I recently interviewed for a T&O position and underwent over 10 seperate interview sessions over a 4 month period. I was interviewed by senior management and executives with positive comments and feedback at the sessions. There was however very poor communication in between interviews spaced apart over the months - and were it not for me following up for weeks after my final interview I would not have found out that someone from within the company had already been slotted into the position. Admittedly I am dissappointed at the process and can recall having felt my time was not being respected (4 months of interviews and only a one line email from the hiring manager wishing me luck in my future searches). I have afterall a current job and had invested and freed up a lot of time for the plethora of discussions and interviews set aside in some cases at the last minute with this firm. And with each passing interview the sense that success was around the corner only grew. My advice to senior mgt would be to keep ethical about your hiring practices. There is afterall a relationship between how you value your prospective employees (esp. the ones that you interview this many times) and how you value your staff, customers and prospects. Respecting people and the time they invest in your firm in turn helps your business.