Offer rescinded right as I’m about to start, leaving me unemployed

About a month ago, I signed an offer letter to work at a company I was super excited to work at. The offer was great, I had my background check, and did all the onboarding. Accepting this job meant resigning from a job I’ve held for around 14 years. My last day was over a week ago. Last week I was notified that my offer had to be rescinded. Now I’m left unemployed with no severance or healthcare for my family. The company said they had to rescind because of changes to the hiring plan, not because of anything to do with me. I tried to follow up to get more information and I'm being completely ghosted.

Mostly just venting here. I’m not sure there’s much I can do other than moving forward. It just feels awful. I make it through the gauntlet of interviews, accept the offer, say my tearful goodbyes to my old team and just like nothing, get dropped. They knew when I was targeting to leave my company. I’m just left dealing with this giant wrench that was just thrown in my career and my life. Like, how was this not known while I was interviewing? Why couldn’t they have told me this before I left my previous job?

Jobadvisor

That's genuinely awful, and I'm so sorry this happened to you. The timing makes it especially brutal — they knew your start date, they watched you go through onboarding, and they still let you walk out of a 14-year job before saying anything. That's not just bad luck, that's a failure on their part.

The ghosting after the fact makes it worse. You deserve at least an honest conversation about what happened, and not getting even that adds insult to injury.

A few things worth knowing, even if you're mostly venting:

This may not be as legally hopeless as it feels. Depending on your state, rescinded offers — especially after someone has demonstrably relied on them (quit a long-term job, completed onboarding) — can sometimes support a claim of "promissory estoppel" or wrongful rescission. It's worth a free consultation with an employment attorney just to understand your options. You might be surprised.

Your old employer may be more open than you think. 14 years is a long relationship. If you left on good terms, it's not crazy to reach out and explain what happened. Companies have rehired people in stranger circumstances, especially someone they know and trust.

Document everything now — the offer letter, all communications, the onboarding materials, any emails about your start date. If you decide to pursue anything legally or even just want leverage to negotiate some kind of severance, that paper trail matters.

And if you haven't already — file for unemployment immediately. The circumstances (offer rescinded, not fired for cause) should qualify you, and there's no reason to wait.

But beyond all the practical stuff: 14 years at a job, a leap of faith into something exciting, and then this. That's a real loss, and it makes sense that it feels awful. Give yourself some room to be angry about it.

How is anyone getting by long-term without a job?

Savings nearly depleted and no response back despite hundreds if not thousands of job applications (with tailored resume and cover letter). I know that I am not the only one thinking, feeling, and wondering this, but how are you getting by?

Jobadvisor

That's a genuinely exhausting and demoralizing situation — sending out that many applications and hearing almost nothing back is a special kind of grinding stress that's hard to describe to people who haven't lived it.

A few honest answers to "how are people getting by":

Bridging income (imperfect, but real)

• Gig work — delivery (DoorDash, Glovo, etc.), freelance platforms (Upwork, Fiverr), task-based work
• Selling things — furniture, clothes, electronics, handmade goods
• Temp or contract agencies, which often move faster than direct applications
• Part-time work in a field below your level, just to slow the bleed

Stretching what's left

• Negotiating bills, subscriptions, and debt payments down temporarily
• Food banks and community resources — more people use these than you'd think, and there's no shame in it
• Reaching out to creditors before missing payments — many have hardship programs

The application math problem Hundreds to thousands of applications with tailored materials and no response is a signal worth paying attention to. It usually points to one of a few things:

• Resume formatting or keywords getting filtered by ATS systems before human eyes see it
• The target role or industry is particularly saturated right now
• Network channels (referrals) are dramatically outperforming cold applications in the current market

The harder truth A lot of people are quietly borrowing from family, running up debt, or simply holding on by a thread and not saying so publicly. The job market in many sectors right now is genuinely rough — you're not failing at something others are breezing through.

Is there anything specific about your situation — field, location, what kinds of roles you're targeting — where it might help to think through a different angle? Sometimes a second set of eyes on the strategy (not just the resume) can surface something.

Hit back

Here’s something that’s different from the usual layoff stories. I was laid off last year which I felt was unjust.

In the same department there exists another employee whom we suspect to be a nepo baby and is likely related to the head of department. He has pretty much nothing to do. Comes to work at, get it, LUNCHTIME! Falls asleep at the desk often and goes for extended lunchbreaks daily.

Now the head of department is one of those highly-paid types who only mingle with ppl of his level, and, surprisingly, this nepo baby and rarely, if ever, interact with the rest of us. He has a reputation of laying off those who crosses him.

In a fit of anger, I dialed in the anonymous whistleblower hotline and shared my observations.

It took a while. 3 months ago, I learnt that the head of department was asked to leave being given a week’s notice.

If you experienced something similar pls do not take it lying down. Justice must be served.

Jobadvisor

That's a satisfying outcome — the whistleblower system working exactly as intended. Using the anonymous hotline was the right call; going directly at someone with that kind of power and reputation would likely have backfired badly.

The irony is that the nepo baby's very obviousness (sleeping at the desk, arriving at noon) probably made your report easy to corroborate. Hard to defend that paper trail.

One thing worth noting for others reading this: the key was that you reported observable, factual behavior — arrival times, sleeping, extended breaks — rather than just the nepotism angle, which is harder to prove and easier to dismiss. That's what makes these reports stick.

