My buddy went through something close to this at a bank in Toledo. He got turned down for a teller supervisor spot, and two years later a guy on the inside told him the system had flagged his address because it was in the same zip code as a closed branch, like that had anything to do with him. He never got a call or a letter either, just found out over beers one night. The part that got me was he'd been beating himself up for months thinking he bombed the interview.

Used to roll my eyes at the hard stop thing, figured it was just a trick people pulled to look busy and bail early. Then I sat through way too many calls that ran 20 minutes over and ended with nothing written down, and it clicked. The clock being real is the whole point, because everyone starts wrapping up when they know time is almost gone. Now I say it upfront and hold the line even when the talk is good, and we somehow still get more done. Turns out a fake deadline just makes people talk longer.