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From the comments:

I am a human resources manager, and I like to call people in for interview.

We do not have any openings but I just like to call them, give them 1-2 tests, make them sweat, then never call them again.

It is more fun than going at the interview, you should give it a shot. :) Daniel - 10 08 11 - 13:10

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I'm pretty sure that the commenter was being facetious, but I have worked at a company where they actually did this. They always had job openings posted on their website, and they would bring people in for interviews, even though they weren't hiring and had no positions to place those individuals in. I remember the CEO said "that way we'll have a pool of candidates to pull from if we decide to hire someone".

Needless to say, I never referred any of my friends.

This is also commonly done when the law stipulates that a search must be done broadly and fairly.

They know they are going to promote the guy already at their company, but they are bound to do a full search anyway.

I thought it was pretty funny given the article title

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