Very deceptive in recruiting. I was approached by a Xavient HR recruiter, an Indian/S. Asian guy, for a job as a front end web developer that would be onsite at another company, ostensibly a Xavient client. I had a 1/2 phone "interview" w/this guy in which he asked me some very basic questions about CSS/HTML/javascript. Then, he had me talk to another engineer in India for further vetting, which was a similar skype interview. After this, my contact said "we'd like to offer you the job", at a very nice salary, which seemed kind of strange. No in-person interview? I asked who my direct report would be and for the address where I would be reporting for work. My contact in HR said that information "would be provided soon" (again seemed strange).
As my start date approached, I told my contact that I wasn't going anywhere unless I got some concrete information about where to go and who to see. That's when I was told there was a "problem" with "contracting" with their client. They said it would be ironed out shortly, but that they were "asking around the company to see if there were other slots where they could place me". To make a long story short, nothing materialized.
I strongly suspect that what they really wanted was a warm body to put in a proposal to the supposed "client" company, in hopes of winning a contract. It's a good thing I didn't give notice that I was leaving or it really would have left me in a bind. But I didn't do that, b/c my spider-sense was tingling.
My HR contact acted very unethically, in that he offered me a job but was not at all up front about any contingencies or uncertainty about the position. Why offer a job if it doesn't exist? Lots of red flags along the way. Very robotic people as well and I got the sense they worked 24/7 and had no sense of boundaries.
Steer clear.
