I applied online for a role. Two weeks later I was informed by an automated email that I'd made it through to the first stage of interviews. The email was automated but sent from a CapCut internal recruiter.
I booked an interview via the link sent in the email. I thought the first round might be with the internal recruiter, based on previous ByteDance experience, but it was actually with a peer. Not even the hiring manager.
The interview was okay. The interviewer raced through the questions and didn't spend any time introducing the role or explaining the process.
At the end I asked questions about the role's responsibilities and they responded with words to the effect of "you'll be fine, you've done most of this before". I felt like the interview went well.
I proceeded to get ghosted by the recruiter. They never got back to me. I asked for feedback. Nothing.
Two weeks after the interview I decided to send an email to the hr@ email address to ask about the status of my application. They sent back a message in garbled English. I managed to decipher that they were going to contact the recruiter to find out what was happening.
Two hours later I received an automated email letting me know I'd not been sucessful.
A very odd experience that felt tinged with some kind of weird revenge or punishment.