I participated in a telephone interview. During the interview, I found my interviewer to be notably inhospitable, who, to my complete surprise, had a cynical and very poor response to my open-ended, primary end-of-interview question, which I had based on company information already publicly available. However, for some reason, my interviewer became guarded, claiming they weren't at liberty to answer my question, as if it was confidential (which it clearly wasn't). When I reflect back, part of me wonders if my interviewer responded like this because they didn't have a good answer prepared and wanted to save face... because this is the first time that I've ever received such a response to this question I asked (which all other interviewers for other companies I've applied to have loved). My interviewer's shocking response and approach to tackling my question immediately put a sour taste in my mouth, as they could have definitely handled it better. It seems the interviewer wants to ask meaningful questions in order to get to know the candidate, but is completely unwilling to share any info of actual substance about the company in order to help said candidate get to know the company better. I literally had to subtly remind my interviewer that the process is equally about the candidate getting to know the company, just as much as it's about the company getting to know the candidate and that when I ask them an open-ended question, they should use it as an opportunity to focus on what they feel they CAN say, rather than focusing on what they feel they CAN'T. After I did this, they gave me a generic recycled answer (which I wasn't impressed with). I've yet to hear back from the interviewer with any update and when I consider that I've applied for this company previously and a different interviewer missed my interview, with the only explanation being they were "stuck" (in what, I don't know), this company is one that has set an appalling first and second impression.