I applied through a staffing agency recruiter for this position listed as a 12-month contract, and everything moved quickly as far as hearing from the recruiter and someone at the company wanting to set up an interview. The first interview went great. It was with two people, and if it had ended with them I am pretty sure I would have gotten the job, based on their feedback. Initially, it was not clear I'd be interviewing with two people, but my recruiter told me the day of when she found out from another candidate she submitted. After that first interview, they got back to the recruiter less than 24 hours later to move me to what they considered the final round. And the reason it was the final round is because it was a 2-hour rotating panel interview that was supposed to include 8 people! I'd always thought the pay was low for the position and thought a big panel for a 12-month contract position requiring 1-3 years of experience was odd, as well. But as the process unfolded it became even more clear how absurd this whole thing was. Throughout each interview, including the first one, I learned that they use crappy systems and tools, seem to have no idea how to effectively communicate or prioritize, struggle with their vendors, and basically were being at least somewhat misleading in terms of the job description. Basically their words about everything other than the description. From one of the interviewers, I basically was told they advertise this and some other positions as a time-limited contract position but you're really not a contractor. The other interviews underscored this indirectly. Like, their interview questions, their standards, their expectations for you and the role, etc, are all that of when a company is bringing someone on board as a permanent direct hire with benefits and at a salary range that's nearing twice as much as what they're offering. They just are looking to take extreme advantage of someone and not give them what they deserve. I also initially expected the interviews to be more of a breeze and to be mostly repetitive questions and a team vibe check, given the first interview, the low pay and the 12-month contract status. But it especially became apparent with two absolutely stoic and unfriendly interviewers that they took these interviews very seriously. Almost totally different questions and focuses from each interviewer on the panel. Curveball behavioral and proof-of-qualification questions, as well as questions about analytics experience. I got grilled so much that I barely had time to ask each interviewer questions. The saddest part is one of the interviewers made it fairly clear, after a couple others hinted at it, that whomever they hired for this position would initially be brought on to mostly follow the job description but would transition into more advanced duties as they fix existing problems with their systems and tools. Seemed like eventually the focus would be more on SEO, CRO, data analysis. The job description does not indicate this, but suddenly it made more sense why they were interested in me. I was overqualified for this position as described in the job description, but for a position that wants someone who can do hands-on PDP updates as well as SEO, CRO, data analysis, etc, I was pretty on point. Apparently, so was everyone else they were interviewing, according to this interviewer. At an abysmal hourly rate. By the end of the panel interview, it was clear the pay should be twice as much. All of us were overqualified relative to the job description, and whomever they selected would be severely underpaid and undervalued. I thought about everything after the panel interview, especially about the other candidates also being overqualified, and realized I probably wasn’t going to get the job. I was right.