employer invited me to interview but then canceled within 24 hours

This post, employer invited me to interview but then canceled within 24 hours , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I’m in the middle of a job search, fresh out of college (I used your advice to write my first-ever cover letter, so thanks!) and I just had a strange experience. Last week, I applied to a receptionist role at a niche school in my neighborhood. I have a couple of years of experience in admin/reception-y stuff, so I figured I had at least a small shot. I was very excited when earlier this week, I got an email from them asking to set up a Zoom interview the following evening! The morning of the interview, however, I got another note that they had to cancel the Zoom interview due to something that had come up unexpectedly. Not a problem; I get it — school just started up again for them, and I can be flexible. I sent back another email saying, essentially, “No problem! I can reschedule, just let me know when works best for you.” Then — crickets! Absolute radio silence. This morning I got an email that they had moved on to the next step of the hiring process with other candidates.

Anyway, the whole thing was a first for me. I’d heard about ghosting but not … whatever you’d call this! Maybe they accidentally scheduled an interview with me instead of the candidate on the next line down on a spreadsheet? It smells a little dysfunctional to me, so I’m more or less glad I didn’t go farther along in the hiring process, but how does it read to you? Is this a normal thing I might expect to encounter more often in the job search process, or is this just some random fluke?

It’s a thing you might encounter and it’s not necessarily a red flag about them.

Things that could have happened:

* They realized they have several very strong candidates in their interview pool and are likely to hire one of them, so it doesn’t make sense to interview people who they know won’t be competitive with them. (That’s not a negative about you; it could be that there’s a clear difference in amount or type of experience, or simply that several people have already blown them away in the interview process.)

* Something changed internally between when they first contacted you to interview and their second contact. For example, they expected the job to be X, but due to some reshuffling on their team (someone resigned, someone got promoted, who knows what) they’ve realized they now need this position to include a bit of Y too … and so now you’re not as strongly matched with it as you were earlier.

* Someone who interviewed yesterday is about to be offered the job (or has already been offered it).

* Or all sorts of other things.

If they know they’re not going to hire you for reasons like the above, they’re right not to waste your time or theirs going through a sham process just because they’d already set up an interview. It’s actually more considerate of them to cancel and let you know they weren’t going to move forward with you after all. It feels a little weird when the interview had already been set up, but if there was no likelihood of it leading to a job offer, it’s better for them to be honest about it.