What's worse is the reverse and it happens more often: Posting a job and then hiring from outside rather than promoting from within.

Because no manager wants to lose their low paid competent worker. So instead they hire the outside person for the senior position.

in government positions, search is sometimes mandated.

i once competed for a job for which i was the current temporary contractor, and they asked me to write the job description.

somehow i got the job. does that count?

I used to work for a professional theater and per equity rules we were required to hold auditions in NYC for three days to cast a full time resident actor. About 200 people applied. Some flew in from CA, AZ and FL. Many others drove or took a four hour train ride in to audition. I was told to just go and enjoy the process because the position was already filled by someone who was regularly doing extra work for us. He didn't even audition.

The bishop of a cathedral once told me how he was hiring a new music director and had over 50 resumes on his desk to peruse. An applicant knocked on his door saying he was interested in the job. The bishop looked at the applicant, looked at the pile, looked at the applicant and hired him on the spot. He was there for 50 years.

I literally saw a job on LinkedIn that started with “Must have 30+ years experience…”, then gave a highly specific laundry list of requirements and was only open for 3 days. It was obvious that was a mandated post for an internal promotion they were doing.

For those wondering, this literally happens in the corporate world where for whatever reason, there are either rules or laws that require other candidates be vetted even when you're promoting from within. I've seen it first hand more than once.

...and then lays off 10-20% of the workforce, followed by posting some more ghost openings to make the shareholders comfortable

They've already selected the boss' incompetent child for the position. Of course it's in management.

not available, because they internally hired but dint want to seem discriminatory, or to game government tax schemes for hiring people, they are usually super specific to the point you cant get that kind of skills experience anywhere else. even LAB tech positions are like this, i highly suspect this was meant to hire visa holders, by the amount of "tasks" they want people to do.

7 rounds of interviews. Over 3 months of calendar time to accommodate everyone's schedules and finally a two week pause in process as it carried into holiday.

"So everyone agreed that you would be a great fit for the role and that you deserve a place here at [Huge company], but It came down to you and one other candidate who was internal, the difference ended up being his company experience"

Cool.

Those application fees are a source of revenue for the company!

Not sure about this situation but I know my company interviews for jobs in order to get redundancy picks. Interviewed someone for a position that had already been hired for, then three weeks before they job was supposed to start the guy phoned and said he wasn't going to continue with the company for the position. The person that was interviewed late got a call back and hired.

We hire for a short term seasonal job and people screw us over all the time by accepting the job and then continuing to look for a better one and bailing at the last minute, so we have to interview a lot of people as backup options. Had three people bail last minute this year, one of which we didn't have enough time to re-hire for and had no backups so now we have to try and cover it on top of our normal duties which is a big strain.

Data mining CVs, resume,s and letters. Selling it.

You should lick their shoes and thank them for giving you a chance of interview.

As far as people I want to violate most, HR of Spectrum is top of the list. They fired me for using the bathroom of my preferred gender. Not technically. Technically, I used the "wrong" bathroom before being grilled for hours on end by HR and security to be let off on a technicality they forced in skillful manner. Y'know, they forced me to contradict myself on my interview when it was a bullshit question. Still got fired. I'll molest HR til the end of days because of that, because I know they're fucking people harder than me.