Strange interviews

Nausea, dizziness, headache, body aches. No part of my body had escaped the flu.

That day, an email notified me that an application I submitted the week before had been successful. The company asked me to complete some tests. Yay, I thought but my body was too weak to muscle the strength to do it right then, fortunately I had until Wednesday to do it. Also, my medication placed me in a coma-like state for most of the days. Despite the malaise, I finally forced myself to begin the exercises Wednesday afternoon, only I discovered then that the email stated the exercise was due at 5pm that day and it was 4pm. There was no way I could complete the exercises in time. For the sake of it, I did them all in a few hours. I didn't expect anything to come of it but I submitted the documents anyway, apologised for my tardiness, reiterated my interest, asked that I be considered but explained that I would accept disqualification on the basis of my poor timekeeping.

Surprisingly, they progressed my application and asked for an interview. Henceforth, a series of the most passive aggressive tactics ensued:

1. The first interview started with a comment about how the written exercises are time consuming but I had done well- they didn't believe I'd been ill.

2. I was told I would receive feedback on the initial interview by the end of that day. I was invited to second interview after I sent a thank you email.

3. The second interviewer didn't call at the time I said in my email I would be available. We agreed to interview the next day after I called to follow up.

4. The second interview started off with him apologising for missing the interview. He'd forgotten as he hadn't managed his time well, he said. I said that's fine. Silence. Then repeated his explanation. Silence. I said it happens. Long pause. Sharply, he said 'I know you had some problems at the beginning'. I said nothing. Then he asked me to explain my background. After I did, he recommended another field of work where my skills would be in demand. Then asked about skills that weren't in the job advert. Contrary to what the first interviewer stated, he said they only had vacancies in one region. And said they needed someone to start in two weeks which didn't fit with the availability I explained in the first interview. At the end of the interview he said they were interviewing 3 other candidates but asked if they could call the next day for me to speak to someone else in their company. I asked how many days between the next interview and their final decision and he either misunderstood the question or ignored me because his reply was that the interview will be very short- 10 minutes, I'll call and hand over the phone for you to speak to the guy.

I withdrew my application by email as the job and company didn't seem right for me.

5. They asked for feedback on the application process. I offered feedback on the process and stated that I thought their products were impressive and offered to help if they needed information on my region in future.

6. They replied stating they would be in my region on a government-sponsored event in 2 months and would be grateful to meet to discuss future opportunities. I said I would welcome a meeting. On refection, they didn't mean it. My research revealed there is no such event taking place at that time.

Although, I've experienced interviewers saying they'd respond 'soon' but didn't, I have never seen a company go this far with a candidate they weren't interested in. Surely it works in both our interests to simply say 'we are no longer progressing your application' instead of leaving someone hanging? Is this common, and how can I avoid this happening in future?