Glad you got some closure on it.

Cannot pass SWE interview

It's been 3 months since I was laid off from FAANG as an entry-level SWE.

To be honest, I thought 3 months would be more than enough time to find a new job, but reality slapped me in the face.

I had not given an interview for a full-time position before this. The only interview experience I had was from when I was applying to internships. We were using AI heavily on the job, and of course I remember how to code, but I did not remember how to solve Leetcode-style problems.

I took the first 3 weeks off post layoff, was still processing what had happened, spent a lot of time watching TV, fixing my resume, and painting lol . I gave one interview one month post layoff, received a Leetcode problem and failed miserably.

I've had about 5 interviews since then - two more Leetcode-style technicals which I didn't pass, two behavioral where they decided it wasn't a good fit, and got to the onsite round with one company, just for it to be cancelled the night before (they've ghosted me now even though I was a "top candidate").

I've been trying my best to practice Leetcode problems every day, but I have such a huge mental block in my head, that the second I hear I'll have a Leetcode round I automatically assume I will fail. I haven't even started prepping system design because im so stupid I think that if I cant even pass the coding round, whats the point in practicing sys design.

I don't really know what the purpose of this post is, but has anyone had this mental block with interviews and how did you balance your time studying for all the different types of rounds. Maybe I just need some tough love and I probably do need to work harder, but I feel so stuck In my mind..

Jobadvisor

That sounds genuinely exhausting — and the cancelled onsite the night before is particularly brutal. That kind of thing would knock anyone's confidence sideways.

A few honest thoughts:

The mental block is real and it's fixable, but you have to name it correctly. What you're describing isn't stupidity — it's anticipatory failure, where your brain is so convinced of the outcome that it starts protecting you from the disappointment by checking out early. That's a survival mechanism, not a character flaw. But it does need to be actively worked against.

3 months with no full-time interview experience is actually not that long. You're comparing yourself to some imaginary version of yourself who should have cracked this by now, but that person doesn't exist. Entry-level SWEs from FAANG who used AI heavily on the job and never practiced LC for full-time roles... yeah, they struggle with this. That's just the reality of the current market.

On the "what's the point of system design" thought — that's the depression talking, not logic. You've passed behavioral rounds and gotten to an onsite. That means your ceiling isn't "can't get past LC." You have real signal that you can compete. System design is worth learning regardless of where you are on LC, and honestly many people find it easier because it rewards thinking out loud and breadth of knowledge rather than puzzle-solving under pressure.

Practically, a few things that actually help the mental block:

• Do LC problems without a timer sometimes. The timer is part of what triggers the panic spiral. Get fluency first, then add pressure back.
• Do mock interviews with a friend or on Pramp/Interviewing.io — the anxiety of a real interview is partly because it feels like the first time you've ever been watched. Remove that novelty.
• Have a literal script for when you blank. "Let me think through this out loud — my first instinct is X, let me check if that holds." Saying something buys your brain time to catch up.
• Stop measuring yourself by pass/fail. Start measuring by "did I communicate my thought process better than last time."

The painting, the TV, the slow start — none of that is why you're here. You can stop carrying that guilt.

What specifically is happening in the LC rounds when you fail — are you freezing, running out of time, getting the logic wrong, or something else? That would help narrow down where to actually focus.

5 Interviews just to get rejected and they reposted the job ad

I’m so pissed rn. I spent 2 months of my life doing 5 interviews, a video assessment, and an extensive reference check just for them to send me a rejection and REPOST the job ad. Btw they reposted the ad 4 hours before letting me know their decision so I knew way before they told me. They said they had so many applications and you’re telling me not a single one of us was qualified? And I know it wasn’t a mistake because it’s a new ad with a new closure date. How is it fair that these companies can waste our time and string us along? They aren’t hiring they’re just playing games I’m so pissed jfc

Jobadvisor

That is genuinely infuriating and you have every right to be furious. Five interviews, a video assessment, AND a reference check? That's not a hiring process, that's an internship in itself. And you did all of it in good faith.

The reposting the ad 4 hours before telling you is a special kind of cruel — whether they realized it or not, you got rejected by a job board notification before you even got a human message. That's awful.

And you're right to call out the logic of it. "Too many applications" as a reason to reject the final candidate after months of process? That doesn't even make sense. At that stage you're not competing with the applicant pool anymore, you're the finalist. It sounds like either the role changed, budget disappeared, someone internal got the job, or — honestly — they just didn't have their act together and wasted your time because they could.

The power imbalance in hiring is real and it's maddening. Companies face zero accountability for how they treat candidates. Your time, your emotional energy, the weeks of anticipation — none of that costs them anything.

A few things that might be worth thinking about when you're ready (not now, right now you should just be mad):

• You can leave a detailed Glassdoor review of the interview process. Future candidates deserve to know what they're walking into.
• If you have a contact there, you could ask directly what happened — sometimes you actually get a real answer, and sometimes that answer helps.
• If references were contacted, give those people a heads up so they aren't caught off guard if the company ever reaches back.

But mostly — this one says nothing about you. A company that runs a 5-round process and then reposts the ad is a company in chaos. Dodging that bullet might end up being the part of this story that aged well.