An overall unfortunate recruitment experience that has made me a little wary of agency recruiters now. How it went: 1) I didn't explicitly apply for this position - an agency recruiter called me out of the blue and I agreed to try out for the role. She later quit halfway with no notice to me, so for a couple of weeks in between, I was left wondering why my queries were suddenly being ignored 2) Was interviewed a few times: Once in person, then another 3x via Teams calls. Inova actually went as far as giving me a verbal offer via the recruiter with a confirmed salary figure, but then communicated that due to an upcoming M&A they would not be able to issue a contract. Being as it was with no firm timeline, I went ahead to accept another job offer, intending for it to be a temporary stint as I was more keen on the inova offer. (Because of the more interesting job scope) The recruiter tried to convince me to delay my acceptance of the other job offer by 2 weeks, but I did not have a good feeling about the timelines she had suggested. (I was right) 3) A couple months passed and the recruiter (who took over the original) communicated to me that inova was okay to let me go "to be fair" to me if I was no longer keen on the offer. They would be ‘reassessing’ me and I would be subject to ~2 more interviews. From this, I inferred they were hoping I would reject it on my own? (Not sure about this one) 4) Later i found out that inova would be looking for other candidates instead, through new LinkedIn ads and another recruiter from the same agency. It was only then that I formally communicated to the agency that I wished to be withdrawn from consideration by inova. Never received a reply on this one thereafter. Conclusion: It's difficult to say if my experience would have been better if communications by the recruiter had been smoother. But I do feel that inova could have been more upfront if they wanted to rescind their offer. While my interviewers had seemed like nice people, the whole chain of experiences really left me wondering on what went wrong. My advice to other applicants would be to wait until an actual contract letter is issued and signed before turning in your resignation.