The worst are the employer who spends ridiculous amounts of time and money they have free to get several different recruiter firms to advertise a job, truncating most candidate efforts to apply. Often we get invited to an interview only if the recruiter has a particular like case to let the employer to see the CV at all.
Too much, I make the effort to go any distance and any time to meet, and I can tell it was a mockery / test run to have a laugh about the candidate, to learn about the scum, and how to avoid the unworthy.
Ideally, all applicants would all meet together, outside the interview room, to discuss our differences and see which of us would like the job / boss the most, having more ammunition to deal with the people who are set to stop us.
The best situation to make proper friends is when we're already together. It's rough to be thrown into a workplace where the boss chooses someone they think might 'fit in'. Nothing as worse as being in the deep end of people you don't know, and who don't know you
