A recruiter reached out; within days I have an intro call with the hiring manager, followed by a take home exercise. The exercise was straight forward, if time consuming. Nothing a qualified candidate would struggle with (outside of finding time to do it). Very quickly they invited me to do a full panel interview, which would take place from 9am to 3pm. This would include a presentation to a group and then a number of 1:1s with potential teammates and cross-functional partners. This was already on the calendar, but then they wanted me to do more take-home exercises to "catch up" with some candidates that had been in the process for weeks before me. Something started to feel off. They were rushing it so much, and when I learned about the other candidates something made me wonder: was I getting Rooney ruled? If you don't know, some organizations have a rule that when hiring leadership roles they have to have at least one "minority" candidate in the pipeline. This was 2020 and I'm not sure this policy was actually a fact or, if so, whether it's still in place. I should add that I was very qualified for much of the role, but lack some of the management experience they wanted, as per my conversation with the hiring manager. I was very upfront about my experience in my conversation and didn't embellished but expressed a willingness to "rise to the occasion." In the end I didnt feel it was in my best interest to be rushed to complete work that other candidates has more time to do... just to satisfy some DEI quota. I was fully employed and didn't need the work, so I decided to withdraw my candidacy.