Phone Screen: A recruiter called me maybe a week or so after I submitted an application online. We briefly discussed the particulars of the role as well as salary expectations. I gave a range I was comfortable with, and she responded that we were aligned on the range.
First in-person: A few days later I was invited to come onsite and meet the hiring manager, his peer, and a more junior employee (a manager in the department). All of these conversations were light, and we briefly discussed trends in the industry as well as my background.
Timed Excel assessment: After the in-person interview I was administered an Excel exam to do at home in 30 minutes. I thought this was fairly basic and didn't have any real issues finishing on time. It mostly consisted of VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables, etc.
Second in-person interview: After finishing the Excel assessment I was quickly invited back on site for a final interview. I spoke with the hiring manager's manager, and then his manager. These were short conversations and seemed to be more of a 'fit' check than anything. At the end, I spoke with a more junior employee on the HR team who asked me some more behavioral questions.
Offer: A week or two after the final round interview I was presented with an offer. This offer was entirely verbal and it was difficult to get information about the available healthcare plans and some of the more nuanced details surrounding benefits; they wanted my verbal acceptance before presenting a written offer. The offer was at the bottom of my range. The recruiter told me the monthly cost of a high deductible healthcare plan, which was higher than I anticipated. She also indicated that due to the hire date, I would be precluded for any merit increases for 18 months. I countered towards the top of my range (a 10% increase). The hiring manager called and indicated that he could only go up 2.5%. I declined and ended up pursuing other offers.
Overall the process was fine. Everyone was very friendly and I found the timeline relatively quick for such a large company. There are two things that could have made the process better:
1) I believe when I gave my initial range, the recruiter saw that the top of her range just barely aligned with the bottom of mine. I have had other recruiters mention that at the outset (e.g. "we have an overlap but just barely"), and I would have preferred knowing that only the low end of my range was possible. I had received other offers during this process which pushed me towards the top of the range, and knowing their limitations from the beginning would have enabled me to withdraw before my final interview.
2) I thought it was strange to do the take-home assessment in between my in-person interviews. I think any assessments should be done after a phone screen to weed out candidates who don't have the hard skills and to save everyone's time. Also, after interviewing with nearly a dozen companies I believe this is the only one that brought me on site twice. I have had very long on-site interviews (6-8 hours), multiple phone screens and webcam interviews, but not in-persons spread across multiple days. My company is very flexible but I imagine this could be challenging for someone working for a less flexible employer.