Applied in early May online. Phone interview with HR recruiter second to last week in June. Had in-person interview in Louisville last week in June. Interviewed with three separate executives for an hour each. Was asked nearly the same questions by each person, which was extremely tiresome. Clearly they stick to the standard company interview format. Talked a lot about "diversity" and "community service" but didn't provide any examples. Very vague discussion of what the actual job would entail, never actually talked to the person vacating the position. Female executive told a story about how the employee who was previously in the position (and was promoted) went and picked up the female exec's sick child from school because she was in a meeting. Um, no way would I do that! Overall the experience was very bland and unimpressive - they were grilling me but no one seemed inclined to impress me. Could have been any old generic corporate American company. I expected much more excitement from Brown-Forman. That afternoon after the in-person interviews I got emails asking for my permission to perform a background check and also asking for 5 personal references. I declined to do both - no way would I agree to that without a job offer on the table. I emailed one of the three HR people I worked with in this process and asked them to remove my name from consideration. This started a series of panicked phone calls and emails from two separate HR people, one of which was on vacation at the time. They tell me they were going to make me an offer (but where is the offer? when was it coming?). I emailed them back with my specific reasons for declining (long commute, concern over working with female executive and her expectations, highly redundant interview process, overall unimpressive experience). I was OK with the commute as long as Brown-Forman stood up to their sparkling reputation.
Bottom line: if I'm expected to provide examples of my work experiences you should too. Hiring is a two way street - we should both be trying to impress each other.