Lingotek interview questions

I was told about the opportunity through a friend. He knew the hiring manager there and so we had a quick phone interview. I was receiving offers from other opportunities and so I approached them because I was very interested. They moved things forward quickly because they truly wanted me, which increased my interest in the company. Lingotek took care of me and truly wanted me to be part of them team.

​The interview process started out very positive and promising. I had a phone screen, followed by a face to face interview with 3 separate interviewers. All went very well and were fairly standard as far as interviews go. Then I was called back in to interview with the CEO. I was asked a lot about my background and the companies I had worked for. ​ Two weeks later I received a call from the hiring manager letting me know that he planned on hiring me and that an offer would be coming soon. I was told that my salary expectations were right in line with what they were planning on paying. A week later I followed up and the approval for the offer still had not been given. I was told that an executive needed to sign off and that the executive team member had been away and unavailable. Another week passed and I followed up. I was shocked with an email response that the company had decided to go with another candidate as directed by the executive team. All this after having been verbally told that I was the person they planned on hiring and that an offer was forthcoming. The reasoning I was given was my apparent lack of experience with a very specific skill set. That skill set was not at all stressed during the interview process and I actually do have experience where they claimed that I was lacking. Being rejected after having been told that I was the guy was a major gut punch. It felt extremely unprofessional. My takeaway is that Lingotek desperately needs an HR department or at least an HR person to manage the hiring of new employees. The way that my rejection was handled was worse than any rejection for a job I have experienced and it was extremely unprofessional. Embarrassingly so. It also felt as though the executive team actively prevents the hiring managers from hiring who they desire to hire. Maybe that was not the case, but I was left with a very bad taste in my mouth. It has been over 6 months since this happened and now I am able to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation and how incredibly unprofessionally I was treated. I feel bad for the hiring manager who by all accounts seemed like a great person but was not allowed to do his job as he saw fit. He must have been mortified to have been told to call a candidate who he has personally promised a job and tell them that they had decided on another candidate.