There were 4 rounds. First with HR person, then an interview with a colleague and another with the would-be manager, followed by a final round which is a project.
The first couple of interviews are standard and fine. I did notice the manager and colleague seemed a bit inexperienced with this interviewing role but I gave them a pass as it is a skill that can be developed with time and experience.
The issue was the final step, the presentation. I had a 3-business day turnaround time from being given the assignment to presenting it, having to do so over Thanksgiving. Not only that, it was a spreadsheet with about 300 rows of data including verbatim - all unpaid. The prompt given through HR on what to do was extremely brief but I ensured to cover it, with explicit takeaways given the detailed feedback.
This final interview included another colleague and I noticed odd non-verbals from the hiring manager, who forgot to introduce the additional colleague and also to properly say hello and cover the "professional pleasantries" at the start of a meeting.
In the end, there were very few questions and no request for explaining methodology or anything, really. Receiving the "no, thank you" email was a bit surreal given the extremely brief feedback - which was inaccurate but leads me to think there was miscommunication with HR.
I was looking forward to joining the company despite being more experienced than the manager, but this final step was very odd and this apparent disconnect felt disrespectful to my time as well.
They must review their practices, improve their internal communications - the HR person said the manager actually mislabeled the role to her - and either greatly trim down on the data component or offer a stipend.