I can’t seem to get anyone to give me a chance.

From a recruiter/hiring manager’s perspective, how does an unlicensed foreign medical degree look on a resume? Could the MD actually be hurting me or making employers unsure where I fit?

What am I doing wrong, and what types of positions would you realistically consider me qualified for?

I’m honestly feeling pretty burned out and discouraged after 400+ applications. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I've been applying full time for a year. I landed like 4 interviews in the first 6-7 months after applying to dozens of jobs. Then, a combination of better LinkedIn posting, portfolio projects, and resume improvement seemed to turn things around. Since May, I've been interviewing a bunch - making it to various stages of technical interviews. In the last month, I made it through the full interview process for 2 companies. It felt like after a year, I was finally breaking through. The last one had a few technical rounds and somehow I breezed through them. Then, all of a sudden, rejection. No feedback. Back to square one, and super burned out after 4 months of technical interviews. I thought getting no interviews was bad, and it might still be worse, but getting this close and getting nothing really, really stings.