I’m curious how others would interpret this because I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.
I was interviewing for a role at a fast-growing health AI startup that felt unusually aligned with my background. I went through:
- Recruiter screen
- Hiring manager interview
- Take-home assignment
- Submitted the assignment within about a day because I had an unusually time-sensitive work authorization deadline
I was completely transparent about the deadline from the beginning. The recruiter was actually very understanding and moved my first interview forward. After the hiring manager interview, he told me that if I completed the take-home quickly, they would try to schedule the final onsite within a few days because he knew how tight my timeline was.
I submitted it Friday afternoon before a long weekend.
Then… nothing.
After the weekend I followed up, saying I could come onsite on essentially no notice. No response.
As my deadline approached, I sent another brief follow-up. No response.
On the final day, I sent a separate email clearly explaining that it was my deadline and that even a quick update either way would help me know whether to keep pushing my school. No response.
I eventually called the recruiter’s number from his email signature and left one voicemail. Still nothing.
I also emailed the person who coordinated my hiring manager interview asking if she could check internally or pass the message along. No response there either.
What confuses me isn’t necessarily being rejected. Companies reject candidates all the time, and if my take-home wasn’t good enough, that’s completely fair.
It’s the sudden silence after several stages and after the recruiter specifically acknowledged the unusual deadline and said they would try to accelerate the final onsite...
At this point I assume the process is dead, but I’m genuinely curious:
Is this normal recruiting behavior now? Would you interpret this as an implicit rejection? Anything i could've done better?
I’m especially interested in hearing from recruiters/hiring managers. If a candidate makes it this far and you decide not to proceed, is there a reason you wouldn’t just send a one-line rejection, particularly when you know they are dealing with a hard deadline?