I applied through the email address which was provided in the job add. Had a response the next day to go into the office for a video call with one of their team members based in Sydney. Very warm welcoming from the Perth team, friendly, open to explaining about the company the team. I actually felt I could work with them and I'm sure we would have gotten along greatly.
At first, I thought someone else from the local office will also take part in this interview and that's why they wanted me to go there. But instead, it was just me in a closed door room talking to the hiring manager in a video conference. Something I could have easily done from my own home in this digital era. The conversation was going quite well, he asked about my background, went into some details about my past roles and current situation, what I want to focus on now. Then he asked what I've done so far in my job search and why I'm still looking.
And suddenly, as he spoted a mistake in my resume, the interview took a different turn. He somehow thought it was appropriate for him to give me a 10 minutes speech about how I should rewrite my resume, how he thinks I should restructure it and ended up rejecting me based on how my resume was written and not my actual skills. The actual rejection of the resume is done in the screening fase not the interview one. In fact, the argument was that, in their words, I've got great communication skills, easy to built relationships, great presentation, I've done alone so it's obvious I would bring value if hired. He would hire me tomorrow as he knows I will do the job and deliver results but he won't because of my CV. But he'll wait until I get a paid job and he'll gladly "still me from them" afterwards. I find that a little bit odd as if he really wanted to hire me he would have done it, period. Definitely happy for receiving the rejection as I'm sure I would have found it very frustrating to work with someone like that.