RH interview questions

Easy but annoying process. 1st round was a phone screen with an external recruiter. 2nd and 3rd rounds were both 1 hour zoom interviews with people who currently held the role that I was interviewing for. I was called 30 minutes after my 3rd round interview ended and was asked to come in for a 4th round on-site the very next day. That 4th round lasted about 2 hours and went very well. About an hour After this 4th round on-site meeting with the team I was called again. This time to talk about compensation... Keep in mind this was a Senior Management role located in the Bay Area and required 6+ years of experience. They told me the base salary was between $90-$100k (this is FAR below market rate for any senior level role in this geographic area). My salary requirements were higher but I knew I could negotiate a good offer with higher bonus potential, so I continued the process. They asked me for a 5th and final on-site interview which, again, lasted almost 2 hours. After all of this I was very confident that I would be extended an offer as we started discussing the logistics of when I would start, my onboarding, etc. After about 1 week from the final 5th round on-site meeting I finally heard back that RH would be filling the role internally because it would cost them less than putting me in the role. Super disappointing because obviously it will cost less to fill a role internally than with an external candidate. This is something thats a given for any role that any company is hiring for. It's always cheaper to fill a role with an internal candidate... They didn't need to waste my time with 5 rounds of interviews and 2 on-site meetings to come to this conclusion.

It was a group conversation with the location manager and the other retail employees. The interview took place in a living room seating area on the floor of the showroom.