One of the elephants in the room in hiring tech these days is Google. Many interesting people in technology today put in applications for the variety of roles Google advertises. But Google apparently doesn't interview for the particular roles, and they have an _extraordinarily_ long time between application and phone screen that may be for a different job, another period of weeks or even months before scheduling the on-site interview that again is often for a different job, and weeks or even months before making an offer that may be for a very different job.
Several of my colleagues have been through this, during their work with us and before they wound up with us, and several of my peers now at Google explained it recently. Google used to spend an extraordinary amount of time and resources finding people who "fit" environments, and only then finding a specific role for them and making the offer. The result was apparently a great deal of political and social monoculture, and the hiring process took so long that only personal referrals would put up with it and not find another job long before Google made the offer. They still take an extraordinary amount of time making an offer, but now they seek out talent first, and fit second, and recruit a big pool of high level talent from which they then match a role and try tp place the people. The result seems to still include a long hiring time, and waiting in that pool of talent for long periods, as if tech people were taxis waiting in a queue for the next passenger. It's quite odd in the tech world. Google seems unwilling to acknowledge or uncaring that people they interviewed and approved a year ago are only now getting offered particular roles. But according to the Google personnel I spoke with at a conference a month ago, it's much less of a monoculture now, and they consider this a benefit of the shift to "seek talent first, cultural fit second, particular job last".
This long delay before hiring is fairly common in academia, where the pay is small but leadership of a group or prestige of a particular role are so valued that they can call a candidate after a year or years and the candidate will still take the offer. I work with several people whom Google made offers to a year or more after a successful interview,including one senor team member who just got an offer last week, over a year after their quite successful interview at Google. It's been quite extraordinary to watch Google spend so many man-hours interviewing and recruiting people and watch those people get hired elsewhere, first.