For most IT functional roles (such as ERP Consultant, Business Analyst, Functional Consultant, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Consultant, SAP Functional Consultant, Oracle Consultant, or Product Functional Analyst), 3 interview stages are generally sufficient. Anything beyond that should have a clear purpose.
A typical and effective process looks like this:
- Recruiter or HR Screening (20–30 minutes)
- Verify experience and qualifications.
- Discuss salary expectations, work authorization, and availability.
- Assess communication skills and overall fit.
- Technical/Functional Interview (60–90 minutes)
- Conducted by the hiring manager or senior functional consultant.
- Focuses on:
- ERP implementation lifecycle
- Business process knowledge
- Requirements gathering
- Gap analysis
- Workshop facilitation
- User acceptance testing (UAT)
- Change management
- Industry-specific scenarios
- May include case studies or whiteboard exercises.
- Final Interview (30–60 minutes)
- With senior leadership, department head, or cross-functional stakeholders.
- Evaluates:
- Cultural fit
- Consulting approach
- Stakeholder management
- Leadership potential
- Long-term career alignment
- Often followed by a reference check and offer.
When a fourth stage makes sense
A fourth interview can be justified if it includes one of the following:
- A customer-facing presentation or workshop simulation.
- A panel interview with multiple departments.
- An executive interview for senior or leadership positions.
- A hands-on demonstration using a specific ERP system.
When the process becomes excessive
For a mid-level or senior IT functional role, five or more interviews often indicate inefficiencies unless you’re interviewing for a very senior leadership position or a company with an unusually rigorous hiring process. Common issues include:
- Different interviewers asking the same questions.
- Long delays between rounds.
- Difficulty making hiring decisions.
- Increased risk of losing strong candidates to faster-moving employers.
Recommended interview stages by role
| Role | Recommended stages |
| Junior Functional Analyst | 2–3 |
| Business Analyst | 3 |
| ERP Functional Consultant | 3 |
| Senior ERP Consultant | 3–4 |
| Solution Architect | 4 |
| IT Manager | 4 |
| Director or VP | 4–6 |
For ERP functional consulting roles, including platforms like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, SAP, Oracle, or Odoo, three well-structured interviews are typically enough to evaluate technical expertise, consulting skills, communication, and organizational fit. Beyond that, each additional stage should add unique value rather than repeating previous assessments.
So why are there numerous stages for these roles now?
The increase in interview stages is driven by several changes in the hiring market rather than by the complexity of IT functional roles alone.
Here are the main reasons:
- Companies are trying to avoid costly hiring mistakes.
 Hiring an ERP functional consultant can cost well over $100,000 per year, and replacing someone who isn’t a good fit can be expensive. Many employers add interviews to reduce the perceived risk. - There are many more applicants.
 Remote work has dramatically increased the size of applicant pools. A role that once attracted 50 applicants may now receive hundreds or even thousands. Multiple interviewers are often used to narrow the field. - More stakeholders want input.
 ERP consultants don’t just work with IT. They interact with finance, operations, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, and executives. Companies often want representatives from several departments to assess how well a candidate will work with them. - Interview responsibilities are spread across teams.
 Instead of one comprehensive interview, companies may schedule separate conversations for:- HR
- Hiring manager
- Technical or functional lead
- Business stakeholders
- Executive sponsor
- This can result in four or five interviews even if the topics overlap.
- Large organizations have more formal processes.
 Enterprises often require interviews with multiple managers or committees as part of their governance, regardless of the role. - Some companies rely too heavily on interviews.
 Rather than using one structured interview with practical scenarios, they split the evaluation into many rounds. This can create redundancy, where different interviewers ask essentially the same questions.
Does more interviewing lead to better hires?
Not necessarily.
Research in industrial-organizational psychology generally finds that structured interviews, work samples, and job-relevant assessments are stronger predictors of job performance than simply increasing the number of interview rounds. After enough independent information has been gathered, each additional interview tends to add relatively little predictive value.
What many candidates experience today
A process like this has become fairly common:
- Recruiter screening
- Hiring manager interview
- Functional/technical interview
- Panel interview
- Executive interview
- Reference checks
- Offer
That’s five to six steps, even though the actual evaluation may only involve three distinct areas: qualifications, technical/functional competence, and organizational fit.
For a Senior ERP Functional Consultant or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Functional Consultant, a well-designed hiring process can often achieve the same confidence with:
- One recruiter screening,
- One in-depth functional interview (including case studies or scenarios), and
- One final leadership or culture-fit discussion.
If a company requires six, seven, or even eight interviews for a non-executive functional role, it may reflect organizational bureaucracy, difficulty reaching consensus, or a very cautious hiring culture rather than a role that inherently requires that many evaluations. Some candidates are comfortable with that tradeoff, while others see it as a signal to ask about the purpose of each stage and the expected hiring timeline.