A friend of mine is in the process of being hired by a large company (traditional engineering tech). The position is executive in IT (second line to the CEO), reporting to the CIO and dotted line to another board member.
The hiring process is relaxed, meeting all sorts of executives to see how she would fit it. She is very experienced in her job but is far from being a job hopper, so not very experienced as a candidate (she did hire a lot of people so the whole process is not a surprise but i) the company is in a different vertical/culture she is in and ii) she hired rather geek-oriented people more than execs).
One of the things she would like to do is to meet all her future first line, everyone separately, to get an idea who she would be working with. Since the company she is applying for is in tech but a bit old-style with a willingness to transform (at least this is how they seem to feel), she is afraid that the team she is going to inherit may possibly not be the best one for that.
Please note the conditionals: the company is nice, the people she met are nice and fit in their role but IT has been in the background for generations, managed by a nice guy from finance and now they truly want to move it forward (and give move visibility in the light of the company transformation) by hiring someone externally with the right mindset, experience, ... But the team will stay as it is.
How common is it to have (or request) such meetings (as a serious candidate, apparently the top-ranking one)?
I have never heard of that (neither I did this in a situation similar to hers but in retrospective that would have been a good idea), but it may just be a thing.
Note 1: she has not made the request yet, it is something which evolved from a conversation of ours.
Note 2: this is in Western Europe