After getting an employee referral, I applied online and then was contacted by a recruiter. The recruiter stated that there would be five interviews, and then a final interview with the global head of the practice. The first interview was with HR and lasted about an hour- a standard review of your resume, motivations for coming to the practice, past experiences- all very standard for this level of recruiting and very promising. Two months go by and the second interview (Situational) comes, this time it goes very well and the interview is almost 2+ hours. Then nothing-for two-and-a-half months. First recruiter calls and schedules the next two interviews. In the interview with potential colleague (which took two more weeks to schedule) a few points come to light- a) he admits he hasn't read my resume and doesn't know why he is interviewing me b) he has only been with the firm a short time and is on 'garden leave' for another several months, so not only is he not allowed to do anything in the practice, he doesn't even care who they do hire to do the work on his own team...somehow he likes me and passes me on to the next round. Another month goes by. The next interview is with the leader of the practice. After a few reschedules, and one outright blowoff, we have the interview-where he asks me the exact same technical question that the previous interviewer had, which I answered the exact same way (correctly) and I asked if I could ask a few questions? Had they ever done a full implementation, and if so, what were the difficulties that they had run into? Long pause....they had NEVER done a full implementation, they had never even done a project were they were direct billing the client- their services were an add-on to other areas of the firm and they had yet to do a project that covered their costs. The process had drug on for six months. There were several last minute cancellations and two outright blow-offs by the interviewers. I wasn't interested in being treated like this. I thanked him for his time, followed by emails etc...the recruiter calls a week later-they are not going to hire at this level for the post, they have dropped it down two levels. I don't actually say much, as she was pleasant and there was no need to be anything but professional (she kept saying "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I really thought you were perfect for Accenture" I thanked her kindly and went on my way...
A week later, the post is up again- they did not drop it down, they kept it the same.
I can't get back the time involved in this whole lengthy process, but at some point, when my new firm is looking for consultants for a project, I will have plenty to weigh in on the subject of whom gets hired.