This happened about 6 months ago. I had a terrible experience with a recruiter while looking for a new job after being laid off. I was referred to a company and got in touch with the recruiter. He said they were looking for someone with my exact (or close enough) skillset and said they were trying to fill a position ASAP. Throughout the interview process with the hiring manager and various other department members, the recruiter kept in close contact with me, calling after every interview, and checking in every couple of days. Normally, I would say that this was awesome. All too often a recruiter seems to ghost me completely, even when I'm still actively interviewing for the position. This guy was doing a great job keeping in touch. But that's where things started to smell a little funny.
After the first interview with the hiring manager, he told me they had a couple more people in the running for this position but he and his boss felt like I was the top candidate. It felt pretty reassuring! But almost every call he would repeat it: “I think you've got this in the bag” or “From our point of view, it would be a no-brainer to hire you.” It was starting to sound a little too suspicious, especially because their “ASAP” had gone from “we hope to extend an offer this week” to “the manager is on vacation this week so we're just waiting for him to get back before we have a final decision.”
I got through all the interviews and we were just waiting on an offer to be extended. He told me that he still felt like I had the best chance of getting the job and if it was up to him, he'd just extend the offer to me and get it done. He started talking about “when you get the job” and speaking in future tense as if it already happened. While waiting for the job offer to come through (it felt like they were dragging their feet), I got another offer from a different company where I was also interviewing. When I told him about this (stupid, I know) he said “Oh really? That's great! So did you decline it, or…?” I said that I didn't give them answer yet, and he said “Well, I think you've got this job in the bag, they are just putting the offer together. I wouldn't bother with that other one, but if you do accept, be prepared to call them back and tell them you've changed your mind once you get our offer.” At this point I was pretty certain I wasn't going to get an offer because he was laying it on so thick. I listened to my gut and accepted the 2nd job offer but didn't say anything to the recruiter cause I wanted to see how this played out.
2 days later he calls me up and says “Soooo…. I have some bad news. They extended the offer to one of the other candidates. Really sorry! I totally did not see that coming. But you've got your other job, right?” He told me to give him a call after I started working there and let him know how it's going….like we're buddies now or something.
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Recruiters are in a powerful position to play with the emotions of eager/excited/anxious/desperate/hopeful people. Treat them with the same skepticism that you would treat advice from some random guy on the internet.
TLDR: Recruiter tried to inflate my ego by telling me over and over that I was the strongest candidate. Tried to convince me that I had a job offer incoming and to reject another offer I got from a 2nd company. Then he calls me to say they extended the offer to someone else. Whoopsie!