TL:DR - after a long, arduous, and rather shambolic interview process, I was verbally offered a job by 15 below. After over a week of almost daily promises of "you'll get your contract tomorrow", they suddenly cancelled the role - no explanation, no apology. This is a bad company - avoid, avoid, avoid. Oooh boy, so much to say here. First stage was the usual HR screening, second stage a standard background discussion with the hiring manager (the CFO, in this case). For the final stage, I had to prepare some presentations. I was given a ficticious company scenario with only very vague numbers (no cost numbers, no opening balance sheet) and asked to prepare a full three-statement model, and then give a 20 minute presentation on my findings. It felt very odd to be making an assessment of a business when you have literally had to make up most of the numbers yourself. In addition, I had to give a 10 minute presentation with a management information structure proposal for 15 below, plus another 10 minutes on introducing AI into the finance function. Upon receiving the assignments, I asked if it was ok to use AI to assist in the production of materials for the presentations. After 5 hours, I finally got a response - no, the hiring manager would prefer it be your own work (bit strange, for a role where the use of AI was to be a major component, but I rolled with it). I then had to chase them to confirm that this guidance had been given to the other candidates in order to ensure a fair contest. I honestly don't think they had any intention of doing so until I nagged them about it, but I got them to do it in the end. Suffice to say, prepping all these materials took a loong time - about a day and a half in total. I honestly think that's excessive for a role of this level. Then came interview day. I had been asked to travel down to the office in Brighton. Upon my arrival, I was shunted straight into a meeting room - no offer of a comfort break. They couldn't get the projector to connect (of course they couldn't), and didn't seem very inclined to try, so I ended up having to use the HR lady's laptop. There then followed around 2 hours of me presenting, no offer of a break or a coffee, at the end of which I was shunted out of the door, no offer of a tour. A full (very nervy) 24 hours after the final candidate was interviewed, they finally gave me an answer - I had got the job! This was on the Wednesday. The contract would be with me tomorrow. On Thursday, I was told the contract would be with me on Friday. On Friday, it was the following Monday. On Monday, it was "by the end of the week." All this was accompanied by increasingly bizarre excuses, notably "we had an internal candidate that we need to speak to before we offer," who then turned out to be on holiday, except the date that they were coming back from holiday kept changing. Finally, on the Wednesday - a full 9 days after the final candidate had been interviewed - they finally told me (via the external recruiter, naturally) that they had decided to cancel the role. No explanation, no apology. It's honestly impossible to adequately express the contempt that I have for this company and the way they conducted themselves. They had a million opportunities to make the interview process less painful for the candidates, and they didn't take any of them. It was a completely one-sided process. If this is how they treat you as a candidate, imagine how they must treat you as an employee! Then to string me along when they clearly knew that they might be cancelling the role, accompanied by cock-and-bull excuses for not delivering the contract - well, there's low, and then there's 15below (that should be their new motto). If you are considering taking a role here, I would honestly think again.