[red-iron-pine]

> Aside from that one, the rejections that were the least self-esteem-damaging were ones that said "we've decided not to fill the position". Even if not true, it's a good "it's not you it's me" type of rejection.

"there is a hiring freeze put into place"

bro it's early Feb-Mar, the job advert is < 30 days, and budgets came out but a few weeks earlier -- hiring ain't frozen.

best guess was that it was a security-related tech company, and turning down people, esp. reasonably qualified ones, in a way that makes them mad is akin to drawing a target on your head. give custom feedback to those who got through the interview process so they feel like they are at least looked at, and shootdown the rest via something that feels impartial -- otherwise these wanna be blackhats will try to DDoS you.