The interview process was weird. The TL;DR version of my long description is that the process took way too long, and gave me the impression that a person who used to work retail jobs tried to apply the same process you'd use to hire in retail to a professional position. A lot of red flags for me personally.
The long version: it took an exceptionally long time from submission to just the second interview round (little more than 3 months from submission to 2nd interview). There are apparently three rounds of interviews, so the 3 months isn't even the complete process. The initial phone screen seemed normal enough. The only odd thing in the phone screen was that the request for references of "direct supervisors" made no sense in my field (lawyer). I chalked that up to me applying for an advocacy/legislative position and perhaps it not being known that lawyers often handle work independently with no "supervisor." It was even more strange when the interviewer suggested that I provide references from before my time in law school because that field has nothing to do with advocacy or the position I'd applied for, thus, any references would be completely unable to speak about any of my skills at all. I want to note that one of my references was the former dean of my law school, a retired federal judge appointed by a president and confirmed by congress - so, someone who could actually and truly speak to my ability to advocate and conduct policy/legislative work much more than a manager at a restaurant I worked at almost 10 years ago.
The second interview is where things really got strange. There were almost no new questions - all of the questions were almost exactly the same as during the phone screen, even though the interviewer was the same. She even started off by asking me, again, if I could provide references that were "direct supervisors" even if they were from many years ago before I went to law school! One new but weird question was asking me to rank my comfort level doing certain tasks, but all of the tasks were things that I do nearly everyday as a lawyer, so "ranking" my comfort level with those tasks seemed arbitrary and weird. I should probably add here that the job position posting sought a bachelor's degree, preferred master's, but the job description of leading a research project dealing with legal research and case analysis + testifying at legislative hearings + analyzing laws was something that a person with a Juris Doctorate degree would be quite literally trained to do. Therefore, having an interviewer who appeared to know nothing about the way the legal field worked or what lawyers do, to me and in my personal opinion, came across as a red flag when the organization deals so heavily with legislation and laws. Then, after about 10-minutes of mostly the same questions from the phone interview, the interviewer sent me an excel assignment. Very basic, but she wanted me to do the assignment while she stayed on video with her camera and mic muted, which kind of weirded me out (and made the whole thing seem unnecessarily tense).
As interviews are both people interviewing each other, I'd decided to withdraw my candidacy when I got an email saying that they were pursuing other candidates, which was definitely for the best as I don't know that this organization knew what exactly they were wanting. Still, I inquired as to what may make me a stronger candidate in the future because I think getting insight is always valuable, and the interviewer never emailed back. I'll admit that it is perhaps an incorrect assumption, but the lack of response leads me to believe that the oddity I felt about the whole interview process resulted from this particular hiring manager lacking a true direction for the position and vision of the right candidate. I don't mean to come across as bitter, and my judgment may be clouded from the first phone screen when I was asked for direct supervisors, and then again in the second interview. This is especially true because I'm not a job hopper and have stayed with one job for almost a decade, so the only "boss" I have is literally my current boss, which that alone should show you that a candidate is a loyal and good employee. Asking for "direct supervisors" from retail/restaurant in a professional role just to have a "direct supervisor" reference tells me that either: 1) the organization doesn't treat professionals professionally, but more like hourly/retail employees; 2) the organization is putting people in hiring positions who don't understand what is actually valuable about references; or 3) the organization doesn't care about someone's ability to do the job successfully, but about someone's ability to ask "how high" when they say "jump."
