Back around 2005ish (I don’t remember the year for sure), I interviewed for a company that, IIRC, provided support for business class printers. At the time, that’s all they did. (Looking at their website now, it seems like they’ve expanded to general IT support).

I went through two two hour in-person interviews followed by a five hour on-site “personality test” (many pages of multiple choice questions, similar to - but longer than - a personality quiz you might find online today). Throughout the two original interviews, I could tell that I was making a good impression and was verbally told how impressed they were several times.

After the test I then had to come back one last time, something like a week later, to be told the results. They told me a lot of things that sounded generic but flattering, again just like a personality quiz you would take online, then told me they’d decided not to hire me. The reason, they explained, was that I changed jobs too often. Which was true, I had been changing jobs a lot in that timeframe. Because I was working retail and hated it; I was interviewing there in the hopes of getting a grown-up job.

I don’t agree with their reasoning, but regardless of whether they were correct, my employment history was on my resume, which they saw before even my first ridiculously long interview. They could have decided that it was a deal breaker at any time without wasting 9 hours of my time (not including drive time and the final “we’re going with no” meeting). Also, in that timeframe I had received another job offer, which I had declined because I thought this would be a better job and closer to (at the time) home. I thought I was going to get it because of the positive feedback.

I’ve been at my current job and haven’t interviewed in a good long while, but other than the process described above I don’t think I’ve ever had an interview last over an hour. Ultimately I’m glad I didn’t get that job, because there were a lot of what I now recognize as red flags, but I was young and dumber back then and was quite upset.