recruiter screen, manager, 4 team group interviews. Overall it was positive until I was left hanging for quite a while only to be ghosted in the end. Too long of a process to ghost finalists

I was recruited and encouraged to apply via a NYT recruiter who cold messaged me on LinkedIn. I am happy in my current role but decided to learn more and hear about this new role, especially as a fan of the NYT. I was paired with a different recruiter who was new to the company but very friendly and thorough. I had an initial call with the hiring manager who was nice albeit seemed a bit overwhelmed and trying to hire a whole team from scratch. I then worked with a scheduling coordinator to have 5-6 Zoom interviews with various team members and partners. One person didn't show up to one of the interviews but overall it was a pretty smooth process. Questions were pretty straightforward, honestly a bit repetitive even though different interviews were supposed to have different areas of focus (i.e. technical acumen, leadership, etc.). Everyone seemed nice but again, a bit overwhelmed. I had the last interview with the hiring manager and everything seemed good. The recruiter had kept me very informed every step of the way, asking about my timeline and setting up brief 5 minute check ins, which I really appreciated. Then suddenly, radio silence. Nothing from the recruiter, hiring manager, etc. I sent two follow up emails to the recruiter to ask about next steps and heard nothing. I don't mind not being offered the role, but I do find it disrespectful to have someone spend in total, 8+ hours in interviews and not even let them know either way. It made me wonder if I had done something horribly wrong until I heard from a friend that he went through the same thing in a different department and saw the posts here. Just not a great look.

The interview process consisted of a phone screening with the recruiter, a casual call with the hiring manager, then 6 interviews with various potential teammates (some of these there 45 min and some were half an hour). 6 interviews in a week did feel like a lot but they let me spread them out (vs all in one day) which I appreciated! Overall, there was good communication throughout the process. While it was a lot of interviews, it was run smoothly and efficiently.