Why wouldn't internal candidates have been vetted prior to spending time on the application process and phone interviews with others? It could be that the inte

Why wouldn't internal candidates have been vetted prior to spending time on the application process and phone interviews with others? It could be that the internal process started simultaneously, just that the internal candidate "grabbed the thread", and either the HR contact wasn't informed, or didn't think / wasn't coached to notify the external candidates as to the change in status. Until they went back to clean up their inbox. "What on earth is going on inside Etsy? What are they doing?" I've come to accept that even when all parties involved have the best of intentions, the workflow of candidate vetting, combined with the inherent game theoretic aspects[1] of finding the best available candidate on the market (when one generally has no idea what market looks like until one has churned through a goodly number of candidates), all come together to make the process more complex (and time consuming) than people generally anticipate. Unfortunately what gets added to this is that seldom do people stop to think, "Wait, if we don't treat ALL candidates nicely during the process, that means the good ones won't apply again. And they won't recommend their friends to apply to join us, either." And so, "Maybe we should put a little more thought into candidate experience, and make a point of treating them better." Again, this is under the best of circumstances, and assuming that the parties involve seem to have put some degree of thought into, and to have some sense of discipline behind their vetting and communication process. Sadly, this isn't very often the case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem