I applied through LinkedIn at the very end of May. The process took 2.5 months. I went through 7 interview stages, usually a week in between scheduling steps. You'll be repeating your resume/story for every single interview.
1- Initial Phone Call. Took 15 minutes, very easy. They ask you why did you apply. They give you a personality quiz that is a link of around 40-50 adjectives you select that you feel people aside from you associate you with, and what you actually associate yourself with.
2- Interview with Talent/HR. Very simple interview. When I got there, they had all the rooms booked for interviews. This is a sign of high employee turnover. They are upfront about the hours (9:00am-6:30pm) and every month there are 2 days where all employees are required to stay till 8pm for training, even if you've been there for several years.
Before we really got into the interview, they first mentioned all of their benefits. Any good job will come with benefits. It seemed unusual that they are mentioning benefits this early in the process. They never brought up salary for all 7 stages of the process, so I brought it up later on and they just told me that their salaries are proprietary. Since they do expect more hours than normal from you, please consider that when you bring up salary to them.
The majority of the questions they prepared focused on how you receive criticism. One of their values is transparency and it seemed odd that this was the main focus of that meeting. Transparency can be a good company value, however, because it is a flat organization this pretty much gives the green light for anyone to be unnecessarily rude.
3- Interview with senior department associates- They were running 30 minutes late. Finally got to meet with one of the senior department associates. They were very nice and most questions focused on previous projects I had done.
4- Interview with more department associates- Standard interview. No trick questions. Again, mainly probing into past projects I've worked on. I was told that the next stage would be the final interview.
5- Interview with VP- All interviews went for 1 hour. This one was cut down to 30 mins since the VP has a meeting after. I wasn't really asked any questions other than a quick description of my resume. I was told then that a decision would be made the next week.
The following week came, the day I was supposed to find out a decision, they called and invited me to yet another "final interview."
6- Interview with the same senior associates from before: Standard interview. Only, the VP was supposed to have attended this interview but they never showed. They also gave me a tour of the company building. At the end of this round, I was told then that the next day they were going to hold a round table interview with the CEO.
7- Roundtable with the CEO- Spoke with the other candidates before the meeting started. Turned out, all of us were told the last 3 interviews would be the "final interview". We were all being considered for different roles, which I think put some people more at ease. Everyone was made aware of this stage only 24-hour notice, with some people having to fly in.
This interview went from 6-9pm. It was not a group interview, more of a debate. They brought up topics, called on your name to answer questions, of course, you have to take initiative and speak up a few times on your own behalf. One of the topics discussed was work/life balance and it seemed ironic of a topic when this company has so many current employees complaining about hours, not to mention the current timing of the situation being so late. We were told at the end of that discussion that decisions would be made next week. Also, a few HR employees had to stay at their desks outside of the conference room until the discussion was over. It seemed pointless for them having to stay there and not being at home at 9pm.
I've been through similar processes in the past and I found it disrespectful that after undergoing so many steps for this company, they gave me a robotic rejection email instead of delivering the news through a phone call. This entire process has been a mess and only gives the impression that this company is highly disorganized. Especially, if the HR department is not aware of the number of stages there are.