So Google is hiring a head of social. It’s not someone to do community management, otherwise we’d have been all over this story long ago. Instead, what the company wants is someone to lead the building of a Google social network or integrating social networking into Google’s existing stuff (but without the Buzz debacle).

But according to one source who interviewed for the gig a few months ago, they’re not handling the hiring process that well.

A tipster tells Business Insider:

It started with a 2-hour breakfast interview at a fancy restaurant.

Then a 1-hour recorded interview for playback to “the committee.”

Then a phone interview, after which they said they’d probably want to fly me out next.

After that, another phone interview (of course weeks are going by in between each of these steps).

They then told him he’d be flown out for an interview. Oh, just kidding, they’re going to do a video interview first and then fly him out.

Sounds like he didn’t get the job, so there might be some bitterness here, but this is really not how you handle hiring. Unless you’re Google, and so many people are banging down the doors to work for you that you think you can afford to treat some people this way.