My background: I'm a mid-level software engineer, graduated with a BS comp sci from an ivy-league school and trying to start a business on the side. I prefer startups

Previous times I've looked for a job this has never happened to me, but now all of a sudden it's happening a lot. Somewhere, abruptly mid-interview process, the employer or recruiter just flakes out, or slowly starts flaking out and then completely flakes out, and stops responding even when I try to follow up once or twice to check in

I'll get a coding exercise or project, maybe even a few interviews in, and then suddenly no responses like a ghost. I've been given initial code exercise/projects and then they flake out as if they never even looked at it. I've had prospective employers schedule a call, flake out on a call, reschedule, flake out on that one, reschedule, then disappear. Same with a recruiter that needs to follow up with a client that claims to have strong interested in me, flaking out on submitting my code project or scheduling next steps.

Job searching has always been really time consuming for me, but this is just adding a whole lot more to that. The flaking out takes up time slots for other prospects and sucks up time from the coding projects. Did they move on to other candidates? is something wrong with my email?

It's very confusing because if they aren't interested then why do they give me coding projects? if they've moved on why don't they say so?

Have you guys has similar experiences? if so, how do you guys deal with this sort of thing?

I'm thinking maybe adding interview reviews on their glassdoor company profiles would at least discourage the behavior. It's just odd because I've never had this happen before ever, and now it's happening a lot, and I don't know how to shield myself from this. And it's sucking up a lot of time