I started the recruitment process with #paid at the end of July 2023. The whole recruitment process took 10 weeks for a mid-level role. This is the longest recruitment I've ever experienced as a working professional. These were the different steps I went through during this 10-week period, I made it through to the very end of the process; - Initial Zoom screen with a Recruiter - basic interview questions asked, quite clear with salary expectations from the start, $75k-$80k with equity (30 mins, 1st week of August) - Hiring Manager interview - interesting questions asked, gave me time in the end to ask them questions about the team and how they manage accounts (30 mins, 3rd week of August) - Senior Leader interview - more of a culture fit conversation (30 mins, 1st week of September) - Case Study Assignment - this took me at least 8+ hours to complete and required PPT creation and research on the brand. - Panel Interview and Case Study Presentation - this included the Hiring Manager and the Senior Leader I met with prior, a team lead/ senior IC, and another Senior Leader, 30 mins were spent on the PPT presentation, and questions asked were a bit difficult as I didn't have much experience in this industry, last 30 mins was general questions of how I prepared for the interview and time to ask their team questions (1hr, 3rd week of September) - Final decision - sent via email, offered time to connect to discuss hiring teams decision and feedback on interviews (1st week of October) Throughout the recruitment, I had to follow up a number of times to know where I was in the process. I'm not even sure if I would have moved forward to the next step if I hadn't reached out to get an update. The longest update was after the panel interview, it took them almost 3 weeks from the panel interview for them to get back to me on their decision, which I believe I followed up twice before getting the final, "we are not moving forward with your candidacy" email. I understand things take time and that there were probably a number of qualified applicants but for me, the hiring process is the first impression of a potential new employer. For it to take 10 weeks is just unheard of in my space. 4-5 weeks is the average for a full recruitment cycle in tech. Overall the interviews and the case study were not hard it was just the length of time between interviews that was shocking. I'm not sure if it had to do with it being the end of summer and people being on vacation but I went through a bunch of other recruitment processes for a number of other companies during this period and the contrast in experience was telling.