Originally, I was contacted by email that went into my spam box from an in-house recruiter. First, there were two phone interviews with the recruiter. The 1st focused most on my education and the 2nd mostly about applicable work experience. The odd thing was, I was repeatedly asked "if I was still interested." I was told little about the job except the narrow but vague JD emailed to me. Before the hiring manager would grant me a phone interview, I was required to subject to 3 different aptitude tests. 1) an intelligence test, 2) problem solving and mathematical aptitude, 3) a personality test. After analyzing the results, the hiring manager conducted two separate phone interviews with me. The 1st phone interview with the hiring manager was very like the ones from the recruiter, yet questions of interest held little relationship to the JD. The follow-up phone interview asked me many related questions to what the hiring manager wanted to ultimately accomplish with this new position and how my skills, education, and experience would support that. However, this description was so much bigger than the JD stated. I was asked again, if I was still interested. Before the hiring manager would interview me in person, he insisted that I submit to a complete background check. My first in-person interview went well focusing on this dream job, not described in the JD. I was informed it went well, but there was still doubts regarding my skills surrounding the job stated in the JD. So, this lead to follow-up emails from the hiring manager. The emails asked me to prove my abilities doing rough analytics on sample work. After replying to these emails theoretically, I was brought in for a day of three interviews: One with a very intelligent and amiable HR exec. The second with a competent and friendly co-worker. The final one was with the hiring manager who stated he still had misgivings, yet made me a low offer to come in as an independent consultant for a 30 day trial period. If this worked out, I would be made a significantly higher offer for employment at the end.