What would you do?

I had an odd interaction with a recruiter today and I’m not sure how I should have responded or if I should have done anything differently.

I applied for this position about 3 weeks ago, when it was first posted on LinkedIn. I know a few people who work at the company, and one of them reached out to me and told me to apply. My experience and qualifications are a great match.

About 5 days after I applied, the recruiter reached out via email to me to ask about my availability for a short call, and I responded within the same business day. Then I didn’t hear from him for 3 days, so I sent a follow up email with my resume attached.

About an hour later, he responded saying “You do not need to resend your resume – you applied to our open position, and your resume was in your application, and that is what I reviewed before deciding to contact you for an initial meeting. I will be in touch for that meeting shortly.”

I thought that was pretty rude, but when I posted the response here a lot of people told me it wasn’t so I moved on.

Finally, he reached out again with a Teams invite for a time the next week that I wasn’t available, but I rearranged things and made it work.

So the Teams meeting comes around, and he’s 10 minutes late. He spends the first 5 minutes talking without asking me any questions. He says things like “so here’s how we’re going to do this,” and “listen carefully to this next part,” being very… forceful. I’m an amiable and friendly person, I’m not pushing back, but he’s almost steeling himself for an argument from me.

Then he tells me that they’ve already offered the position to another candidate who has verbally accepted the offer, but he didn’t want to cancel the meeting with me. By this point I’m feeling annoyed. I waited 3 weeks for this meeting and this position is no longer available. But he says he’d like to continue the interview anyway in case they have something else that might be a fit.

His first question about my background is why I wasn’t promoted in my current position? I explain the structure of the department I’m in and tell him that there is no opportunity for me to move up. He then asks me if I mind whether he eats while I’m talking. I was taken aback but agreed that was fine. He then pulls out his meal and starts taking huge bites and chewing loudly.

At this point I’m feeling like this is some kind of test that he puts candidates through?

After a few more questions he tells me to try to keep my answers shorter.

When I’m in the middle of answering the next question, he interrupts me and says “moving on,” really abruptly.

At this point I’m pissed at the unprofessional behavior but smiling through it. I tell myself maybe he has a personality disorder or he’s on the spectrum or something. Perhaps there’s no malice in his behavior, I don’t have to like everyone and everyone doesn’t have to like me.

As we’re wrapping it up he says, “let me be honest, you don’t meet the minimum qualifications for this position, but I wanted to see how you could handle yourself. I don’t think this is the right fit for you, but if you want I can send you an assessment. If you complete the assessment you’ll stay in our system and I’ll call you if something else opens up.” (The one item that I was missing will be resolved by next May, but whatever).

So I essentially was never going to get the job, this guy jerked me around wasting my time, insulting me, and the top it off I had to watch this slob kabob choke down his Lean Cuisine?

How am I supposed to react to this? What would you recommend a candidate do in this situation?