When the Recruiter Becomes the Bottleneck

I’ve been in technology leadership for over two decades. I’ve managed multi-million dollar budgets, led enterprise cloud transformations, built teams from scratch, and navigated the kind of organizational complexity that would make most people’s heads spin. But nothing in my career has tested my patience quite like the modern hiring process.

This is a story about one particular experience. I’m not naming the company or the recruiter. That’s not the point. The point is that this happens all the time, and it needs to stop.

The Setup

In early January, I applied for a Director-level role at a well-known firm. The recruiter reached out quickly, and we had a solid pre-screen within the first week. An interview followed a week later. Things were moving. I was optimistic.

Here’s the thing that made the timing feel perfect: my lease was expiring in mid-March. If this role panned out, I’d be relocating to a new state. If it didn’t, I’d re-sign locally. Either way, two months felt like plenty of runway.

The Process

Over the next few weeks, I completed four interviews. Four. Pre-screen, hiring manager, team leads, technical. Every conversation went well. I was told the feedback was positive. I was engaged, responsive, and flexible with scheduling at every stage.

The last interview wrapped up at the end of January.

Then silence.

The Waiting Game

I followed up. Then I followed up again. And again. Each time I was met with vague reassurances or no response at all. Days turned into weeks. I tried to be patient. I tried to be professional. I reminded myself that hiring processes are slow and that companies have competing priorities.

But here’s what was happening on my end: I was watching my lease expiration creep closer, unable to commit to a 12-month lease because I didn’t know if I’d be living in Texas or New Jersey. Every week of silence wasn’t just frustrating, it was costing me real options and creating real stress.

The Breaking Point

By late February, nearly a month after my last interview, I still didn’t have a clear answer on next steps. I had communicated the lease situation to the recruiter multiple times. I explained that I needed to make a housing decision. I was transparent, direct, and respectful.

Then, out of nowhere, I received an email asking if I could fly out the following week for yet another round of interviews. The company would cover the flight and hotel. On one hand, that’s a strong signal of interest. On the other hand, we were now almost two months into a process where I’d already completed four interviews, and I still had no indication of where things stood.

When I tried to connect with the recruiter to discuss logistics and timing, I couldn’t get a call back. Not that day. Not the next morning. I had to eventually reach out to the hiring manager directly to make sure the context about my lease situation was communicated, because I wasn’t confident it had been.

What Went Wrong

Let me be clear: I don’t think the recruiter was malicious. I think she was overwhelmed, under-communicating, and not managing expectations on either side. But that’s the job. A recruiter’s core function is to be the bridge between the candidate and the hiring team. When that bridge breaks down, everyone suffers.

Here’s what I needed and didn’t get:

Proactive communication. I shouldn’t have to chase updates after every interview. Even a quick “no update yet, still working through the process” email goes a long way. Silence is the worst possible response to a candidate who’s invested significant time and energy.

Expectation setting. If the process was going to take two months, tell me that upfront. If there were going to be five interviews instead of three, let me know. If there were internal delays, acknowledge them. Candidates can handle the truth. What we can’t handle is being left in the dark.

Listening. I communicated my lease constraint clearly and repeatedly. That information either wasn’t passed to the hiring team or wasn’t taken seriously. Either way, it reflects a failure to advocate for the candidate, which is half the recruiter’s job.

Urgency matching. When a candidate tells you they have a hard deadline driven by a lease expiration, that’s not a negotiating tactic. That’s a life logistics reality. The appropriate response is to either accelerate the process or be honest that the timeline can’t be met so the candidate can plan accordingly.

The Bigger Problem

My experience isn’t unique. Talk to anyone who’s been in a serious job search and you’ll hear some version of this story. Candidates invest hours preparing for interviews, rearranging schedules, turning down other opportunities, and making life decisions based on signals from a hiring process. In return, they’re often met with ghosting, delays, and radio silence.

The power imbalance is real. Companies know that candidates need them more than they need any individual candidate. But that doesn’t make it right to treat people’s time and circumstances as an afterthought.

What I’d Tell Recruiters

If you’re a recruiter reading this, I’m not here to bash your profession. Recruiting is hard, thankless work with impossible quotas and competing demands. I get it. But here are a few things that would make a massive difference:

Communicate even when there’s nothing to communicate. A weekly check-in email takes 30 seconds. It tells the candidate they haven’t been forgotten and it buys you goodwill that pays dividends.

Set realistic timelines and update them when they change. If you told me two weeks and it’s now been four, own that. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen.

Actually relay candidate information to the hiring team. If a candidate shares a time constraint, a concern, or a preference, make sure it reaches the people making decisions. That’s the job.

Treat candidates like customers. Because in a very real sense, they are. A bad candidate experience doesn’t just affect one person. It affects your employer brand, your Glassdoor reviews, and your ability to attract talent in the future.

Where Things Stand

As of this writing, I’m still in the process. I may end up at this company and have a great career there. Or I may not. Either way, the experience of getting here has been unnecessarily stressful, and almost all of that stress was avoidable with better communication.

I’m sharing this not to complain, but because I think candidates need to talk about these experiences openly. Not to burn bridges, but to raise the bar. We’ve collectively accepted that the hiring process is broken, and we shrug it off as “just how it is.” It doesn’t have to be.

If you’re a candidate going through something similar, know that you’re not alone. Set your boundaries, communicate clearly, and don’t let the process make you feel like your time and circumstances don’t matter. They do.

And if you’re a recruiter or a hiring manager, remember: every candidate is a person with a life happening on the other side of your inbox. Act accordingly.