I applied awhile ago and was contacted a week prior to Christmas. The first call didn't happen because the recruiter's call prior to our scheduled call ran 20 minutes over. I completely understand that since we all have a full schedule and these kind of things happen. He was sincerely apologetic about the delay so we scheduled for the week after. I talked to the recruiter and he was very nice and informative. He went over details of the position and the company. We also talked about my experience and professional qualifications. You can tell from the way he asked the questions that he was a seasoned professional. I was set up for a call the same day with the hiring director. The call was pleasant and he asked me a couple of scenario questions on how I would deal with a client situation and prioritization. We ended the conversation with him indicating that I will definitely hear back from the company, one way or the other. Since it's the end of the year, I completely understand it was going to take awhile before they could get back to me.
I was about to follow-up with the recruiter today only to realize that the company had rejected my application. Now, I do not mind the rejection if my skills are not a good fit for the company, etc. This is only normal. However, I have major issue with the lack of communication. We are in San Francisco Bay Area and everyone in tech knows someone in tech. Last thing a company needs is to have a review on Glassdoor about how a company can't manage to bother to send an applicant a generic "sorry we are not interested in you" email.
Really? Yes. It happened. It's very real. If a company believes that to be the proper way to recruit people, it does prompt one to question how is the rest of the shop ran.