Easily my most bizarre hiring experience ever.
I was contacted by The Judge Group for a contract position at a tech company. The recruiter was responsive to calls and emails. I had a phone interview and then an in-person interview with the tech company that went smoothly and normally. The one odd thing was the recruiter told me the job was contract-to-hire, but when I asked the interviewer, he said the job was definitely only a contract and the company wasn't sure they wanted to make the position full-time. And then things got very weird. The recruiter from Judge called me and said I had a job offer--but they needed a response within 4 hours. When I pushed back and tried to negotiate about vacation time (the original offer had zero vacation and the state minimum requirement of sick pay), the recruiter promised to get back to me soon. One semi-frantic week and a half later, during which the recruiter repeatedly tells me there's been no response from the tech company, the recruiter's boss calls me and says that while the tech company wants to hire me, there's still some issues in the hiring process that need to get sorted out and the offer was made prematurely. He promised to get back to me the next day with an estimate of when I should expect this to be sorted out.
Obviously, he didn't call. Another couple of weeks pass, and I finally email the recruiter asking whether I should be pursuing other job opportunities (which I have already been). No response.
I don't know whether the issues stem from The Judge Group or from the tech company, but either way, the last few weeks have been extremely unprofessional and frustrating.