[relic]

Experiences like that are very weird...it makes you wonder if they're actually interested in making an offer, and just completely change their minds, or whether they have no intention of making an offer but for some reason think it's less awkward to just give extremely positive feedback, and then fall off the face of the earth. The worst is when they apologize and give the excuse that they have been very busy...because it takes so long to send an email that says "Thanks for coming in but we decided not to move forward".

[gaius]

I know exactly what happened there: he didn't get the headcount signed off, hoping that he could say "well I've already made them an offer" to force it through, and HR said nope, you tried to do an end run around us and we're not playing ball. It's happened to me, at a company that is notorious for doing it.

[yitchelle]

I also think that the recruiter want to hedge their bets, sort of keeping candidates in their baskets for a "just in case" situation.

I know that in some companies that if a candidate is rejected, than they are automatically filtered for any other positions in the company for a next X months, sometimes permanently.

[blisterpeanuts]

Or, they just didn't want you to accept any other offers while they considered whether they really wanted to hire you. In their small minds, it costs nothing to make a verbal promise and break it later, and it keeps you on their leash for at least a few days.