The first interview I had was with a recruiter and a pretty basic screen, lasted about 20 mins. I got a follow up a week later to schedule a call with the hiring manager. My first call with the hiring manager, he didn’t show and I had to reach out to the recruiter. The hiring manager had an emergency prior to our scheduled call, so we rescheduled. I really enjoyed the conversation I had with him and think I did really well, including getting good feedback from him throughout the interview. A week went by, and I had not heard anything so I emailed the recruiter. He quickly replied that they decided to make an offer to someone else and had closed the position. This rubbed me the wrong way, if they were already ready to make an offer to someone then why were they still doing phone screens? It just seemed like a waste of time. I’ve hired many people and I wouldn’t have people in multiple different stages of an interview process, if you have candidates in the final stage you should consider pausing first rounds and be respectful of people’s time.