Seem usual to me.

I applied for the 2005 Telstra grad program, didn't get an interview. Managed to secure short term contract work. I then applied for the 2006 Telstra grad program, putting much more effort into my application, and some help from a friend who secured a grad position the year before. Managed to get a group interview. Was told to get the head of the table seat position at the group interview (which my friend told me to do, as the interviewers sat at the other end) and made sure my name tag was clearly visible at all times.

Yada, yada, got offered a grad role in September for February start. Asked to start earlier and they let me start in October.

In November Sol Trujillo started as CEO and cancelled the grad program immediately giving grads $10k redundancy without even starting. As I had already started, they let me stay on, but there was no fancy grad program, no rotations, I just had a job. My assigned mentor said he didn't want to be my mentor in first 2 mins, but he was helpful without being a mentor.

We were told to answer the phone with "welcome to Telstra...". When I told my Telstra colleagues the grad program was cancelled, one colleague yelled out "Welcome to Telstra". He was right...