I found the post of a Recruiter on LinkedIn for the role, and I reached out to her to speak. She followed up with me quickly and we got set up immediately to chat. The call went well, and I knew I was moving to the next step swiftly, as she was saying I will meet this person and such. I was set up to meet with the second person the next day. However, things went downhill from here. The second person asked me what I knew about the role, and she told me I had incorrect info. Basically, by the job title, the job description, the posting from the recruiter, and the prior convo I had, this was a TA role. I was told by the second interviewer that this was mostly a HR role with very little TA and that she just met with the hiring manager to confirm so. I was told I had good experience for the TA role, but I was asked am I interested in HR? I explained I had done some HR work in the past/that my experience would transfer and that I have also been applying to some HR roles, but it is something I would need to think about, being that this was just thrown at me mid interview. Things took a greater turn from here, and reflecting back, the interview felt very reverse psychology. The interviewer was saying she wouldn't want to do a HR role, and she doesn't think the role is for me, and wouldn't really allow me to speak further for myself. She told me she just spoke to someone with HR experience in the past, that they went into TA, and that they were looking to get back into HR - so it felt very much like her mind was made up there. Sharing this to me as a TA person is very odd - you don't usually hear much about the other people in process like that, yet she told me she didn't want to disclose much about the person departing the role. They also put me down, intentional or not, which felt awful. I was explaining with my TA experience, it's been hard to stand out in the crowded market of layoffs of HR people for HR roles. They blew this off and told me that they're still getting reach outs from recruiters on LinkedIn which feels like a slap in the face having been laid off with so many others for months now. I can tell you this is not the experience of many of us seeking employment in TA right now - just go through LinkedIn and doom scroll. The person also made comments like: "I don't want to take you away from the other opportunities that you have going because we cannot wait for you to decide if we give you an offer, as we need this person to start ASAP to train with the person leaving." Which also felt very unfair since you'd usually want time to think about an offer, but also, a lot of the roles I have interviewed for actually never got filled anyway due to being canceled in this market - meaning some of the roles I am in process for may also get canceled as well. It felt like though a recruiter, this person had no concept of what's happening to those unlucky without a job right now - there was no empathy at all. She also claimed the business there is "recession proof" which laid off people know - who have been watching the job market like hawks - there's no such thing. Overall, the process was to meet with about 4 people in total, and I was grilled why I left each of my prior roles, which both felt odd to me in terms of this being a contract role. I was also not given a formal answer on how long the contract would be - just that it was til the end of the year. This was a strange process, and I am still not sure where the disconnect happened and how this turned out to be a TA role into a HR one. The job description I saw reposted was still strongly TA based in my opinion after I mentioned this huge disconnect. I let my recruiter know I wouldn't be attending the sync she randomly added on my calendar without mentioning in our call or checking with me prior (again, odd to me especially for a contract role). She was apologetic about the situation when I reached out at least. However, this is the most upsetting experience I've had in my months of the job hunt. I really do wish if the role was changed to HR for whatever reason/they didn't think I was a fit, I was just told from the start of the second interview or contacted prior to cancel. My time was totally wasted, and I felt bullied as well.