[sometimes_all]

I figured out fairly early in my career that if a company/team really wants you, the recruiter is going to roll out the red carpet, irrespective of seniority. It's happened multiple times for me, and has led to the few successful offers I've had. But if they're ambivalent, or you're just there to fill in the statistics, then problems will pop up: lack of proper communication, no clear timelines, canned responses, ghosting, the list goes on.

So I look for markers: if I see a quick turnaround time for my emails, I know that I'm in the right interview loop. Else I spend as much time as the other party spends on me, ie not much.

[FireBeyond]

Absolutely. I've had two experiences that stick in my mind - one, where the recruiter told me within the first three minutes that the hiring manager had already seen my resume, they'd both agreed there was amazing alignment, and then proceeded to talk to me for forty five minutes about the company and answer questions to make sure I was interested in the company (I was). Yes, of course, his job, but it wasn't just trite vague and generic "We have excellent benefits", but talked about their path and plans and approach. He was very responsive, and sure enough, excited hiring manager call, and then just one more call, with the VP of Product, who outright said the hiring manager was making the call and decisions, if I was talking to him, I was basically a "finalist", and that he wanted most of the interview to be me asking him questions, not just so I could learn more, but he could see my levels of inquisitiveness, etc. I got that job, the recruiter was very responsive, we even joked that I had a brief moment of doubt when he sent me a message "to connect" after the two interviews: we'd had all our previous conversations via Zoom. I said in my email, "feel free to schedule a Zoom for any time after X or give me a call directly" (admittedly trying to feel things out), and he said "Oh, I can just give you a quick call" (and I assumed it was thanks but no thanks).

The other, they made things work. While normally, we're all accustomed to "Actually X has a conflict, so we need to reschedule" and on and on and you can find yourself a week, two weeks later, waiting still, this company said "X has a conflict, but we're going to put someone else into the interview", and then they had a challenge with someone being sick for a panel interview - "We're going to do the interview without them", i.e. they were committed to "we need to and want to keep moving forward". Every time I've had that rescheduling limbo, as you say, it's a sign (obviously there can be some exceptions), but when a company is working to make things happen, it's generally a good sign about your prospects, the company, or both.

[appplication]

This approach works extraordinarily well for essentially all interpersonal communications. Friendships, relationship prospects, etc.