It's a total circus, like everything else. I have applied for numerous jobs I'm abundantly well qualified for, and many sit in Review status or you get rejection email. Been rated meets and exceeds every year. Doesn't matter. It's a numbers game and to call it brutal is an understatement. You have to apply, apply, apply and it's about like the lottery, you may win one ticket out of 27.
It's not that that is the frustrating part. It's the fact that one does several interviews, spent time interviewing, and being the finalist on some roles (down to 2 or 3) and after you devote all that time, about 85% of the recruiters or HMs won't even follow up for 3 minutes to let you know how it turned out. A few of them will, but only a few will give you the courtesy. They need SLAs and standards on the process so badly. So you devote all this time, and they can't give you a mere 3 minutes to close the loop a few weeks after you've completed interviews. How long does it take to ping or email a handful of candidates? Five minutes each?! It's unprofessional, tacky and a sign of how they treat internal candidates – like dirt basically. My best advice is apply both internally and externally, and do what's right for YOU! Because nobody cares or will advocate for you, other than YOU!