You’d think a recruiter hyping you up would mean you nailed it, but this job applicant discovered the age-old saying you shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch, or more accurately, for this situation: it ain’t over till the hiring manager sings.
This is just a modern hiring circus routine in one neat scene. A recruiter can hype alignment, talk up skills, and gush about how perfect someone looks for the job. Then the person with actual power can swoop in, ignore all of that, and deep dive into dates and timelines like the resume is a credit report. Companies churn people with layoffs, restructures, and burnout, then act shocked that nobody has a ten-year stretch under one logo. Suddenly, contracts, downsizing, and taking better offers all get folded into one lazy label, job hopper.
The funniest part is how every version is suspicious. A few short roles, clearly unstable. One long role, clearly stagnant. Anything outside one imaginary path becomes a personality flaw instead of a reflection of a chaotic market. Candidates end up explaining perfectly reasonable decisions like they are confessing to something. All because two people inside the same company cannot agree on what actually matters.
None of this says anything deep about a person’s worth or ability. It mostly exposes how random hiring preferences are on any given day.
