This was a very misleading process. I had an internal employee referral for the HRBP role. We spoke on the phone and he mentioned he had passed along my profile to the hiring director who had liked my profile and that I should apply. He then told me after applying to contact their recruiter for further info. I emailed the recruiter right away and we set up some time to discuss further. During that discussion (interview if you want to call it that), the recruiter gave me an overview of the role and asked some generic questions. At the end she said I would definitely hear by the following Monday one way or the other, and if they decided not to proceed with me as a candidate she would let me know why as she "knows how frustrating it can be to get the generic rejection emails." I was appreciative she acknowledged that and felt good about our interaction regardless of the outcome. Fast forward to the next Monday and I heard nothing, I know start ups and timelines can be dicey so I did not want to push it, I waited until the end of the week to follow up. When I reached out to the recruiter, she sent the exact email that she acknowledged herself is frustrating to get "we have decided to move forward with other candidates." I followed up to see if there was any actionable feedback to share, and I never got a response. This is disappointing on 2 levels, separate from the process not going the way I was hoping. The first is that Hibob is an HR tech company so you would hope to be in this space they would institute best HR practices, including candidate experience. It appears there was a disconnect if my referral said he was told my profile was in line with what they were looking for. Additionally, for the recruiter to go out of her way to say she knows how frustrating those generic emails are then do the exact same thing is really subpar. In the long run I understand if I was not what they were looking for, but to not get any feedback, to have to follow up on my own, and to be told that my profile was in line only to have it not be leads to a really poor candidate experience, something I hope they can improve in the future.