The initial process seemed to go well. The recruiter call was usual. Then, the first two technical interviews went well.

Then, on the third technical interview, I was given a brief by the recruiter that it would be a deep dive into my skills and some tech questions.

It started okay, but I felt like there was a bit of a gap in the interviewers' understanding of what went into previous stages. Then we jumped onto HackerRank, and what should have been a code review turned into the exact same exercise as stage 2, but with two different people.

Additionally, one of the interviewers was not able to express himself well, and his questions were often incomplete and required further clarification.

It seemed like they were not sure what needed to be done and hadn't had much interview experience. The conversation didn't flow well.

After the interview, I waited to get feedback, as it often was sent the next day or even the same day. But no word came. Three days later, I emailed the recruiter, and it turned out they went on holiday without letting me know or sharing a contact who would take over the process.

After some more emailing, I finally got a reply four days later.

It seemed very unprofessional and very disappointing.

Why would you use a protocol?