I was initially contacted by a recruiter shortly after putting my application in. She was very thorough with the phone interview questions and she also let me know the next steps. It was a great initial contact. Next, I had a second interview with two managers that would be hiring for their departments. The interview was good to me but I could tell one manager was more interested than the other. I made it to a third interview with a director and was grilled with many technical questions but at the end of the interview was told that I may qualify for an associate role but not the role I went through the interview process for because of my experience. I was okay with that.
After about a week, I was contacted by my recruiter I was working with from the beginning to let me know they were still interviewing candidates and I would hear back soon. It’s been about 3 months since the initial contact and I just received a rejection email.
It would be nice in the future to give a candidate a rejection email sooner after 3 interviews instead of letting them think they may still have a chance.