Speed in making a job offer

I have been talking to a friend of mine who works as a Compensation and Benefit manager in a big bank in the middle east. He wants to return to India due to personal reasons. So before he came to India he sent me his resume and asked me to look out for HR job openings for him.

I knew his interest lay in consulting and C&B and forwarded to some friends (in HR depts as well as headhunters) asking them to look at it.

Now, when he lands in India he has an interview call from a BPO operation of a huge financial services company. He goes through 3 rounds with various people from the HR group and they keep changing their mind. First they tell him that he's being considered for a C&B manager position. Then they ask him "How do you feel about being a HR generalist?" and in his interview with the Recruitment head asks "Why don't you join my team?"

Please note, no formal offer yet, and more rounds of interview scheduled.

Another organization calls him up one day, the recruitment head takes a telephonic interview, since the organization is in another city. Then the conversation ends with "Can you fly to our city tomorrow, we want to close it fast!" The day after next he meets them in the morning and by the afternoon he walks out of the office with an offer to join them as number 2 in recruitment.

My friend is bowled over by the speed of the second organization, and their professionalism, and the key to that impression is the respect the organization had for his time and their willingness to take a decision , fast!

For whatever reasons, recruitment processes in the first organization were long winded and making him meet a lot of people. The impression that my friend told me about them was "This behavior makes me think - are they unprofessional, or are they dis-empowered or both? And do I want to part of such an organization? I think not"

What are the messages that your recruitment processes give out to potential employees?