I have never written a review before regarding an interview process, but this one was so particularly mismanaged I felt it appropriate to do so. My interview process took 7 weeks in total from first communication to my untimely rejection and was the most poorly managed interview process I've had the displeasure of taking part in from start to finish, rife with lies and misleading communication. I happened to be the first person that the HR recruiter spoke to, and she responded positively to my initial screening with her and immediately scheduled me to speak with the hiring manager during this phone call. I spoke with that hiring manager two days later, and received the feedback that she thought I would be a great addition to the team, but, candidly, that they were very early in the process and I was the first person they spoke to. She also happened to have worked with a former colleague of mine and I was pleased to hear that this colleague provided her with a glowing review of our time working together, so I felt very positive about my chances as well as the opportunity in total at this point. I was then told that I would be scheduled with two team members in "panel" style interviews. Instead, they proceeded to have me interview with four team members in separate times, which I found needlessly arduous as opposed to one long true panel-style interview, but I participated eagerly and with grace regardless and found them all to be good conversations. The feedback I received during these calls was nothing but positive, as I truly do encompass the exact experience (and years of experience) very specifically detailed in the job listing (for me this would have been an exact lateral move in my career). Up until this point, I had communicated to the hiring manager and HR that I had a couple of job opportunities I was weighing as I was deep in the interview process, and each time Edgewell promised they'd get feedback to me by a certain day, they failed. Time and time again they misguided the process and fumbled the communication, and even reached out to me over the phone at one point to encourage me to stay in the process as I was their top candidate. After a week and a half of silence after my panel interviews, I received a request from HR for yet another call with the hiring manager, now 6 weeks into the process. I went into this call with hopes that we'd clarify any last-minute questions that may have come up in the last few weeks since I knew she had likely taken that time to speak with other candidates, and that's exactly what the call was. She also took that time to iterate to me the realities of the job that she had not mentioned previously and it admittedly changed the picture a little bit; she mentioned an oddly specific-sounding hypothetical situation of grievances arising between two particular cross-functional colleagues and asked for my willingness to deal with this sort of situation and if I had any experience doing this previously. She also then mentioned that I would be managing not 2 colleagues but now 5, which was odd. Across the board, I genuinely had experience in each task they asked of me. The hiring manager ended this interview part 2 telling me, verbatim, that I was "top of the pile" and that "she thinks I would be great in this position" and that she simply needed to speak with HR as a next step and would get back to me no later than the end of that week. The end of the week came and went, as all deadlines in this process seemed to, with zero communication. Allowing some grace period as she had mentioned to me that some HR team members were out of the office, I contacted her a week after this interview to no response. I then received a call out of the blue the next day from an HR member who claimed to have both COVID and strep throat, rejecting me for the position and citing the reason as "my years of experience" which was something she could have done 7 weeks ago, as it is on my resume and I never conveyed anything else during my many conversations with their team. The strong affirmative language used by the hiring manager and members of the team combined with lack of communication and a glacial pace left a terrible taste in my mouth for this organization as a whole. Hiring should simply not take this long and be this convoluted for any candidate, particularly one you share a contact with. To top it off, having an HR team member call me personally on what should clearly be a sick day for that person only furthers the lack of respect this company appears to have not only for its candidates but the members of its organization. I'm happy to have been rejected to leave this terrible process in the past and find a better fit, and would caution anyone interested in this organization to potentially hesitate and find work elsewhere where your time, energy, and honesty will be more earnestly valued. It should have been a red flag that the hiring manager even left the company at one point herself.