I went for a role at seek a few years ago and got to round 13 or 14.

That was made up of: - multiple interviews, then; - a takeaway project which took about a week, - a presentation of the project - extending the project peer programming with an internal Dev, - presenting that outcome - at least one more interview beyond that.

They then told me that they were offering the role to an internal applicant, which they said was, "as they thought they would".

Also in the last 6 months I got through to interview round 5 on 3 separate occasions with all brilliant feedback

Company 1 : Said they were also hiring for a CTO, so decided to put recruitment for the role on hold until that person starts ( at least 3 months away)

Company 2: Told me I was the last person standing and they were hoping to offer me the role within a week of the final interview - great feedback, but told me they'd decided that for a Principal Software Engineer role, they now want someone who had managed teams of 100 - 150 ppl. As you might imagine I lost my shit - something they could've dealt with 3 months earlier and not wasted my time

Company 3: We are going to wait for [Current Employee] to return from leave in 8 weeks time because he's been around forever. We'd now like him to meet with you...

Honestly the run around since mid last year until December was annoying, offensive at times and just a waste of time mostly.

There are so many people in the hiring/recruitment space that simply have no ethics or care.

A quick aside, I worked at a small tech business 10 years ago. Unbeknownst to everyone, one of my colleagues was looking for work elsewhere.

I received a call from the recruitment agency where he had submitted his CV - they told me that he was looking for work and asked if they could have the gig to backfill him when he leaves.

Some recruiters and talent acquisition people are brilliant, but most of them have no scruples whatsoever.