Rejections at the recruiter screen stage

Senior Software Engineer at Mystery Company6 days ago

I recently finished Alex's great https://www.jointaro.com/course/ace-your-tech-interview-and-get-a-job-as-a-software-engineer/ course, and one of the key takeaways is debugging the job search process so as to make improvements going forward.

I had two recruiter screens recently at well known "AI companies", including OpenAI, and was rejected in both cases after those conversations (both recruiters reached out to me initially). Both recruiters cited a misalignment between my experience/the conversation and the org hiring needs.

In my past experience, and also reflected in the course, the recruiter screen has mostly been a formality to ensure you're not completely unpleasant or unqualified, so I was honestly shocked to not even move forward to the phone screen stage. Is this mainly a reflection of the job market, where companies can aggressively funnel out candidates before going into the "meat" of the interviews? Or could I be not presenting my best self in those conversations? I know it's hard to pinpoint a cause, especially without specific feedback, but would like to know others' thoughts.

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Discussion

(5 comments)

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Alex Chiou
•Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
6 days ago
It's really tough to know without having been in the room. I recommend going through the behavioral interview course regardless - Maybe you can reflect and find something you could have improved on: Master The Behavioral Interview As A Software Engineer

What I will say is that the bar for a company like OpenAI is stupidly high. FAANG hires the top ~5% of engineers and then OpenAI hires the top ~5% of those people. Resumes are supposed to be short (1 page max for most engineers), so it's possible that your resume looked good to them on the surface, but after the recruiter dove in, they believed that you didn't have the depth of experience to perform at a company like OpenAI.

Lastly, it could also be due to recruiter incompetence of which there is a lot of. Maybe they misread your resume really badly and thought you worked at a company you didn't work at or something (e.g. they thought you were ex-Anthropic). It's often hard to tell much when it comes to interviewing - Just gotta take as many shots on goal as you can, learn from your mistakes, and keep your head high.
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  Senior Software Engineer [OP]
  •Mystery Company
  6 days ago
  Thanks for the reply. In both cases, the recruiter said the decision was made in consultation with HMs, so it's possible that my background looked good from a recruiter standpoint and then less so from an HM one. I can't do much about that in the immediate term, but I know I can work on my behavioral performance.
  
  Do you think the recruiter screen bar is higher now than it had been in the past (say pre-mid 2022)?
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  Alex Chiou
  •Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
  6 days ago
  Oh yeah definitely. There's been a ton of layoffs recently, so the candidate pool is drowning in talent. Hiring companies have their pick of the litter right now.
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Rahul Pandey
•Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
6 days ago
Another consideration: how much time passed between the initial reach out for the role and when you did the recruiter screen. For hot jobs and hot companies, positions may get filled quickly.

Or they could be rapidly changing their minds about the job requirements as they start talking to candidates.
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  Senior Software Engineer [OP]
  •Mystery Company
  6 days ago
  That's a good point. In one case it was just a few days between outreach and the screen, and the other a week or two. In both cases, they got back to me the day after the screen.
  
  There's not a readily discernible answer here, so I'm not going to dwell on it.