Had a short phone screen with a recruiter. During the phone call, the recruiter explicitly stated they were interested in moving me forward with a phone call with a manager. A week later I get a generic response saying they want to focus on other candidates. I'm fine with not wanting to move forward with me, but don't lead me on during the phone screen.

First, I had an email from HR recommending that I read up on other similar roles as well to find the best fit. I had a good feeling based on that, and it was further confirmed by HR's persistence through many technical failures in calling. I then had a talk with the hiring manager and gleaned that the role might not be currently set up to be as technical as I hoped it would be. I was told there would be no prediction involved and was also asked "How do you know if your prediction is good?" when I was describing a past role. Any well-trained or merely thoughtful Data Scientist should know the rubrics for evaluating prediction outcomes objectively, after which there is obviously a subjective element based on stakeholder/human opinion as to how impressive that 'objective' evaluation metric is - all this should be clear to anyone combining scientific and emotional intelligence. Anyway, after I was hung up on (we did go overtime though) due to an apparent phone battery issue, I was told by HR that the hiring manager wanted to see how the technical screening with another team member the next day goes first, while I was told by the hiring manager that we could continue this conversation - he even scheduled a date and time. I then got back to HR saying I was confused at this discrepancy, after which she merely seemed to repeat herself. Anyway, I decided that it wasn't worthwhile to pursue a job that didn't feel technical enough to me, so I told HR I'd love to explore one of the many other roles in a different team and city, to which she replied that there might've been a miscommunication and asked if I wanted to continue with the technical screening. I clarified that the miscommunication had nothing to do with my decision and I was looking for something more technical. A day later, I reached back out to the hiring manager saying I had tentatively decided to hold off on the process as I perceived it to be less technical than I desired, but would be happy for his thoughts on this as well as any recommendations to other teams if he thought I'd be a better fit for them. The manager sent a well-detailed explanation of how/why the position would be technical and offered that I could chat further with HR or himself if I had any further questions. Minutes after, I received an email from HR saying that the manager looped back saying I would not be going through with the process. I am unclear as to whether they meant it was my decision to not continue (which you might gather was not what I'd said based on my wording) or that it was the manager's (which, again, you might think wasn't what he meant to convey based on his last message to me). Anyway, either HR is constantly misinterpreting things or the hiring manager is saying one thing to me and another to HR. In any case, I felt like lack of transparency or hasty miscommunications/misinterpretations by HR wouldn't be great for a future job and I'm glad this opportunity has passed.