He had cleared three interviews: HR, the hiring manager, and the director. All three had been positive, and he was told as much. Then HR called to ask how he felt about the role. He said he was very interested; she said the feedback on their side was equally warm.
He was waiting for an offer. Instead she told him he would need one final interview — with a member of the team.
He is a demand planner. The person who would interview him is a stock manager. The two roles are related, he wrote, but different in responsibility and in the technical concepts underneath, and he could not work out what a stock manager was meant to assess about demand planning — or what the interview would be.
His own theory: two candidates are still standing, and this last conversation is meant as a tiebreaker. Three people have already said yes to him. Now a fourth person, from another job entirely, gets a vote.