(1)
A friend of mine forwarded me a LinkedIn message from a recruiter who was advertising a role in medical education. I messaged the recruiter seeking clarifications regarding qualifications and experience and was told that a medical degree / clinical experience wasn't required. The recruiter liked my CV and scheduled a call for the following day. She also told me who the client was and I found the job ad on their website.

(2)
The job ad said that the applicants were required to have a degree in medical education and background in health care. However, during the call, the recruiter insisted that a Master's degree in Education and work experience are more than sufficient and that I am a very strong candidate. I asked if she needed a cover letter and she asked to write a brief one, as she needed to send things off as soon as possible.

(3)
This morning, she called and said that my application was rejected with no feedback provided. She said she could not reach the Hiring Manager as they were in and out of meetings.
When I asked if this was because of me not being exactly qualified, she dismissed my concerns.
I was quite upset, as she got my hopes up. Things at work aren't great, and I dared to think that maybe...
So I emailed the employer directly, asking very politely if their time was wasted on my application.

(4)
And guess what, the Hiring Manager is on leave until Thursday next week, and the rest of the team were unable to locate any correspondence with the recruiter that mentioned me.

So I got back to the recruiter to check if the person she was supposedly liaising with is that hiring manager on leave. I simply asked for a name. The recruiter got borderline aggressive and demonstrated an exceptional ability to gaslight. I had to ask her to delete my details and blocked her.

(5)
So, clearly, she did something fishy.
What it is, I don't know.

I strongly suspect she mislead me (blatantly lied about the qualifications and experience) to meet her KPIs and send through a certain number of applications.

'Strong applicants' get interviews. Unqualified applicants get rejected without feedback.

Let's see what the Hiring Manager says upon returning from leave.

Nasty situation.

So this is how the convo went after I asked for the name of the Hiring Manager.

And this is the recruiter's response to my LinkedIn query vs the official job ad.
I tick every box except the first two.

And this is what I got from the HR team.
If the Recruitment Specialist is on leave, how did they reject my application today? How were they 'in and out of meetings'?

Too many questions, and not enough answers.

I smell a rat.

@purrrism job market is a mess right now. Particularly in the tech industry. Companies appear in o be either signaling to employees or investors that they are growing or doing well by posting ghost jobs. They also will keep several candidates in the pipeline in case the one they want fails to come through.

You need thick skin for this right now. I submitted well over 200 applications and got less than 5. Callbacks. I have chains of more than 15 emails with some recruiters. Companies suck