+1. I actually went through this once (sort of - 5 phone interviews) but that is in no way standard. My story was - getting interviewed by progressively more s

+1. I actually went through this once (sort of - 5 phone interviews) but that is in no way standard. My story was - getting interviewed by progressively more senior folks with positive feedback on the spot from whoever I was talking to. So then finally after 4 rounds of technical interview calls I get to talk to the hiring manager who is telling me something along the lines of "the feedback has been awesome BUT we didn't expect to find someone this fast and now need to wait till the next hiring cycle".