You Keep Me Hangin' On

I recently read an article that compared the recruiting experience to dating.  You communicate to see if you're compatible, then you meet in person to verify that your first impression was correct.  If you're a good match, you tell them that you want to continue seeing them, if it wasn't, tell them that it's not going to work out.  If you're a really great person, you might tell them why it's not going to work out, but the most important part is telling them.  Don't keep people hanging.

'You keep me hanging on' was a great song by The Supremes, but is not something that I want to experience in my job search.  If you want me for the job, tell me.  If you don't want me for the job, tell me.  Set me free, why don't ya baby...If you're really great you'll tell me why you don't want me for the job, but I won't hold it against you if you don't.  I get it, people are busy.  Again, the important thing here is communicating.  I just recently had an experience with the company where at the beginning of the process everything was rosy.  They called me for a phone screen within a week of me filling out an online application.  Then invited me for an in-person interview two days later.  At the end of the interview, they said the approximate timeline for hearing about next steps was two weeks.  This was where things went from rosy to brown-colored.  Exactly two weeks later, I emailed requesting a status update.  NOTHING.  A week after that I send a follow up email referencing my previous email and request a status update.  STILL NOTHING.  Finally, I decided to call and left a voicemail.  A few hours later, I get a form email saying, "blah blah blah, not this time deary, but we'll keep you on file."  Had I known a status update was just a phone call away, I would've just called.  My issue here is that this company is like the jerk that you have one or two dates with and then never calls.  And then after weeks, he texts you saying, "it's not gonna work out."  Now I have a negative view of the company, I think that their hiring process is a disaster, their candidate experience is terrible, and they now get the label of HOT MESS.  But maybe I'm overreacting.  People of the Internet, what have been your best recruiting experiences and your worst recruiting experiences?