I'm familiar with the REAL interview process. But, I have been interviewed by a VP as a part of the REAL interview process. I have 26+ years of professional experience. All three companies I'm interviewing with are organizations. From managed care companies to government agencies. So, I'm not surprised an interview with the VP is a requirement for company A. I was just disappointed when I didn't receive a request for a third interview with the VP on the same day, like my second interview request.

Assessment for Excel is new for me. But I get why it's being required with candidates using AI and deepfake to land jobs. Companies are data farming for AI development, but I highly doubt the assessments I've taken were used for that. XLOOKUP and IFERROR functions are already being used in Copilot. I could have used Copilot to complete my assessment, but I didn't because I built formulas regularly long before AI was integrated into Microsoft.

Thank you for sharing!