forgive me while i vent for a moment.  i am a degreed professional with nearly ten years of experience under my belt.  and in the past 9 months, i think i have encountered pretty much every rude company in this country.  i have been flown from one coast to another, been put up in fancy hotels, been told sweet nothings about how i'm each company's "top candidate" and how they don't want me talking to anyone else until i see their offer.  so i sit...and i wait...and nothing happens.  this has happened to me with 6 different companies since the beginning of the year.  with each of these companies, i have emailed and called and practically sent carrier pigeons trying to get information on what was going on since everything seemed so  fabulous when i was in their office.  with one job in particular, the guy that interviewed me was so evasive, i had to email the travel coordinator who booked my airline and hotel to see if this guy was even still working at the company.  but with each and every one of these jobs, no one will give me the time of day.  emails and phone calls go unreturned indefinitely.  and i check the websites for these companies, and the jobs are still posted, in some cases for almost nine months now, so it's not like they went and hired anyone else.  but i just find it remarkably rude that a company would spend all this time and effort to interview me multiple times, often flying me to their office to meet personally, and then not even have the courtesy of telling me that they've either put the position on hold or just aren't interested anymore.

what's even more frustrating is that at least three times in the past couple of months, companies have contacted me for phone interviews, only to not follow up to schedule them, or in one case, blow off the scheduled interview all together.  a perfect example is three weeks ago.  i had a large company email me to schedule a phone interview and asked for my availability.  i promptly emailed her back and made myself available for anytime they'd like to talk that week (this was a monday).  i never heard from her again after that.  i even sent a follow up email to make sure she received my first email, but didn't get a response to that one either.  am i the only person in the world to think this is just horribly rude? 

right now i'm in a holding pattern for a job that my recruiter has been working with me on since march.  it happens to be in the same town my parents live in, so while i was visiting them last month, my recruiter managed to set up an interview for me with this company.  when i went in for the interview, they thought i was perfect for the position.  they actually had me come back the following day to meet with more people and to take an IQ test, personality test, background check, etc.  the whole thing.  out of my 3 1/2 day vacation up there, i spent 2 full days in their office.  once again i heard how fabulous of a fit i was, and they told my recruiter they were preparing an offer package.  but now it's 4 weeks later and i haven't heard a thing since i left.  my phone calls and emails have gone unreturned.  my recruiters phone calls have gone unreturned.  we know they aren't interviewing anyone else (they told me this while i was up there), but i can't figure out why they'd be so rude as to not even say "hey, it's going to take a couple more weeks".  meanwhile, i don't know if i should be preparing for a quick cross-country move (which i would be paying for myself, so it's not a relo issue). 

i just give up.  i've thrown my hands up in the air and have resigned myself to the fact that there aren't any companies out there that will treat candidates with respect anymore.  what happened to having a little integrity?  what happened to common decency?  am i asking for too much here?  am i the only one that's experiencing this?