I actually had the exact oppisite of this happen:

I was invited to an interview for a position, called into the office for it (was an internal promotion interview), and when the manager sat down she said “Pika, out of respect of both of our professional relationships, I don’t want to waste either of our time by going through with this interview. They have already decided on who is getting this position and it isn’t you. This wasn’t an issue with your skill-set, other factors were at play here that I’m not at liberty to disclose”

And that was it. I later learned that there was a legal compliance issue (the company had royally screwed up with another person), and that the only reason they had done interviews in the first place was due to corporate requirements, but it was really weird to have an interview and be told that straight up. I appreciated it, but was very weird.

“Don’t worry, we won’t let you know what we decide”

This is another example of me learning in my older age that no matter what good is attempted, people will use it the wrong way. It’s good that we attempted to stop or slow nepotism. However people will always be horrible, and they only see it as extra steps to get to what they want.

He does it for the love of the job!