I had an employee referral which I feel wasn't all that helpful overall but perhaps it did help get my resume seen by a recruiter, or maybe it "flags" the resume or application.. aside from that, the referral was never asked about or mentioned, and the employee that referred me didn't know any info about the position.
At first, my experience was not promising. The recruiter cancelled/rescheduled my initial phone screen 3 separate times so I felt pretty defeated. But once I had that initial call with the recruiter, i felt much more confident. The recruiter was extremely kind, personable, and helpful. I felt like she was really on my side and wanted to help me! Before the call ended, she let me know i would be getting an email regarding scheduling my call with the next manager.
I then had a zoom interview with 1 hiring manager or employee of some sort. He was also super kind, personable, chatty. We seemed to get a long great! He didn't make me feel nervous at all and there was good conversation there. He didn't give me any feed back or insight as to if I was getting moved to the next round or not.
About 2-3 days later, I got emails from the recruiter and coordinator that I would be making it to the final round of interviews that will be a "loop" interview with 4 different individuals for a total of 2 hours.
I have not had the final round yet, but feeling optimistic!