Referred by an executive. My concern was this would be a courtesy interview which it ended up, in addition to an IP scrape. The hiring manager kept me within the team--just had 2 peer interviews. No stakeholders or anyone else in a leadership role. I ended up being ghosted which is pathetic when an executive was the one who referred me. The exec ultimately reached back out to the HM who had the admin send an AI email that was dishonest as I was never considered. And you can't justify not responding to very professional follow-up emails that were timed to not be pushy. Yes, you don't owe the candidate anything, but you would expect a degree of integrity when you know an exec sponsored the candidate. I was treated like a pebble in your shoe. The peer interviewer was extremely interested in learning how I approach things which was yet another example of data mining candidates. If they can treat ppl like this, maybe that's how they treat customers too. Audits, renewal hikes...

I met with 2 leaders within the department to talk through experience and the role and then a member of the executive leadership team the following week. It was a quick process and I had the offer within 2 weeks.