That's exactly it.

Company I worked for back in the 90's had several large call centers and these tactics were literally in the HR handbook.

They created absolutely hostile and demeaning waiting and interview environments, often deliberately scheduling 100 people to come in at the same hour, to then interview them throughout the day.

But if they were told to come in at 8, the earliest anyone who was a legit candidate would be interviewed was near noon, to then rush the interview because it was lunch time, making the rest wait another hour.

The 4 hours before noon, they'd call in people like once every 30-45 minutes, but these people were plants and would arive 30 minutes before they would be called in.

Out of 100, there were usually only 30 or so left around noon and 20 when they actually started in the afternoon.

And out of those, they'd still only interview half, reschedule the ones they thought looked most desperate, to see if they would come back for another interview.

And the people they did interview that day, if they actually recruited 1 or 2 out of them, it was a special day.

Thing is, they pulled that shit for 1 year and then their reputation preceded them and no one would apply anymore.

The company was American and trying to pull that shit in Belgium.

It didn't work out for them.

Heck, they ended up shutting down most of their European operations not that many years later.