When I was contacted by Planet Labs to schedule the screen with HR I mentioned that I had just completed a full day interview with a company and that I could be contacted after 10AM any day (I was on vacation). They scheduled the phone screen a week later. By the time I had the phone screen I had completed another series of interviews at a second company. I let them know that I had an offer from the first and a verbal from the second. I was told the hiring manager was out of town and that it might be 2-4 weeks before the process could be completed. I asked to have a technical phone screen anyway because I was interested and might be willing to wait. That was a Friday. On the following Wednesday I received a call from the HR representative saying that the hiring manager had returned and could move quickly. This was encouraging and suggested that a practical engineer was on the other side somewhere but I couldn't take them seriously at this point and didn't bother to return the call. I've done a fair amount of hiring and what I have learned is that when you decide to hire it must become your priority (as painful as it is). HR reps simply don't have enough understanding of engineering to move things along efficiently and a candidate with many years of experience will have specific ideas what they are looking for. I don't buy that a member of the technical team can't make four 15-minute calls to strong candidates each night. I was contacted by technical leads a both companies from which I had offers--a start-up and a 1500 person company. It was both flattering and sent a message they were willing to roll up their sleeves to hire.