Vail Resorts interview questions

I met with a gentleman that would have been my boss and after a very good interview I was told I was their second favorite and did not get an offer.

Connected with Vail through a well known recruiting firm. The role and it's responsibilities is / was good fit for my background and it made sense to move forward with them. I had an initial screen with HR that was more of a formality, and then an hour long Zoom call with the head of the group. This person was very conversational and clearly intelligent / driven. They also had an investment banking and private equity background so we had a lot of similar experiences, so we looked at things in much of the same way. He described the position duties in greater detail and company culture. Their finance and M&A functions are set up very similar to a "high finance" group such as banking or PE. This was fine with me as that's what I'm used to. However, their compensation package is horrible. Their expectations are so off market for what they want work product wise, it's almost laughable. This was communicated to me after the hour long Zoom call, and I told them I'd be willing to take that comp level if they typical work week was very light (e.g., 30-40 hours a week) and they said I should expect over double that with standing 1-2 hour weekly strategy calls on Sunday afternoons. I didn't even have to do that as a PE associate. I was respectful but blunt with them; just because someone is now in Denver vs. SF or NYC doesn't mean they're desperate for a subpar payment package. Afterwards, I met the individual who recently vacated the seat I was interviewing for. What they told me was even worse than what I assumed: they as point of principal NEVER pay the full cash bonus amount (capped at 15% of base salary) regardless of performance or contribution; they also said the C-suite asked all of the finance and M&A team members to travel from Denver to some of the Colorado resorts during the weekends (which, is a nightmare with how packed I-70 gets) on their own dime to back-fill servers, and table cleaners with hourly staffing shortages they've had trouble with. Unreal. Stay away.