To feel a bit annoyed this is why I got rejected?

can you send them a bill for your train fare? (Minus the coffee price 🙄)

Wow no, that is completely inappropriate.
when I’ve been flown out for an interview it was paid for by the company, as well as meals.
what a horrible way to treat prospective employees.
I wouldn’t pay them back- they can expense account that.

That’s wild - on what earth do they think that’s a reasonable thing to drop into interview feedback.

I quite agree, I'm appalled!

This was literally my point, which is why I said the OP has dodged a bullet

@ToeSucker I think you dodged a bullet, albeit an expensive one.

The behaviour from the employer is wildly unprofessional, and your shock is completely reasonable. The £3.70 request isn’t normal, it isn’t appropriate, and it signals a culture you’re better off not joining.

The problem isn’t the coffee. It’s the message it sends. A hiring manager inviting a candidate out for coffee during an interview is implicitly hosting. In professional settings, the inviter pays. That’s standard etiquette across the UK, Europe, and the US. For them to:

• invite you
• order for the team
• pay at the time
• then later have HR tell you that you “owe” £3.70

Should you have offered to pay? No. Not in this context. During interviews, you’re not in a social situation among equals - you’re in a power‑imbalanced, evaluative environment. The hiring manager sets the tone. If they invite you and pay, the correct response is simply “thank you”. You didn’t do anything wrong.

I don't think that is what she said, they told her she hadn't got the job and then mentioned that she owed the manager for her coffee - very petty.

I too wondered if this was a silly final round to decide who gets the job offer based on the response to this email. It’s ridiculous I’d just not reply.

This but only send £3.69

That's not five rounds of interviews though. That's akin to an assessment centre which has long been usual for jobs like graduate jobs with a trade off of a high starting salary.

Hmmmm.

Urgh sounds like one of those dreadful recruitment ‘tests’ employers used to do to try and bamboozle people or trip them up.
you’re definitely better off out of it, treat the lost train fare as a small price to pay for saving you from some kind of 90s motivational speaker hellhole

Is this not a final test to see how you react ? I very much doubt they told you you failed because you accepted the offer of a drink , it could be to gauge your response in relation to your expenditure. I’d point out you are disappointed after such a lengthy recruitment process and becoming more interested in the role to have been unsuccessful but also point out you were so focussed on the role you paid out £240 on rail fares so it feels inappropriate to be chased for the cost of a coffee that was offered

I'm not at all saying I agree with it. It's an enormous waste of time. But it is the norm.

I have never had more than 1 interview for a job and would honestly not touch with a barge pole a company who thinks themselves that important to drag me around 5 times like a ragdoll around the country at my own expense and give me nasty setups in coffee shops to catch me out....

Flipping Nora - don’t pay it.
Can you claim expenses - it seems a huge outlay for a job interview.

From my personal experience, there's 2 (or 3 I guess) scenarios where I'd be interviewing for a job and I can't see the benefit to the employer of doing any more than 3 interviews. It certainly wouldn't improve the quality of the candidates that they were finally left with.

1. I've been contacted by a recruiter but am otherwise happy in my job - in this case they're going to really need to convince me that I want to take a risk and jump ship for them. After 2 interviews I'd be telling the recruiter to piss right off
2. I've had enough/am fed up/bored/grown to hate my current job - I'm going to have gussied up my CV and be sending it out to multiple companies. Sure, I'm going to be a bit more fussy since I currently have a job, but the first one(s) back with an offer that meets my renumeration expectations and seem like a nice bunch will be who I go with. I'm not hanging around for 7 interviews 'just in case'.
3. I have no job and I need one - As per 2, I'm sending out multiple CVs. I'm much less fussy as well in this case and I simply don't have the time or money to be hanging around for multiple interviews. First reasonable offer will likely be accepted.

So, as you can see, a 'good' candidate will rarely, if ever, make it to a 7th interview before being snapped up by someone else.

I also think that there's 2 types of company that do an excessive number of interviews; ones that want to look big and important but are actually just run by idiots or ones that are relying on sunk costs fallacy and are hoping to low-ball your offer, which you'll accept because you've put so much time and effort (and money, in OP's case) into actually getting to that stage!

Stick 370 pennies in a Jiffy bag and post it without a stamp so that they have to pay for it! What tightwads.

I was going to suggest this @ToeSucker or at least ask if they will reimburse you and if they say yes, say they can deduct it.

Did they actually give the failure to pay or offer to pay for coffee as the reason you were rejected?

They sound awful! How did you respond? Ignore the them, they were being ridiculous.

5 is not standard in my industry. 2 or 3 at the absolute most. If a company had the fucking nerve to suggest 7 (!) interviews before making an offer I would just laugh at them.

If a company can't make a judgement about a person after 2 or 3 interviews max then they are doing something wrong. It's just massively disrespectful towards candidates.

Exactly this.

We have an additional screening interview done by HR/recruiter but that is checking basics such as eligibility to work, gaps in CVs, validating details, certs etc. Then the competency/technical interview, finally the director/practice lead interview. Nor do we have panels of thousands conducting the interviews.

This is plenty, mistaken hires are rare.

No way would I do 5 rounds of interviews for a job, 2 or 3 maybe but never 5, I think you've had a luck escape

My Big pays expenses for out of town candidates, especially for juniors, nor do we do seven rounds of interviews which is frankly unnecessary and a huge waste of everyone's time and sounds like a job creation scheme for someone.