Excessive amounts of interviews is more likely they were not enthusiastic about him but didnt have anybody else better and were stringing him along until they found somebody else.
Certainly we have lots of horrible inefficiencies in my team, but stringing along hiring was not one of them. I understand this is not universal even at our company.
That sounds like it was a terrible place, but it was a good department in a somewhat hard nosed company. He ended up staying there 10 years.