The interview was supposed to be a total of about 6 stages, conducted mostly via Skype with persons in the US and one in-person with a senior manager in Toronto.
I was dinged after the 5th stage/in-person interview, after 2 months. There was supposed to be a director-level interview in future weeks, which would have made the complete process about 3 months, but I did not make it to this stage.
The feedback I received after the unsuccessful interview was that I was not a good fit for the organization, which is weird because I made it through 4 levels after speaking with many company employees who had the opportunity to assess my fit. The HR person also implied that I gave answers that I thought they wanted to hear. This is again weird: isn't this what every applicant/sales person does!
Anyway, what I think is that I got dinged because my phone 'beeped' during the 5th interview. I had just gotten a new phone and did not know that I had to turn off other notifications separately from the ringtone. When I noticed this in the interview, I excused myself, apologized, and turned off the phone. The amazing thing is that the interviewer didn't even seem to know what the sound was. So it seems that I did not have to own up, but I did (that's me - I am sincere and open).
Now the notification sound coming from my phone was the (bottle) Opener, and I suspect Hitachi may have characterized me as a drinker, irresponsible, and possibly an alcoholic, reason they said I am not a good fit. Contrary to this, I hardly drink (limit myself to a few small glasses a year, if any even). I am very hard-working and consistently outperform my peers at work. I am responsible, organized, and a great facilitator and coordinator. I am also very artistic (which helps me bring creative solutions to problem-solving in any organization). I love and participate in a lot of music. It is my love of music that attracted me to the Opener sound in the first place, because of how descriptive it is even in its simplicity.
With this, I would like to urge the professional community to APPLY MORE PRECISION IN IDENTIFYING TOP TALENT. You lose out when you are finicky and make a decision on candidates based on their face-value only.
I now use the Yahoo - Skipping Rocks notification sound which is very similar to the Opener. I hope this new sound is appreciated. I like this new sound because I am an outdoor person and nature-lover. This also doesn't go with partying.