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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

I mean, technically they didn't make anyone apply...

Oh no I'm serious replying to a meme

Obviously this happens a lot but people get big mad at unions because they think this is happening and it isn't necessarily.

The job may be posted internally and externally at the same time. All internal candidates who apply must be assessed first and replied to in order of what union they belong to depending on the job. If can take a long time because people kind of just apply to everything the same way you do as an external candidate.

Once they are all excluded then HR releases the external applicants for review. At no point are they compared with each other. Not all qualified candidates are contacted because there are probably dozens of them, so maybe the top 5 or so will be invited for the evaluation.

It's shitty that there are people who don't have work, but I get grumpy when people yell NEPOTISM and other things. If we wanted to hire an internal candidate unethically we could and it wouldn't get posted externally. If we knew there were wrong internal candidates and we were doing things by the book we would post internal only. No one wants to deal with HR to get things posted externally, I promise.