What an ordeal! I had two phone interviews with senior members of the consulting group in early August. I was originally told I would be interviewing for a Principal Consultant position. Both went very well and I was told by the recruiter that an offer was imminent. A week went by but I received no offer. I was told that the person on HR was on vacation but I should expect the offer no later than Tuesday the following week. Tuesday came and went with no offer. I got an email from the recruiter that we wanted to chat the day after. I thought an offer was coming in when he emailed me. I called him and no offer, just more excuses. He said the offer should be in next week. I received a call from the recruiter the following week. No offer but he said that I was now being considered to lead the entire North American OpenLink consulting group! I was extremely excited. The recruiter said the he was excited for me. One catch ... the Head of the consulting group was on vacation and could not sign the offer. I needed to wait another week. So I followed up next week and the recruiter said that the partner signed off on the offer and now needed HR to sign again. HR was, predictably, on vacation. It was now Labor Day weekend. I had been strung along for almost a month. When I returned from the Labor Day weekend, I immediately called the recruiter again. He said that I would have the offer by Wednesday 5AM because the HR person was working from the UK. I woke and Wednesday for work and no offer. So I called again and I told the recruiter that I needed to see an offer by Wednesday - no excuses. On Wednesday he said that he was meeting with HR and everything would be signed by noon on Wednesday. Radio silence for the rest of the day. I called the recruiter on Friday and he finally coped to the lie. There was no offer. Excelian was showing my resume to perspective clients, most likely telling them that I worked for them. Their plan was to keep stringing me along until they signed a new client. So why did they say they wanted me as the head on the OpenLink group when they were shopping me around as a consultant? The recruiter just claimed ignorance of the whole process, saying "I'm new, I just do what they tell me"
What a waste of time. I really got my hopes up too. A very unethical company.