I applied online, completed a skills assessment, and received a call within a week's time from a corporate recruiter to schedule a phone interview. The phone interview was with the same recruiter, and was fairly standard for a sales job... "most difficult sale you've made, what did you overcome to make it, and how?" type questions. The recruiter thought that I interviewed well, and passed me to the Branch Manager who called me within a few days after the phone interview to set up a 1:1. When I arrived at his office, he was waiting in the lobby to greet me with a smile and a handshake. We went to a conference room, where he outlined the remainder of the interview process (phone interview, 1:1 with the Branch Manager, then a presentation, then 1:1 with his boss, followed by a background check and job offer).
Again, the questions were typical sales job questions. The aim was to examine one's work experience and attitude and figure out if one's skills would transfer well to the job. He asked "How will you find potential customers?," "tell me about a time when you had to explain a very difficult concept?," and questions about one's performance on and the nature of one's previous sales jobs like "how many contacts did you make a day?" or "what what your conversion rate?"
He was very impressed with my achievements thus far, so when I left the interview I fully expected to get the third interview. Rather than being informed via email or mail of the fact that I had been passed over for the job, who else but the Branch Manager contacted me to let me know I had been beat out by someone with previous industry experience. I appreciated that he contacted me directly to inform me what happened, as typically you get nothing in the way of an explanation unless you seek it out.