Getting a rejection over email after last stage of interviews? Hell no.

I decided to make a post about it, because it just happened, and I'm pissed off.

Biggest company in its own sector calls me, and tells me about a position. Would I be interested? I tell them I am not because it's a Specialist position, and they tell me they are flexible, and they would really want to talk to me. It sounds like an interesting position, so I say why not.

They schedule a call in the middle of my work day. I take the time. They call me immediately after and send me a case study and tell me I moved on to round two. I spend literal hours on the case study, and present it to them. The case study is all about strategies to expand etc. Next they they call me and let me know I moved on to the final round, and now I'm to talk with their heads. Awesome.

They, yet again, schedule a call during my work day and refuse to go flexible on it, but okay, whatever. I talk with the heads, it seems to be fine, I am informed that "HR will let me know about the next stages as soon as possible". Amazing.

More than a week after that, HR emails me to tell me I'm rejected.

First time ever, I called the HR person to get a feedback. They told me they didn't move forward with me because "they decided to move forward with an internal candidate". I basically asked them then why on earth they had me spend hours after hours for a position they were going to fill internally. I also asked them why they didn't show the courtesy of rejecting me over a phone call instead of a plain email, when they have called me every step of the way so far.

I did not care about the position, I didn't apply for it, so it was all the more disrespectful in my head. The least you could do was to have the common courtesy to say "oh, it didn't happen because this and that. We wish you the best."

I know I might have been a bit unprofessional, but hell with it. I already have a solid job, and I don't care if they don't hire me ever again.

I don't know if there are any HR people here, tho there are definitely hiring managers. It's simply disrespectful to reject a candidate over email when they moved along so far in the process. Not many candidates move to that section of interviews, so please take the time to say something over the phone. People spend so much time to jump through your hoops. At the very least, spend more than 5 minutes to be kind to them.