I applied online for the position but did not hear from them for 6 weeks. I finally got a call from the specialty team leader and had a 20 minute phone interview which went well. I was invited to interview in person the next week and arrived 15 minutes early and was told to wait in the cafe. When I sat in the small cafe to wait, I realized they were interviewing another person for the same position a few tables away in full view and earshot of me. The other person probably didn't know I was there to interview as well, but I felt a little uncomfortable because I could see and hear everything. I found it to be somewhat unprofessional. They ran late with their other interview and they didn't get to me until a good 30 minutes after our appointment. I first interviewed with the specialty team leader I talked to on the phone for a good 30 minutes and then he took me on a tour of the store and the department. While on the tour we bumped into a team member from a different department who put me on the spot asking me a couple pretty detailed questions about wine regions, styles, and recommendations. I took it in stride and responded well, but felt ambushed that some random employee would put me on the spot like that in the middle of a job interview. In retrospect it was most likely a pre planned set up, if not it was really a jerk move on their part to butt in like that and test me. Anyways I handled it no problem and we sat back down in the cafe for a second interview. The second interviewer just gave me his first name, I wasn't told he was the overall store team leader, I found that out later, but that interview also went well. He didn't ask me anything job specific, he was mostly interested in why I wanted to work there. He was basically looking to see that I was knowledgeable about their corporate core values, shared their beliefs, and that I was enthusiastic about coming to work at Whole Foods. He asked me a couple random things, might as well have asked what my favorite color was because they had absolutely nothing to do with my qualifications or experience. In any event I nailed which was now my 3rd interview and we parted ways with them saying they would be in touch, I was there over 2 hours. I fully expected a job offer but a week came and went with no contact. About 10 days after my 3rd interview I got a call and they wanted me to come back in the next week for a 4th interview. I came in and again met with someone who wasn't properly introduced, he was some sort of assistant team leader I think. This one was brief, he talked to me for like 5 minutes and that was it. I met with the specialty team leader again before I left and he told me things were going to move quickly from that point and he would call me later that day. That call never came. 3 days after my 4th interview I called them and was told they were trying to organize a couple regional managers to come in for a panel interview which would be with the 2 regionals, the store team leader, assistant team leader, specialty team leader, and a few random team members from various departments. So at this point I was to come back for a 5th interview with 7 different people which they were trying to schedule for the following week. I got a call the following week to let me know it wasn't going to happen that week but most likely would be the next week. It wasn't until that phone call that they let me know I was the only candidate going forward. After the panel interview I would finally get an actual job offer, and then have to wait another week or two for them to complete a background check at which point I could finally start working. This would have been about 3 full months after I initially applied for the position. All this for a $12.00-$14.00/hr job! During this process I received three other job offers from other companies which I applied and felt it would be foolish to turn down real job offers to gamble on Whole Foods finally making me a real job offer. When I called to inform them of my decision they made me feel bad about it and actually accused me of not really wanting to work there in the first place. The truth is I REALLY wanted to work for Whole Foods. I was going to take a substantial pay cut to get my foot in the door with the company, but I couldn't wait 3 months for their very unorthodox hiring process to play out. I would hope going forward they make an effort internally to expedite their hiring process. In my case they lost what was going to be a great team member with great leadership potential who wanted to be a member of the team for many years to come.