I applied online via a LinkedIn advertisement. Approximately one week later, I received an email to schedule a 30-minute Zoom call to discuss the role and my background with their internal Recruiter. Following this interview, I was scheduled to participate in a second Zoom interview with the incumbent for this role. I thought this was odd as the incumbent would naturally be prejudiced to their own beliefs and vision of who should be taking over the job as she was moving on to future endeavors and already submitted her notice. Unfortunately, the hiring authority was traveling abroad, and I was forced to interview the incumbent who had poor video and voice quality due to technical issues where we ended up going off camera for much of the conversation as her screen kept freezing. Upon reflection, I believe there is an internal applicant lobbying for the role. This is the person the incumbent will assist in gaining promotion. They are only interviewing external applicants for justification reasons. Period.