Process started off great. Lots of enthusiasm from the Superblocks team, the CEO traced out to me personally, they were extremely communicative and it was clear they were interested in me. I had several other opportunities I was also considering and this was never kept a secret from them.
After my onsite interview, I was pumped on the role and the company and leadership team. The head of recruiting sat me down at the end of the onsite and told me they were wanting to move to an offer and shared the base they wanted to offer me. It felt like a done deal. He asked to chat the next day, where I was expecting to receive an offer, and instead just kept asking about how I was feeling. Then proceeded to ask me if I was comfortable taking after hours work calls several days a week and some weekends, after some thought, I said yes and even wrote a very thoughtful follow up email. He never responded, so I followed up the next day. He took hours to get back to me, a stark difference in comms from previously in the process, and then never made the time to talk to me that day, telling me he’d reach out the next morning. He never reached out, so I followed up yet again, and he finally set a time to talk. We spoke and he told me they had another candidate who they made an offer to who “accepted on the spot.” It made me feel like because I wouldn’t necessarily accept on the spot because I wanted to properly evaluate my options, as a career change is a big deal, they don’t feel I was serious about the company.
This, after sharing not only cash numbers and equity numbers and percentages with me, was completely unprofessional. In my 10+ years as a recruiter, I have never told a candidate we were going to make them an offer, just to go back on my word and breadcrumb them after that.
The company leadership team preached about candidate experience during my interviews with them and I would say this is one of the poorest candidate. experiences I’ve probably ever had. Bait and switch is not an okay way to treat a candidate. Be wary of overpromising and under delivering.
Regardless of a company being a startup or not, this is not a professional way to run a search or treat a candidate.
