A recruiter initially reached out on Linkedin and we talked a bit about the position and my experience. The recruiter set up a phone meeting with the hiring manager, which seemed to go well. From there, the recruiter told me things were looking good and they wanted to get me in front of the hiring manager's direct manager right away and set up another phone interview. Following this phone interview, the recruiter told me I was selected for a *final* round in the office. However, this wasn't actually the case. Per the recruiter, the next step was meeting 1-2 potential teammates and then having additional conversations with both the hiring manager and the hiring manager's manager and that this could take up to half a day. Knowing this would require PTO on my part, I provided the recruiter with a couple of possibilities, We scheduled quickly and I was told I find out the exact time of the interview from an admin within the week. It took over a week for the admin to get back to me and when they did, they gave me a time that was very late in the day - too late for a half-day interview. I asked who I'd be meeting with and was told that I was ONLY meeting with the hiring manager's manager. This manager was very late to the meeting and proceeded to rehash almost all the questions from the phone interview before asking me some behavioral questions which seemed weirdly simplistic for a senior-level role. ("Tell about a time you had to give negative feedback to a client." Really?) After about 20 minutes, the hiring manager walked in and the other manager left. The hiring manager asked a few more random questions that seemed like they were meant for an entry-level writer before asking several random, cliched personality questions. The interview ended abruptly with the hiring manager repeating the same thing I'd heard about the "next round:" that I was a finalist and that I'd meet with them both again AND several teammates. The hiring manager then told me that I was up against an internal candidate. Suddenly, things made more sense: these interviews were a mere formality. They never had any intention of hiring me and couldn't bother to coordinate with HR to make that clear. They used me and there would be no final interview. Still, I followed through. I was told to follow up if I didn't hear by X date...which I did. There was no response. Two weeks later the recruiter asked me to call them. When I tried to set up a time, the recruiter ghosted. A few days later the exact same position popped up on a Linkedin job alert. I tried contacting the recruiter one last time and there was no response. The entire experience really left a bad taste in my mouth. While I understand sometimes jobs need to be posted even though you're going to give the position to an internal candidate, why string me along for 3 weeks, ask me to take PTO, talk to me like I'm an entry-level candidate, and flat out LIE about the "next steps?"