MHF's recruiter contacted me after seeing an old job profile of mine and telling me how thoroughly impressed she was with our conversation and my skills. From there, I quickly finished two additional interviews in a matter of days with senior staff within HR/learning followed by another one with a member of the UK office.
They were good at first about being communicative about next steps and consistently told me I was one of the top candidates for the job. They even gave me a deadline by which they would have a decision. I was weighing other job offers (which they knew), so the deadline mattered to me.
They blew past their own deadline by two days, and when I followed up, I am told about a sudden need for more interviews the following day (I was happy to oblige because I really wanted the job). The recruiter and the hiring manager reiterated that I am "definitely on the shortlist" and they were "definitely interested" in me. They were definitely building up my expectations.
After finishing this last round on Thursday of last week, I was assured that I would have an answer by EOD Friday. I knew I had put my best foot forward in every interview, and felt pretty good about my prospects (or had at least set a very high bar for my competition to clear).
Around 4:30pm on Friday, I hear from the recruiter. He told me that I didn't get the job (unfortunate, but not earth-shattering). However, the reason wasn't that I wasn't good enough (he said "you were the candidate to beat"), but because the hiring team had decided to hire no one and instead go back to the drawing board for the position entirely. Further, they would bring in a whole new candidate pool, which meant I would have to start interviewing all over.
While I recognize that nothing was promised, what a way to make a prospective employee feel used!
While MHF is welcome to carry out its hiring choices and its crises of conscience, their boorish, unprofessional and bait-and-switch behavior here is not what I expected from a well-respected company. After this experience, I'm glad I don't work there!