Signed offer, quit old job, then CEO pulled out on day 13: Jobseeker left unemployed

A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell has described one of the more genuinely catastrophic job market situations to surface recently, not a ghost job or a long rejection streak, but a sequence of events that went right until the very last moment, and then went completely wrong.

The original poster is a visa holder working in the construction industry. They were open with their recruiter from the start about their visa status, were told it would not be an issue, went through a two-week process, attended an in-person interview that went well, and received and countersigned an offer letter. They gave their two weeks’ notice at their old job.

On day 13, they found out the new company’s CEO had refused to proceed. On the last day, they tried to get their old job back. The old company declined.

They are now unemployed. Their wife is dependent on them for health insurance. She has medication that will last eight weeks.

“I am just trying to find something as soon as possible and just praying to God that it all passes away,” they wrote.

What Reddit said

The thread produced a mixture of validation, practical context, and the kind of advice that arrives too late to help but might help someone else.

One commenter who works in HR pointed to an issue that may explain the CEO’s reluctance: “We currently cannot hire those on a work visa because we are not legally authorised. You’re required to do a lot of paperwork and the fees can be upward of US$10,000, especially if you’re talking H1B.”

Another commenter offered the warning that many people in this thread had already moved past the point of it being useful: “I always tell people to never quit their old job until their ass is in the seat of the new one.”

One commenter directed anger at the company: “Companies are pulling a lot of shady shit in this economy and they need to be named, shamed, and harassed for it.” And another talked about the overall context of the thread: “I’ve been warning people on this sub that many offers have been rescinded. You don’t have a job until you get paid from said job.”