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So, I've got a job offer from one major software company a couple weeks ago. I had a talk with the recruitment manager and then another one with the manager of the team that I was supposed to work in. The latter call was to choose the part of the team for which I would be the best fit. After this call, they seem to cut off any communication and don't respond to my emails, for almost two weeks already.
Any ideas what this could mean? Looks like they decided to withdraw their offer but don't have the guts to do it openly, or am I being paranoid?

Update (Jan 19 2021): Half a year has passed. The company finally contacted me to resume the process - but for a completely different team and position. The manager in the team I talked with still works in the same position. Any reasonable explanation for such behavior?

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    @user855286 the point is that you don't know why you haven't had a response. Stop guessing and just phone them. Or don't, and just let this opportunity go - your choice.
    – Philip Kendall
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 16:20
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    Did you accept the job offer? Was it in writing?
    – sf02
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 16:25
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    If you didn't sign a document, you haven't accepted anything.
    – Philip Kendall
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 17:10
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    @user855286 If you want to argue with every bit of advice you're given, that's your prerogative. But then why ask here in the first place?
    – Philip Kendall
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 17:46
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    @user855286, Emails may be legally binding, but if the job is in an "at will" state, or if the language used is not definitive, or if you don't have a start date in those emails, then good luck suing for damages and actually winning in court. In any case, I'm not a lawyer, and this is not meant to be legal advice. And if we tell you "If you didn't sign a document, you haven't accepted anything". It's not meant to be legal advice either. It's a mindset you need to have for the next time you get a job-offer. Don't be too eager to accept the job offer itself, always ask for the contract.
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 21:35

4 Answers 4

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Someone probably went on vacation or was fired

Did you note down any other contacts? Reach out to them. Hiring, especially at big companies, tends to be pretty chaotic. Try to reach them by phone and keep sending emails. See if you can get in touch with another person at the company.

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  • I wrote emails to both managers who I interacted with and another guy who was in CC. Seems unlikely that they all went on vacation or were fired all of the sudden. I will keep on trying to reach them out, of course.
    – Entiro
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 16:05
  • @user855286, but it is possible the final decision came down to one person who is either on vacation or left the company, and none of those managers can respond to you until the decision is sorted out.
    – Seth R
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 17:42
  • @SethR other guys in the loop should have updated me on that, am I wrong? Anyway, I'll ask someone else about that, thanks for idea. I didn't think that someone can be so irresponsible.
    – Entiro
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 17:44
  • @user855286, it would be nice, wouldn't it? But if it's a large bureaucratic company, you can't always count on it. If they don't feel like their process allows them to respond to you, they won't. Yeah, it sucks.
    – Seth R
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 17:51
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Maybe they switched companies or were fired. I had this happen to me at least twice. One of my hackathon prizes was an interview and I was set up with a recruiter. And that was all well and good except in the middle of the process the recruiter switched companies, so I was just lost mid process. A friend of mine was an HR person at one point and said that this was common. His company had no process for handing off recruitment and he had never worked for one that did.

Recruitment has tech like turnover.

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  • Recruiters have Employers as clients, and Employees as products. The products just go with the recruiter if they so choose, but most of the time they just don't bother.
    – Nelson
    Commented Jan 20, 2022 at 7:05
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Another possibility is that they are looking at other candidates and they don’t want to say no to you yet.

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    They already made me an offer.
    – Entiro
    Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 19:42
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You've met with the hiring manager through an internal recruiter. In this case, the recruiter is often responsible for the communication with candidates, until the company decides to extend an offer. (Process varies wildly from that point, but you're generally handed over to HR and/or the hiring manager throughout the offer stage and onboarding process.)

You've observed the obvious: The company did not extend you an offer and did not communicate this.

We can only guess what happened: The company may have been speaking to two candidates, the hiring manager may have been forced to prioritize a late internal application, or funding may have been pulled. I would have expected the recruitment manager or one of their direct reports to break the news to you. And for some reason they didn't. They did keep your CV on file and now have another job opening that they would like to consider you for.

It's entirely possible that the recruitment team made an innocent mistake, but it's not the best first impression to make on a candidate you'd like to keep on file.

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  • Quite unlikely, because they already made me an offer for this particular team and the talked that I had with the manager of the team was supposed to be about my first steps in the team.
    – Entiro
    Commented Jan 27, 2022 at 17:10

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