A recruiter reached out to me about a position via social media. After a discussion, I confirmed my interest. A phone interview was scheduled with a finance manager. It was casual, very informal. Focused on relevant experience, workload, expectations, etc.
A few days later, HR scheduled an onsite interview. First I had a phone interview with a corporate HR partner. Then I met with the local leadership team: operations, finance, HR. Talked through relevant experiences. Then they had a few situation/behavior questions. Then I got to ask questions about the workload, schedule, team members, expectations, etc.
A week later, I received a verbal offer over the phone from the recruiter. The next day I received a written offer.
The only negative I can say was that, when discussing salary with the recruiter, the "we could pay up to x, does that meet your expectations" question was on the lower side of my expectations. Then the offer came in under that, which was disappointing. They did not quote a range, just one number. After receiving the offer, my attempts to get closer to "x" was met with a budgetary constraint.
This gave me tremendous pause, as we hadn't discussed this number as being acceptable. I think dangling a number out there that isn't in the budget is pretty misleading. I had a lot of hesitancy moving forward but decided to move forward.
I would suggest potential applicants have a more in-depth conversation around the budget and range for the position.