The round of interviews. 1st round: HR/screening (1 hr): high-level discussion of my experience, focusing on the parts relevant for this job, like end-to-end project management, end-user support, security enhancements, but all on a holistic level only.
Phase 2: Dev manager/technical (1 hr): focusing on the technical aspects of my previous and relevant projects, like AD GPO design, security policies for MDM, zero-day and patch management.
Those went fine.
3rd round: CFO. (Scheduled for 1 hr, real length was 15-20 mins). A very broad and high-level question: how do you manage a project from end to end? Then he said he had no more questions, which means he didn’t even take the time to prepare for the interview. And from the first second of the meeting, it was obvious he didn’t like me. Either he already had someone in mind for the position, or he wanted someone with less experience who would be easy to manage. His reply to the recruiter was a funny one: “culturally not fit to the team,” which is quite questionable for a one-person position. Maybe next time something more serious. Also, I recommend interviewing only the ones you want to hire so you won’t waste each other’s time. And it’s expected for the interviewer to be prepared as well as the candidate. I did my part.
There were many red flags during the interview (90% of the team in India, IT reports directly to the CFO, etc.).