[Jarb]

My then-girlfriend had something similar happen to her years ago. She drove around 5 hours to interview at an engineering/architecture firm and was put up at a budget hotel for the night. Although she had to pay for the room in advance, the company said they'd reimburse her for it and the mileage. Of course they did neither and effectively ghosted her after the interview when she tried to recoup her losses.

[magduf]

I learned early on in my career to not bother interviewing with non-local companies that wouldn't pay for my interview expenses up-front (hotel, airfare if necessary). If they're that cheap, they're not going to be a good place to work for.

I've also found that smaller companies tend to be really bad about this stuff (not universally!). Big companies are almost always very fair and honorable about treating interviewees well.

[philwelch]

Big companies have legal, HR, and compliance departments who know that it's not worth nickel-and-diming on petty shit.

[magduf]

Yep, exactly this. HR can be evil at times, but here their evilness is actually a good thing, because it's cold, hard rational logic: "nickel-and-diming on petty shit" is bad for the company's bottom line.