The Forever Candidate

The first interview was on Zoom.
 The second interview was also on Zoom, but with everyone’s camera off “for culture reasons.”
 By the third interview, the recruiter stopped using dates and started saying things like, “Next cycle.”

They told me it was a good sign.

Each round came with reassurance.
 “We’re very excited about you.”
 “We just need one more conversation.”
 “This is the final interview.”

They said that five times.

I met the hiring manager, the hiring manager’s manager, the manager who used to manage the hiring manager, and a cross-functional stakeholder who introduced herself as “just here to observe.” She took notes for forty-five minutes and never spoke again. I still think about her.

The case study took a weekend.
 The take-home assignment took a week.
 The “quick exercise” took my will to live.

I redesigned their onboarding, fixed a problem they’d had since 2019, and accidentally improved team morale. They thanked me and scheduled another interview.

By round seven, I was no longer a candidate. I was an unpaid staff.

They asked the same questions every time:
 “Walk us through a challenge.”
 “Tell us about a failure.”
 “How do you handle ambiguity?”

I handled ambiguity by showing up anyway.

At round ten, they added a panel called Future Peers. None of them were smiling. One asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
 I said, “Here. Still interviewing.”

At round twelve, HR asked me to resubmit my resume “in a slightly different format.” I complied. I had time.

At round fifteen, they ghosted me for three weeks, then reappeared to say, “Sorry, we were just really busy.”
 Busy interviewing someone else, I assume. Possibly me.

At round eighteen, they said, “We’re moving very slowly, but that’s because we care.”
 I nodded.

Finally, after months, they scheduled The Final Final Interview.
 The recruiter smiled and said, “No matter what happens, this has been such a great process.”

I didn’t get the job.

But they invited me to stay in touch.

Every few weeks, they email:
 “Just checking in.”
 “We’d love to reconnect.”
 “A new role might be opening soon.”

So I keep interviewing.

Because if they were going to reject me,
 they would have done it already.