Not sure what I’m doing wrong

I make it to the last round and get ghosted or say they moved on

What am I doing wrong and how to fix?

Have you considered maybe trying a retail store rather than fast food chains?

What jobs are you applying for?

What field are you applying in?

It's possible you're habitually screwing up some of the classic "trap" questions.

Examples being: Explain a time you had to deal with a difficult co-worker.

Name your largest weakness.

Explain a time you made a mistake.

What did you find most annoying about your last job.

Explain a time you dealt with a difficult client/customer/outside consumer of your work.

I recently went through the interview cycle. I had 4 phone interviews, 4 led to initial interviews. 4 led to second interviews, 3 led to final round interviews. I declined 1 of the 3 final round interviews after I had already taken a new job.

It honestly had been over a decade since I had interviewed, and even that one I was already a shoe-in (was specifically recruited by my capstone econ professor for a job with a former PhD student of hers. The last two job interviews prior to this, I was already the preferred candidate and had been specifically asked to apply so the process was really a formality.

Needless to say, my skills were RUSTY.

The first job which is the one I did not get asked to the final round, I butchered a couple of the trap questions. I did have an insane co-worker (former marine with PTSD, racist, misogynistic, he was also accused of sexually assaulting a co-worker on a business trip, he also claimed he had enough guns and training to take out the entire building if he wanted to, when he was let go they brought state police into the office for the entire process and we had state police stationed outside the building and in our offices for two weeks to ensure he didn't do anything). I used this co-worker as an example, was WAY too extreme of an example and while I was honest about it being my most difficult scenario with a co-worker, it probably raised some eyebrows.

With each interview, including the ones where I was asked to go to the next round, I identified mistakes I had made or questions I could have answered better.

By the time I was in the final round for the job I accepted, I was much smoother. I wasn't perfect, but I was solid on every question, and perhaps even dazzled on a few.

TBH, if you aren't taking at least one learning lesson from each interview, you aren't paying attention or self-aware.

In one of the first phone interviews, I honestly did not even remember the details of the position I had applied for. Started to print out the job descriptions and highlight key things prior to the initial gate-keeper phone interviews with talent acquisition.

In one of the interviews over MyTeams I didn't quite catch the name of one of the interviewers, as a result of this my goodbye was a little awkward, I wrote down the names of the interviewers ahead of time going forward. (This is the job I ultimately got, remembering his name when he badged me in for the final round I was able to confidently say hello again with his name and while he was not involved in the final round, I think any awkwardness got resolved).

For the trap questions, you want to come up with a short brief summary, 2 sentences of high level detail is enough, and then do a "turn" andexplain how the end result was a positive. Also, never put blame on the other party in trap questions.