PwC Manager - Advisory interview questions

Absolutely no candidate should have to go through what I did over the past 5 months. What started out as a very promising career prospect turned out to be full of false promises, fairy tales and hokum. This experience seemed at times to be like watching a TV show that should have been canceled after the 1st episode. The interview process started out at the end of March 2015, as one would expect, with a series of phone interviews. The phone interviews took place with several Advisory Managers and an Advisory Director. The phone interviews went very well and after the conclusion of the phone interviews I was told that HR would be contacting me within the next week to schedule an on-site interview. This is when it fell apart, HR did not call until 2 months later. The Advisory Director explained that HR was in the process of annual reviews and did not have time to schedule interviews. I should have walked away at that time but I gave them the benefit and continued the conversation. HR finally called and went through the typical HR items. The call concluded with HR stating that a Partner would be calling me later in the week for a final phone interview. But wait a minute I thought the phone interviews were over and it was time for the on-site interview. Okay so maybe I misunderstood the Advisory Director so I went along with it and had a conversation with the Partner. The Partner called and we had the typical phone interview again and I was told that I would now have to wait until after the July 4th holiday before the on-site interview would take place. I thought again that it makes sense it the summer and lots of people are on vacation. So after the holiday I finally get a call from HR stating that my on-site interview would take place in Houston during mid-July. Another week went by without any updates or travel arrangements from HR. Then HR finally called me on a Wednesday and wanted me in Atlanta on Friday. Here again it changed from what I was told to something completely else. The on-site interviews were scheduled to consist of 3 different interviewers lasting about 45 min each. The first interview was with another Advisory Manager and was nothing more that the typical HR questions. The next interview was with an Advisory Director and went right up to the 45min mark and was a little more technical. Now here comes the interesting part, the last interview was to be with the Advisory Director that I had the previous phone conversations with. This Director could not be found by the staff. After almost 30 minutes elapsed the Director was found. The disturbing part was not that the Director was late but was surprised that he was required to be there to conduct an interview. The conversation lasted about 15 minutes and concluded with saying that next steps would be for them to make me an offer after their annual Partner/Director meeting in Orlando the following week. The Director also said he would call me later that evening and let me know how the debrief call went. Well sadly he never called and did not respond to my emails or calls. So after 2 weeks I then decided to call HR and see if they had a status update. I got the same non-response from HR. I finally received a call from HR stating that they now wanted me to have another phone interview with another Partner. This was a little alarming to me so I contacted the original Advisory Director, this time I actually got through. I was told that during their meeting in Orlando it was decided that there was going to be a hiring freeze due to a slow down in the oil and gas sector. I was assured however that I would be starting work after September 1 so I went along with it, I should have known better. Several more weeks have elapsed since the last call and I had all but given up and moved onto another opportunity then I get a call from the hiring Partner on 8/20. Finally I get a verbal offer and it was 25% higher that what I was expecting. I was told that HR would be getting an offer letter put together and have it out to me by the first of the week. I was so excited thinking to myself waiting really did pay off. I was wrong to think that because there was not a offer letter from HR and no return call from the Partner until Wednesday this week. I saw that the Partner called my phone but did not leave a voicemail. I called the Partner back as soon as I could and I just knew that I would be again receiving good news. Wrong again, there was not any good news this time from the Partner. I was told that they received push back on the offer from others in the organization due to too many people being on the bench and I could wait a little longer but no promises. I stated that I could no longer wait and wished them all the best. My advice to PwC is please don't lead people on and please make improvements to the communications between hiring department, HR and candidates.