@a4
You're correct. What you described happens in all departments, not only in Tech, and also happens in all companies.
Most temps-contractors became temps-contractors because they could Not land a Full-time permanent job and/or they've been unemployed for so long that they became desperate and decided to do contractor work.
Most temp-contractors are after AND WANT YOUR JOB. Do NOT divulge trade secrets or solutions.
Do NOT attend informal lunches or even coffee break meetings with them.
I've had a few temp-contractors ask me to meet them for lunch after I transferred internally to my new Citi department.
They thought I was naive. They previously had FTE jobs at well-known companies, but got Fired or Laidoff and then became temp-contractors for the past 2+ years, jumping from one contractor assignment to another every 6 to 9 months. So it's obvious the temp-contractor Life is NOT their goal or choice. They want Fulltime permanent employment.
They kept emailing and pinging me on Microsoft Teams to try to get me to go to lunch with them. But I Always used an excuse. The last excuse I gave because I got fed up with their insistence since they refused to take a hint, Not couldn't take a hint is to tell them that I actually work in a satellite office near a Citibank hub location where they were located. This excuse finally worked! LOL!
I figured if they really wanted to "have lunch" with me they will need to drive their As$es 10+ miles.
What temp-contractors want is to glean and pump you for information on how to they can steal YOUR JOB, of at least how to get a FTE job in Citi.
I've witnessed several temp-contractors in Citi get converted to FTE Full-time permanent employee after 1 to 2 years of being a temp-contractor in Citi.
Be aware that as others posted, HR is legally required to post in Workday the Job Requisition Order just as a formality even though Citi already knows who Citi wants to extend the job offer to.
Citi also informs the chosen Internal job applicant (whether they're already FTE Or a temp-contractor) to apply for the job posting in Workday.
Then Citi will go through the Fake motions of interviewing a few job candidates even though Citi already extended the job offer to their chosen job candidate. Waste of time and false hopes for the unwitting job applicants-Svckers!