I applied to a posted role. I received an email for a recruiter interview to talk about my background, fit, etc. Days before the scheduled interview, ANOTHER recruiter sent me a decline saying they were going another direction, but it was for a different title that I don't recall applying for. I called to confirm the phone was still on (and it was). I found the recruiter to be tremendously professional and the interview questions were very standard. I then moved on to another phone interview with a different team manager within the business unit, which went really well. I was then assigned a mock-proposal pitch exercise which required a 10-slide powerpoint to be presented in no longer than 10 minutes. I then moved onto what they termed a "final interview" with the actual hiring manager. I completely crushed the interview and felt very confident that an offer would be forthcoming. I found the hiring manager a little scattered, using several vocabulary words in our conversation that were "close but not quite the right word", and another one in our follow up emails where I would be "kept appraised" (not a typo) of the process. I graded out the hiring manager as a "C" at best, so I was 50/50 at this point if I'd even take the gig due to embarrassingly low acumen on the part of the manager. After sending the customary thank-you and then following up with the recruiter, I was then told that my interview was the first of many candidates and that I'd be hearing something in a week or two. This somewhat contradicts the "final interview" positioning I was told. Candidate experience here was 2/10. This process was bumpy, to put it nicely, and extremely vague. I've heard from a few friends that work at this company that it's middle-management-heavy, and that department heads frequently rush off in one direction, only to double-back with new requirements. This entire process aligns with direct feedback I've heard firsthand about this organization. They hire very young and inexperienced, and then promote from within. There is a bias when it comes to hiring experienced people from outside of the company, or in an adjacent industry segment. It seems to be their way of finding "easier" candidates rather than the "best" candidates.

Pretty easy, there was an HR phone interview, then I interviewed with the manager of sales and the VP of sales on the same day. I came prepared with information regarding client testimonials, metrics, etc. Back up to the fact that I am the real deal. I recall the offer came pretty quickly.