About a month after applying I was contacted for a phone screening, then moved on to a short 30min interview with hiring manager. Finally a 1 hour interview with hiring manager and another team member. This final interview included presenting a take home Excel test.
Was contacted a week after final interview to say that they would like to have hired me based on my skills and experience, however were going with another candidate who was happier to speak up in meetings and promote their work to other teams. This was quite disappointing, as you wouldn't expect a trainee role to have a large role to play in this,
Overall the hiring manager was lovely, I felt we really clicked and it would have been a great fit, however it really did seem based on the communication that the decision was out of their control.
The reason for the decision was for the ability to do something not expected based on the job spec, and as someone currently being tested for autism this has been a real knock of my confidence, knowing that your ability to do a job is far less important than your ability to sell your work to others.