I applied through a recruiter and was promptly scheduled for an interview with the Head of the department. Shortly after, HR independently reached out to me on LinkedIn for the same role, clearly unaware I was already in their pipeline.
When I flagged this, rather than a simple "thanks for letting us know," I was subjected to an interrogation about how the parallel outreach happened. The focus shifted entirely from evaluating me as a candidate to internal finger-pointing. The interview was cancelled as collateral damage.
HR promised to reschedule. I never heard from them again.
For a candidate, this experience revealed a few things clearly: no coherent hiring process, siloed teams that don't communicate, and a willingness to treat applicants as props in internal political disputes. If this is how they handle something as routine as recruitment coordination, it's hard to imagine how they handle real organisational pressure.
Consider this a bullet dodged — but also a heads-up for anyone applying here.