What happened to common decency in the hiring process?

That isn't just in the Valley. It's all over. I don't know if it is simply more prevalent there versus other places, but when I was actively interviewing just before I graduated from college, I could count on one hand the companies that I had more than 1-2 technical interviews with and didn't take longer than 45 days from start to finish to give me a decision. It was very routine for companies to wait a full month before supplying me with a final answer.

There were plenty of companies (I'm guessing around 50%) that simply never responded back to me, even if I sent them an inquiry about where I stood in the interview process.

I think the worst one was a company that: - did an initial HR interview with me, then asked to me come back 3 weeks later. - sat me down for a 3 hour long "Skills Examination and Aptitude Test" (think SATs mixed with the ASVAB, "If you turn gear A, which direction will gear D turn" kind of stuff) - never called me in for an actual Technical Skills test - gave me an offer for a position that I didn't apply for, was not relevant to my skill set, was 15k lower than I expected for the position offered, and that I wasn't interested in.

Some of the companies I've talked to were dreadfully slow and got to the point that I simply didn't even remember talking to them when they finally responded. When they finally responded, I'd look up the last time they contacted me in a spreadsheet I kept and ask them why it took them X months to respond. The usual answers were, "we had so many applicants"/"The previous HR employee left"/"That position is no longer open but we wanted to consider you for another"/etc.

Interviewing is a skill. Like any other skill, it takes time to develop and practice. You can just look at some of the ridiculous job postings on HN to realize that a lot of companies, in particular startups, are letting anyone participate in the interview process.

What you are experiencing is a mix of amateur hour and hubris.

Unfortunately, yes. I'm not sure if it's directly related to the fact that HR is a high volume function and there aren't any objective metrics that track how gracefully non-selected candidates are degraded or if legally, it's better to say nothing at all. I also have some suspicions that many posted jobs are posted on spec, which is to say that they are 'in the pipeline', but not authorized to actually hire.

In the current job market, it's easy to get sloppy with practices like these. It is rude, but such is life.

Personally, I've had endless reschedules, interviewer no shows, long dark periods (even when the outcome has been positive) and no response (after being flown for on-site interviews). It's not specific to company size, stage, industry, location, etc. As I mentioned above, it probably has to do with a lack of managing the feedback loop of non-selected candidate satisfaction.