> Really? Especially in a market like this, I would have assumed more hiring managers would understand.

Depends entirely on the job and company.

If someone is hiring average developers for average or below-average pay at a no-name company that gets 1 organic resume submission per week, they're going to overlook it and bring the person in.

If someone is hiring top developers at a hot tech company with high pay that attracts 1000s of impeccable resume submissions per week, they can't interview everyone. They might only screen 10% of resumes because that's all they can handle. At this level, competition is so fierce and the applicants are so strong that you have to look for any reason to drop someone from that 10% who get through. Having a short job followed by a resume gap could be enough of a signal to get you bumped in favor of any number of perfect resumes.

Adjust expectations accordingly for companies between the two extremes.

> What do you think about new grads having to switch not long after because of bad work environment, bait-and-switch, etc? I hope such a negative outlook is not that prevalent.

I think everybody gets a mulligan and I personally wouldn't hold it against a junior. A single data point isn't a trend.

However, I would still question the candidate thoroughly about it. Unfortunately, there are many people who leave otherwise decent jobs because their expectations are too far detached from reality. When someone's definition of a "bad work environment" is being expected to participate in code review (true story), the problem wasn't with their employer. Some basic questioning can usually get to the bottom of this, but it's more common than you might expect.