Not sure if I've told anyone this but thought it might help.
My ex colleague who used to work in banking (basically helping customers with personal/business banking needs for one bank but she did very well, rather than for a big City bank and then was EA/PA for same bank) over Covid joined central gov dept as EA to a Director partly because her son became seriously ill and she needed time off and better work/life balance to take him to appointments but also, I think she was finding the corp world hard going.
So, we used to have discussions about work and job hunting. She had a similar story to me. A company (surveying, big), rang me up (their HR) out of the blue and said a role was available at their offices, could I interview there in person? It was local. I did a good interview but it was a strange one, as I was given a test to do there, which I did, but their IT/logo/package for the test was like something from 10-15 years ago and involved me doing a lot of work (maybe part of the test?) to rectify this, as well as doing the actual test document itself. Which I did point out to them when someone said 'had I had enough time to do this?' (as a criticism to me). Anyway, when I got a 'no' from them their reasoning was, they had looked at figures and headcount and had honestly decided they could cope with the staff they had at the moment, which sounded a valid reason, even if it was true or not. It was a bit irritating for me though, as was an in person interview, and I drove and paid parking charges to park there (in a city centre).
When I mentioned this to my ex-colleague she said she'd been told exactly the same reason for her not getting a job she went for, so she believed this was a valid reason some companies would use, and therefore not a lie.
She also told me though, she'd been for a total of 5-6 interviews (about 1-2 via Teams, the rest, including tests in person) for a company something I think to do with healthcare but almost like a start up, but not quite. A very good job with lots of perks and one she was keen on. But they didn't seem interested in hearing any of her opinions/views at interview with how to work with her boss, if she was interested in the company and what they did, which she thought was a bit strange. And as an EA (executive assistant) you're responsible for managing the schedules and communications of key executives in their company and prioritise emails, phone calls and arranging meetings and business events but you're also the executive’s “right-hand person” who enables them to advance company initiatives and goals, from my experience anyway, it's a lot more in-depth than just managing diaries etc. You have to have a real knowledge of what the exec does and of course the company.
But anyway, I told her (quite honestly as she told me after she'd been rejected for this role) that I would never go for a role which involved that many interviews, nor the fact that they didn't want her input etc, so said she'd had a lucky escape.