Hilton Grand Vacations Web Designer - IT interview questions

A recruiter at TEKsystems contacted me for a job opportunity as a front-end designer with this company. Based on what I was told, the job seemed like a perfect fit for my background and skill sets. The process moved very quickly. In fact it moved a lot faster than jobs like this normally move in my experience. After speaking with the recruiter and giving them my references, which they immediately interviewed, I was scheduled for a phone screen with the hiring manager. This all took place in less than a week. The phone interview took about 15 minutes and I felt that it went very well. I answered all of his questions and he seemed to think I was a good fit for the job, even mentioning to me at the end of the interview that he felt that I was a good fit for the job. After the phone interview I contacted my recruiter and I was told that there was one other candidate that was interviewing for the position, but he felt that I was the stronger candidate because of my experience and background. He also mentioned to me that the other candidate was with TEKsystems as well, but working with a different recruiter. In a follow-up to that interview, my recruiter called me back and said that they were in contact with the hiring manager and he was leaning towards offering me the job based on the interview and my resume. At this point I asked when the face to face interview would be and I was told that a face to face was not necessary. I found this a bit odd, especially for a corporate level job, but I went along with it after he said that TEKsystems was a trusted recruiter for this company and sometimes a face to face wasn't always required. A couple of days later I was called by my recruiter and informed that I was not selected for the position. He then said to me that the reason I was not selected for the position was that the other candidate knew the senior designer, who felt more comfortable working with someone she knew. I lost out on a high paying job opportunity with Hilton because my competition (a lessor qualified candidate from what I was told) knew one of the people involved in the hiring process. I was totally floored when the recruiter said this to me. One would like to think that nepotism such as this would not occur at a company like Hilton, but apparently it does. I almost wish that the recruiter would have just said the competition was better qualified and I have a feeling that if he was more experienced, he certainly would have. That would have been much more palatable than knowing that I lost out because someone knew someone. TEKsystems has lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned. This was highly unprofessional behavior on their end and I feel used and pushed around because of this. This is not the type of treatment one would expect with years of experience, education, and dedication in the job I was applying for and because of this, I will be sure to mention to anyone I come in contact with professionally to avoid using them. As for Hilton, you should hire your talent based on experience and qualifications, not on who your senior designer knows. If you're going to play the nepotism game than don't go to a recruiter and waste other people's precious time and resources. Shame on you.