I was an employee referral. The interview process started with a 30 min phone interview with an HR rep at headquarters, then a written portion, followed by another 30-45 min phone interview with an HR rep at the local office. Once I made it through these interviews I was passed to 2 hiring managers for an hour long phone interview (that ended up about an hour and a half). Then I was sent to do the final panel interview in the local office with a job shadowing and then the interview (including the powerpoint presentation). After the panel Interview, I had one more phone interview that lasted about an hour with another 2 local hiring managers.
Now, that was the entire process, but not the whole story. The process I was originally told, was not what was followed and was rather disappointing. There was a certain lack of professionalism amongst the hiring managers and definite lack of prep work. First, each and every interview, I was asked the same questions. Yet, after each interview they would mention how copious notes were taken. This led me to believe that either a) the notes were not being taken b) the notes taken were flawed/not detailed or c) the notes were not being reviewed by the next level of management before the next interview. This became very frustrating when after 6+ hours of interviewing with this company, the VP's and Hiring managers were asking me the EXACT same questions as the beginning of the process. The prep sessions and "introductory/who you are talking to" emails were incorrect every time, as I was never talking to the people they told me I would be. As you can imagine, this made it difficult to send thank you emails, or even know who/how many to expect on the other side of the phone, or across the table. On top of this all, the final panel interview was set up to be the "end of the road." Well, in fact it was not, and again the rules were changed. The job shadowing (or so it was called) at the final panel interview was actually just me staring at a client partner across a table in a room about 6' X 5'. I was looking forward to being able to see exactly what my life would be like if offered the job, and instead I was in a blank room with someone currently in the position. No prep work (again), no presentation, just her saying, "this is the time you can ask me any questions you would like." Thank goodness I had some questions prepared, otherwise it would have made for a rather awkward half hour.
On top of this all, the interviewers kept referring back to and picking apart the areas of my experience that were not relevant. We discussed that the examples they were questioning me about were not structured in the competitive format that they were looking for. I then covered numerous other examples that displayed the experience/characteristics/and personal traits they were looking for (totaling about 2 hours of talking time). They disregarded these examples and ultimately decided not to offer me the job because of it.
Overall, the interview process was way too drawn out. I was a bit disgruntled that after 8 weeks, 6 interviews and 6+ hours of interviewing, the management of this company was unable to make a timely decision. I was continually passed off to someone else, adding additional interviews (where I had to catch THEM up to speed). It was a frustrating experience overall.
