Three

I’m honestly exhausted with my experience interviewing with Cisco and wanted to share it here because I’m trying to understand if this is normal. This is the third confusing experience I’ve had with them. First time: A hiring manager reached out to me directly about a role. We scheduled an interview and everything seemed promising. Then suddenly I got a message saying they were moving forward with other candidates. A few months later, the same hiring manager reached out again for another role. I had the first interview and it went really well. The HR even said they wanted to move me quickly to onsite rounds. But two days later they emailed saying the position was suddenly “on freeze.” Later I happened to connect with someone from the team and asked about the role. That person checked with the hiring manager and told me the HM said I didn’t clear the interview. But the same person also mentioned they had actually hired someone else around that time. Now the most recent situation: A recruiter reached out again about a role and told me another recruiter from the same team would contact me because the hiring manager thought I’d be a better fit for that opening. After waiting, I followed up and the recruiter told me an offer had already gone out for that position and the process was “on pause.” What’s frustrating is that this update came two weeks later. At this point I’m just confused about what’s actually happening behind the scenes. Is it normal for hiring processes to be this inconsistent? Or am I just getting unlucky with timing? I don’t mind rejection — that’s part of the process — but the mixed signals and conflicting information make it really hard to understand where things actually stand.