In March last year I applied for an IT job with a big insurance company but got an email saying that I was unsuccessful. 2 months later the same job was again advertised and I applied again. This time I got a telephone interview and a face to face interview but was told that the the company had decided on another candidate. Now I see that the same position is once again being advertised. Just what is going on here? Luckily I now have a job I'm happy with now but seeing something like this really makes me wonder about hiring procedures in some companies. Are they really looking to hire someone or is it just HR creating work for themselves?

They're not been able to find a suitable candidate (ie interviewed three people, and rejected all three) or the proposed candidate rejected the offer, simple as that.

There seems to be some unwritten HR rule somewhere that if you are eliminated from one review process, you can't go back and "unreject" someone.

I'd be wary; if the later of my two scenarios is true, it's possible the candidates are rejecting the roles due to salary offers?

salary and conditions mentioned at my interview were very good, so it's not that. They do have a lot of Indian staff so perhaps they are looking to hire one of them full time but need to advertise the position locally first?

I have also seen this with a couple of jobs, including one I spent ages working on my application for, and it seems to be quite common. If they were only going through the motions with the advertising you probably wouldn't have been invited to interview, so if you were still looking I would suggest sending an email direct to the manager (not HR) stating that you would still be interested in the role. Since you aren't, it's their loss. In addition to people turning down the role, and often terrible HR practices, it can also be the case that hiring decisions get stalled/put on hold due to internal issues like restructuring, holidays, busy periods etc.

Maybe they just don't want you.....

yes, and I don't want them either. I do find this practice unethiclal though. Why advertise a job unless you do want to hire someone?

If this is some months / a year later it could very well be that it didn't work out with the last candidate. A company I worked for had the same issue with one job that just kept turning over. The first guy who took the job was really just there until he found something else and was gone with in 6 months. Then the second person moved across country to take the job then left to move back in with her on again off again boy friend. Of course they never mention these things in the interview process!

Third time the company didn't advertise the job. Just contacted the second person down who then took the job and stayed for a few years.

Nice detail

Because - as everybody said - they can't find the right person. Why isn't that obvious?

Or, the employer sucks so badly that there's a high turnover rate.

Every time I have seen jobs stay advertised and aggressively recruited (versus the normal Swiss submit your cv then they call you three months later), it meant one of two things:

-the line manager was crazy town and didn't know what he or she wanted, thus all the "suitable" candidates didn't make it past the interview stage or did get the job but left/were fired during trial period due to the crayzee

-the internal organization of the company sucks so bad that they can't attract or retain the right type of talent. This usually happens in places with imported HR who don't know the Swiss market or what employees in Switzerland want.

One screw-up by HR/interviewing managers is bad luck and bad fit. When a job goes on the market every few months, there's something shady with the company, you dodged a bullet!

I've noticed the same job reappear again and again on the main job sites like monster, i also see small companies with generic adverts and wonder sometimes if they are even hiring for those positions or if they simply have adverts to attract a cv and then call companies to create a position. just a thought

Another possibility: small companies, in remote places, have difficulty to attract talent.

It's actually a large international company, could be a problem specific to that department

I also find it unethical, especially if they're lying about having found a suitable candidate. HR need to be truthful in hiring practices. "Thank you for your application. Unfortunately, your skill set isn't what we're looking for."

Is that so hard???

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This is what I was going to say exactly.

Swiss HR and companies are a complete mystery to me. I applied
for certain jobs where you could match skillset required with my
CV virtually 1:1 so I applied for the job.

About a week later, I received a mail saying that my profile did
not match what they were looking for.

IMHO Many Swiss companies are looking for "junior" because they
don't want to pay so much. This usually means under 30.

Many Swiss have the mentality to go to a company stay for the
entire career or just switch one time. The younger realize that
this will probably not be reality.

I'm in my fourth job in 4 years here. Is that a record?

Not sure, but I am not too far behind you....

Probably! As long your service is uninterupted, it should be ok. Sort of.

Personally, I get "the 3 year itch".