Applied online and was contacted by the recruiter to setup time (as my experience was "Highly Relevant"). We setup time and met. During the interview mentioned how amazingly relevant my experience was, that they can even up-level the role and he will get back to me the next day to setup time with the HM.
A week went by and I followed-up. No response. After 2 additional follow-ups across next 2 weeks, the recruiter finally responds and shares, right after our call, we offered the role to someone, if they do not accept I will reach out, this is why I have not updated you in last few weeks.
Firstly, "recruiters" - the simplest part of your job is writing a professional email sharing there are some delays on our side OR what is happening (you ethically owe this to at least to people who you speak with and make such definitive statements to - especially in current environment, please have some human empathy) AND secondly, when you are this close to filling a role (meaning either final interviews have happened OR feedback is being collected OR numbers are being discussed OR final offer is getting approved OR offer is awaiting acceptance), please pause building a pipeline and let your preferred candidate(s) finish.
Its not only highly disrespectful to the effort they put in, but completely unproductive (and dare I say unprofessional), not only approaching others, then asking them to allocate time (and then invest in prep), only then to ghost them for several weeks or completely (I doubt if I was not this persistent in my follow-ups, their recruitment team would never update me).