The Polite Way Companies Waste Your Time
I need to talk about something that’s been happening so often lately that it’s starting to feel like a standard feature of modern hiring — not a glitch.
And what’s wild is: this isn’t just “bad recruiters” or random agencies doing nonsense.
This is internal talent acquisition / HR teams inside real companies. Big groups. Small companies. “Serious” brands with shiny values pages and entire people functions.
And somehow… they keep making the same basic mistake. Over and over again.
I speak to corporate people every single day. I’m in these conversations constantly. And I’m still shocked at how often organisations can be so sophisticated in some areas — and then completely chaotic in the most fundamental one: alignment.
Here’s what it looks like in real life:
A client gets approached by the company’s own talent team. Internal. Confident. Warm. Selling the dream.
“You’d be perfect for this role.” “Your background is exactly what we need.” “We’d love to get you in front of the team.”
So the person does what any sensible person does: They get excited!!!!! They rearrange their schedule. They prep properly. They show up ready to bring their best.
And then the interview happens… and it’s like everyone is reading a different script.
Different expectations. Different priorities. Sometimes it’s basically a different job.
And the feedback afterwards is: “Yeah… you’re not suitable for this role.”
And every time I’m sitting there thinking: you approached them. So what exactly happened between “perfect” and “not suitable”?
Here’s the lesson, because I don’t want you walking away from these experiences with your confidence in pieces:
When a company approaches you and then acts like you’re not suitable, it’s often not a “you” problem. It’s an alignment problem. And your job is to stop their internal chaos from becoming your self-doubt.
What’s actually going on (most of the time)
This pattern usually comes from one of these:
Misalignment: Talent is selling one role; the hiring manager wants a different human.
Role drift: The scope/seniority/budget changed, but nobody updated the outreach message.
Poor intake: No real kickoff with the hiring manager, so talent is guessing (and you’re paying for it).
Process theatre: They’re “running a process” because policy says they have to, while the decision is already leaning another way.
Benchmarking: They’re using interviews to test the market (skills/salary) because they don’t have internal clarity.
Wishful hiring: They want a unicorn profile that doesn’t match what they can pay for or support.
None of that is about your competence.
But if you don’t name it correctly, you’ll do what smart, conscientious people always do: assume it’s you.
The real takeaway
Don’t internalise it. Diagnose it. Treat it like data about the organisation.
Because if the brief changes between outreach and interview, that’s not “feedback.”
That’s poor leadership and poor process.
Approved or Pending
How to protect yourself (without being “difficult”)
Here are the questions that save time — ask these before you accept an interview (or at least before you over-invest emotionally):
“What are the top 3 non-negotiables for this role?”
“What’s the salary range approved for this position?”
“What problem is this hire meant to solve in the first 90 days?”
“Who is the decision-maker, and what does the process look like from here?”
“Has the role changed at all since you reached out?” (Ask it plainly. Watch how they answer.)
If they can’t answer those, you’re not walking into an interview.
You’re walking into a guessing game.
If you’re already in the interview and it feels off
You know that moment when you can feel it? The energy is weird. The questions don’t match what you were pitched. The expectations sound like a different job.
Pause and bring it back to reality:
“Can I check something — how are you defining success in this role?”
“What would make someone ‘a strong fit’ from your perspective?”
“Just to align — what are the must-haves versus the nice-to-haves?”
This isn’t confrontation. It’s competence.
If they hit you with “not suitable” after approaching you
If you want to close the loop without sounding emotional, use this:
“Thanks for letting me know. Can I ask what changed between the outreach and the interview?”
“What would ‘suitable’ have looked like for you today?”
“Is the role still open as originally described?”
And then — this is the part most people skip — write down what happened while it’s fresh.
Not to obsess. To learn your pattern-recognition.
Because once you’ve seen this a few times, you start spotting it early.
The thing I want you to stop doing
Stop treating every “no” like a personal failure when the process is clearly unstable.
A company can reject you and still be wrong. A hiring process can be broken and still sound polite. A talent team can be confident in your fit and still be disconnected from the hiring manager’s reality.
That doesn’t make you unqualified.
It makes them unaligned.
And you don’t need to donate your time, energy, and confidence to an unaligned organisation.
Question for you: has this happened to you — approached for a role, then treated like you were never a fit? What was the most ridiculous disconnect you’ve seen in a hiring process?
Emma
