The rejection that arrived before the interview
A candidate found a senior-director role, applied through its online posting, and emailed the manager directly. The manager replied and asked to schedule a meeting. “He did. It’s scheduled for Friday.”
Then recruitment sent a form rejection. The invitation and the rejection now described two different processes.
One message put a conversation on the calendar. The other said there would be no conversation. Friday was still coming.
The sequence leaves the candidate with two incompatible signals from the same employer: a scheduled conversation from the manager and a rejection from recruitment.
The timing is the mechanism. The meeting was already on the calendar when the rejection arrived, so the candidate could not tell which message represented the active process.