I had applied several times in the past without a referral, but often the result was either rejection, ghosting, or lack of interest from the Hiring Manager. This time, I applied with a referral, and things have progressed differently. I had my first interview with the Hiring Manager, which was more of a company/role fit discussion. We talked about my background, "Tell me about yourself," and some basic networking concepts (OSI layers, devices, etc.). It was scheduled for an hour but lasted about 30 minutes. Later the same day, I received an invitation for the second round, which was technical. This focused on my resume and the keywords listed, with questions about networking basics. This round lasted around an hour. The same day, I was invited to the third round—a troubleshooting exercise. I was given a network topology with multiple issues (subnetting, routing protocols, DHCP, DNS) and had to guide an engineer on how to troubleshoot them. It was scheduled for two hours but finished in about an hour, followed by a discussion about the role and the networking industry in general.