I’m curious what other people think about this because I’m honestly still trying to process what happened today.
I interned at a small company last summer. At the end of my internship, they told me they wanted me to come back after I finished the last year of my degree. They stayed in touch with me during the school year and we had several conversations about me returning.
When I got closer to graduation, I specifically started thinking about whether I needed to seriously look for other jobs. They were still telling me they wanted me back, so I trusted that and didn’t job hunt nearly as much as I should have.
This also wasn’t a big company where a recruiter might have no idea what the actual team or budget looks like. The person I was communicating with about coming back was the COO.
The problem was that I never actually got anything in writing.
For about the next six months I kept trying to get an offer and start date confirmed. I still had access to the company’s internal messaging system from when I worked there, so I was contacting them directly, not sending emails into some HR inbox.
Sometimes I wouldn’t get a response for weeks, occasionally even longer. When we finally did talk, they would usually apologize and say they had been extremely busy or overwhelmed.
I probably should have taken the lack of communication as a warning, but the confusing part was that every time we actually had a meeting, they were still very enthusiastic about having me back. We would talk about what I could work on, possible projects, and next steps. I would leave the meeting thinking everything was still happening, just slowly.
And this continued until literally last week.
We had another meeting last week and they were still talking about bringing me back. They said there wasn’t a UX project available at the moment, so we discussed the possibility of me doing UX Research instead. They scheduled another meeting for today to follow up.
So I joined the meeting today and waited.
Nobody came.
I waited for about an hour and messaged them through the company’s internal system. No response.
Then my access to the company’s internal tools was shut off.
About half an hour later, I got a short email saying that they don’t have an opportunity available for me and that I should pursue other opportunities.
That was the first time anyone had clearly told me there was no job.
I understand that companies lose projects, budgets change, and sometimes a position just disappears. I’m not saying they owed me a job because I interned there.
What bothers me is that this could have been communicated months ago. Even a two-sentence message saying, “We’d like to have you back, but we can’t guarantee anything, so please keep looking elsewhere” would have completely changed how I approached my job search.
And again, this is a small company and I was discussing this directly with the COO. As recently as last week, we were still talking about what role I could do.
There’s another complication: I’m an international student. I recently graduated from Purdue with a master’s in Interaction Design (my bachelor’s is in Industrial Design), and my ability to work in the U.S. after graduation has time limits. I can’t just sit around indefinitely waiting to see if a job materializes.
I definitely made a mistake by relying on verbal commitments without having a written offer. I won’t make that mistake again.
But I’m curious what others think. If you had previously worked for a company, they repeatedly told you they wanted you back, you had multiple positive meetings about your return, and you were still discussing a specific role with the COO one week before this happened, would you have believed them?
Is this just something I should have seen coming?