After applying online, I was quickly contacted by the hiring manager and an in person interview was scheduled. The first round of interviews consisted of 1:1 interviews with the hiring manager and the IT manager that this positions would replace(the former manager was retiring). Overall, this interview went well, though the actual job was much more operations focused, than the original job description I had applied to. After a couple of days, I was brought back to have a series of interviews with the peer managers of this position. Each interviewer had a slightly different set of questions, which ranged from higher level management/behavioral questions, down to detailed technical questions. Overall, a competent and informative interview process. I was then called back for another round of in person interviews with the departmental general managers. This round went well enough and the interviews were more of a check for fit at this point. I left this round of interviews fairly confident, having gotten through 3 rounds of in person interviews. I was then told that a final hiring decision would be made in 7 to 10 days. I contacted the hiring manager after 10 days and he said a decision would be made in another couple days. The next day, I was approached by a consulting firm that wanted me to apply to the same position as a contract to hire resource (90 day). They mentioned the hiring managers name. This perturbed me, given that I perceived this as bait and switch with my original application for a full time job. I ended up talking with the hiring manager again and he mentioned that I got a thumbs down from one of the final interviewers. However, there was still a good chance of me being hired, should they be unable to find a contract-to-hire position. A couple weeks passed and I was approached to come back and panel interview with the team again. However, in the course of trying to schedule this interview, the hiring manager dropped contact and did not respond to any additional queries of mine. Overall, the interview process, up to the point where the full time position was switched to a contract-to-hire, was competently ran, challenging and informative. Dropping contact and switching the position, was unprofessional and highly annoying, given the hours I spent interviewing and preparing for this job. The end result, left a bitter taste in my mouth and a wish that companies would actually close out the hiring/interviewing process in a professional manner.