A law degree, twenty years of experience, and a search that ran for months. The plan was simple: apply, interview, choose. Instead they kept reaching the final round and coming up short, again and again.
By the end they had sat through forty-five interviews. In their profession, four or five is normally enough for a decision. Three of the roles they pursued ran to seven, eight, nine, ten rounds. They spent enough time in airports that they never wanted to see a carry-on suitcase again.
What they found broken was the shape of it. Virtual interviews made it cheap to schedule anyone, so companies scheduled everyone — from the chief executive to the mail room. Several interviewers admitted outright that they had no say in the hiring decision. One candidate in that position asked themselves, silently, why they were meeting at all.
One interviewer kept his camera off and explained that he needed to concentrate; he did not turn it back on to say goodbye, and admitted he was not qualified to interview for the role. A hiring manager asked why the company needed someone with a law degree, in a posting that listed one as preferred.
What finally worked was smaller: they stopped dealing with the large agencies and focused on roles handled by the company itself or by small boutique recruiters. That is where the offer came from. It was advertised tens of thousands below what they wanted; they negotiated it to almost exactly their number.