Astonishingly disrespectful and callous. I was brought in to do 6 interviews, total, for roles I was significantly overqualified for, so that UCLA could say they interviewed external candidates before choosing to hire internally. Ordinarily this would be annoying but not rare for the industry (and definitely not rare for UCLA, I hear).
What crossed a line, in my eyes, was the following:
1. Over a span of 2+ months I sent no fewer than 4 or 5 requests for updates/status/timelines for next steps. I sent them to the recruiter, the hiring managers, and even the recruiting coordinator. Nobody responded - not even to say “hey sorry we need more time”.
2. When I finally did get ahold of someone, the recruiter told me to call him at my ‘earliest convenience’ and then spent an entire 24 hours dodging my calls. When we finally did speak he told me they chose to hire internally for all three roles, then audibly could not WAIT to get off the call, and every response was designed to try to end the conversation as soon as possible. An absolutely gutless and half-assed attempt to apologize for the lack of communication, no attempt to explain or contextualize it, and when I asked if any of the three teams I spoke to had any feedback for me he did not offer any and did not offer to go back and ask.
It’s a cynical and disappointing fact of life that places like UCLA have to open up jobs to the public even when they haven’t the slightest desire to hire anyone other than their internal candidate, but if you’re going to take an enthusiastic applicant and waste their time, ask them to sit through six different interviews, and then ghost them for 8 weeks, then you are simply not a serious organization.
