{
  "registry_version": "1.0.0",
  "data": {
    "title": "Position closed after final interview without hire",
    "status": "active",
    "evidence_ids": [
      "evidence.job_seekers_beware_of_ghost_jobs_clarify_capital_survey_of_hiring_managers"
    ],
    "content": "# Position closed after final interview without hire\n\nThe candidate completes every interview round and then learns that the requisition has been cancelled, frozen, or closed.\n\n### Diagnostic Non-Inferences\n- Does not prove that the candidate failed the technical or behavioural evaluations.\n- Does not prove that the company misstated its intention in opening the role.",
    "aliases": [
      "A-003"
    ],
    "id": "obs.position_closed_after_final_interview_without_hire",
    "type": "observation",
    "summary": "The candidate completes every interview round and then learns that the requisition has been cancelled, frozen, or closed.",
    "stages": [
      "team",
      "offer"
    ],
    "evidence_level": "supported",
    "probes": [
      {
        "id": "PROBE-A-003-1",
        "action": "Ask the recruiter whether the role was closed by a budget restructuring or by a reallocation of the work inside the team.",
        "expected_signal": "Clarifies whether the barrier was specific to this candidate or budgetary.",
        "cost": "low",
        "outcomes": [
          {
            "id": "cause-named-in-writing",
            "label": "The recruiter answers and names a funding decision and its scope in writing: the requisition unfunded for the quarter, or a hold covering more than this one role.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          },
          {
            "id": "work-absorbed-internally",
            "label": "The recruiter answers that the work was reallocated — taken on by the existing team or covered by someone already inside — and that no external hire is being made.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          },
          {
            "id": "search-continues-changed",
            "label": "The recruiter answers that the search did not stop: the requisition has been re-scoped or re-levelled and is now being worked against a different profile.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          },
          {
            "id": "no-characterisation",
            "label": "No reply arrives, or the reply repeats the wording of the closing email and adds nothing that separates a budget decision from a team one.",
            "excludes": [],
            "because": ""
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "specimens": [
      {
        "kind": "transcript",
        "label": "Final round, closing minutes",
        "context": "minute 47 of 50, four days before the email below",
        "lines": [
          {
            "speaker": "Hiring manager",
            "at": "47:10",
            "text": "That is everything from our side. Any questions for us?",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "speaker": "Candidate",
            "at": "47:18",
            "text": "Only about timing — what happens next?",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "speaker": "Hiring manager",
            "at": "47:24",
            "text": "We are wrapping up the loop this week. You are the last of three finalists, so expect to hear back by Friday at the latest.",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "speaker": "Candidate",
            "at": "47:41",
            "text": "Understood. Thank you for the time.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "The process was described as live and near a decision. Whatever happened next happened after this point, not before it."
      },
      {
        "kind": "email",
        "label": "Rejection email",
        "subject": "Regarding the Senior Backend Engineer search",
        "context": "day 4 after the final round",
        "lines": [
          {
            "text": "Thank you again for the conversations over the past six weeks — the panel was consistently positive about your work.",
            "tell": false
          },
          {
            "text": "I am writing with disappointing news: the requisition has been put on hold as part of a wider planning review, and we will not be filling the role this quarter.",
            "tell": true
          },
          {
            "text": "This is not a reflection on your interviews. If the role reopens I would like to come back to you first.",
            "tell": false
          }
        ],
        "reading": "The stated cause sits above the hiring loop entirely. A candidate cannot pass or fail a budget review."
      }
    ],
    "perspectives": [
      {
        "actor": "actor.candidate",
        "sees": "A final round described in its closing minutes as one week from a decision, and an email four days later naming a planning review as the cause.",
        "reads": "The stated cause sits above the interview loop. What the panel concluded did not determine the outcome, and the six weeks are already spent.",
        "does": "Records the dates, the panel's own stated position and the wording of the close, and asks whether the requisition was frozen or cancelled."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.hiring_manager",
        "sees": "A loop they ran to its end, a panel recommendation they can act on, and a requisition removed from the plan by a decision taken elsewhere.",
        "reads": "The outcome of the loop no longer decides anything. The gap the role exists to absorb is still open and still covered by the team.",
        "does": "Keeps the shortlist and returns to the same names if the requisition comes back, because funding it is not something this role controls."
      },
      {
        "actor": "actor.employer_policy",
        "sees": "Open requisitions as funded line items in a planning review held on a quarterly cycle.",
        "reads": "An approved requisition that can be paused costs less than one that cannot; pausing is the instrument the approval was written to allow.",
        "does": "Puts the requisition on hold. The stage each candidate had reached is not a field the review carries."
      }
    ],
    "non_inferences": [
      "Does not prove that the candidate failed the technical or behavioural evaluations.",
      "Does not prove that the company misstated its intention in opening the role."
    ]
  }
}