Job hunting can mess with your head in ways you don’t expect.

So, what would you do if you went through multiple interview rounds and were told an offer was coming, but then you got completely ghosted without explanation?

Would you assume they chose someone else? Or would you think it was something else?

In the following story, one job seeker finds himself in this situation and is shocked to learn the truth.

Here’s what happened.

Apparently I was fired from a position I was never offered.

I was unemployed for over a year, and as you can imagine, I applied everywhere I could think of that I was qualified for.

Over the summer, I was offered a job that seemed amazing, only to find a vast difference in what was offered in the interview and what was on the contract I was given to sign. It took them three days to get back to me to tell me “That’s what we’re offering.”

Desperate, I took the job. It was not good, and recent events made me decide that not having a paycheck was better than having no self-respect and being treated like a fool.

After several interviews, they said they’d get back to him.

Starting my job hunt, I looked at a local company I’ve applied to several times over the years. I’d actually forgotten the debacle I’d had with them late last year. I’d applied for a job in August, and through October and November, I had three rounds of interviews.

At the risk of bragging, I thought the interviews went well; each had different people interviewing me, and in the second round, I actually got one interviewer to go from utterly standoffish to chatting like we were old friends.

During the last interview, it was mentioned they’d get back to me the next week, as “There’s a discussion on a change in pay bands for your position.”

Now, the job is posted again.

I didn’t hear anything from them on the role ever again.

About a month later, I saw the position advertised again, with a $10k drop in the offered salary. I wondered if I’d just been dropped because my salary requirement was higher than theirs, or if they’d hired someone else who didn’t last a month.

I actually applied again, curious to see what would happen, but never heard back despite my three previous rounds of interviews.

He has so many questions.

As I said, I forgot about that whole debacle, but it came back to me as I applied to the company again today, and I saw my previous applications listed. What makes it great is that where every other role I’ve ever used to them says “Not Accepted,” the job I had three rounds of interviews for says “Not Retained,” which I know from others is their business speak for “Fired.”

I have so many questions. I want an interview for the role I applied to, just so I can ask about the idea I came up with, and was let go without ever working for the company.

Anyway, that was just so ridiculous that I had to share it with all of you. Wish me luck on the job hunt!

Yikes! That whole situation sounds like a mess.

Let’s see how the people over at Reddit feel about what happened to this guy.

This reader gives the meaning of the term.

Here’s an interesting idea.

According to this comment, she went through something similar.

This person thinks something weird happened.

Maybe he’ll get it this time.

You never know unless you try.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.