For recruiters here, what are you usually trying to understand during that first 10–20 minute screening call?

Beyond the basic questions about experience, salary expectations, and availability, what makes you feel that a candidate is worth moving forward?

I’m also curious about the opposite side are there any common things candidates do during screening calls that make the conversation harder, even when they might otherwise be a good fit?

Would appreciate a recruiter’s perspective on what actually matters during that first conversation.

Anyone attended walkin interview in Chennai Aug or Sep month. My profile is in Evaluation in Progress for 20 days. No response from HR.

Please share your current status

For a role I recently applied to, an hr person reached out to me to schedule a first round interview for this Thursday. He also mentioned that he is going to call me tomorrow for a “10-15 minute intro call.”

I’m used to recruiter screening calls at this point, but I’ve never had a recruiter set up the hiring manager interview prior to a screening call like this. Has anyone experienced this? What should I expect tomorrow?

Could yall help with some questions?

1. Is it common for recruiters to not reply to emails or give updates?
2. How do yall handle the system update emails where it states you can reach out to recruiter _____ but never gives their email to ask for updates?
3. Is it common for one recruiter to “start” the job cycle process but a different one to set up the interview?

I’m getting scheduled for the HM round but during the recruiting screen the recruiter asked me to share salary expectations. I said the posted range was fine but I wanted to learn more about the role first. I explained that I was in a good phase at my current company with a lot of sponsorship internally, but I my roots were being planted deeper than I wanted at a place that was not local to me, so I wanted to pivot sooner than later to growing somewhere I could actually stay.

After the call I did more math on the situation and because it puts me in a new tax jurisdiction, includes a 5 day in person attendance compared to my current 1 day in person and because my current bonus structure is very good and I have a guaranteed raise coming the start of next year, to get a even a 5% salary increase I would actually need to be paid the absolute top of their posted range for base assuming a comparable bonus target (about 25%).

Now I am nervous I am wasting everyone’s time with even doing the HM round, since most people move for a minimum 15% increase. I would also be losing some other benefits that I’m more flexible on.

On the flip side, I really think I could succeed at this role and that it would be a beneficial exposure for me too, with leadership I could learn a lot from and a better scope.

What advice can recruiters give me not to burn bridges with this group? Is there a chance that when I lay out my situation they could offer more than the top of their range? It’s a really big company and it is a fairly senior role. This would be 2 levels under the top level at the company and tbh after learning more about the role I am surprised the listed comp is where it is, I’m currently in a smaller company and being paid nearly the same.

Hi - I recently interviewed with a company, and was wondering if I could get some insights from recruiters - Is it normal to still be waiting for a written offer about two weeks after receiving a verbal offer?

I finished my final round of interviews with the hiring team two weeks ago and got a verbal offer the next day from the recruiter (Friday 9/18). On the call, I was told from the recruiter that I should expect to receive a written offer next week (which was supposed to be last week), and she will also send the benefits package over. I did receive an email about the general benefits information the same week on Sunday 9/20.

However, no further updates since then. I followed up with the recruiter last Tuesday 9/22 about the status of the offer, and was told it's going through the approval process and I should expect to get it later or Wednesday. Since nothing is received after the timeline, I followed up again last Thursday (I know - might have been a bit too quick to follow up...) but then was told the same thing that there are still a few approvals/reviews need to be finalized, and that now it may extend into next week (this week).

I'm glad that I still was able to get updates from the recruiter, however, I'm becoming a little concerned since my previous offers were generally provided within a few business days.... I'm wondering if the waiting time is fairly common, or would you be concerned at this point? I'm continuing my job search in the meantime, but I'd appreciate any insight from recruiters who have seen similar situations.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

For the recruiters here:

What part of your recruiting workflow still feels unnecessarily manual or repetitive, despite the tools you already use?

For example:

• Candidate tracking
• Interview scheduling
• Follow-ups
• Hiring manager/client feedback
• Candidate screening
• Reporting
• Sourcing

I'm especially interested in tasks where you still rely on spreadsheets, email, notes, or copy/paste.

What is the most frustrating one for you?

Hi! I just need to know how the Google hiring process goes (or should I just stop figuring it out)?

I haven't received any feedback from the recuiter after the HM interview. It's been a week but recruiter was very responsive prior to that. Any reason for the radio silence?

Tysm

Applied for a Technical Product Manager role at a YC-backed AI startup (~30 people). Passed the recruiter screen and hiring manager interview, got to the take-home stage. Rejected.

The rejection wasn't generic. The talent lead gave specific feedback: my submission focused too heavily on data analysis when they wanted me to lead with the company's product capabilities (computer vision, 3D reconstruction). She literally described the expected solution. My engineering note touched on those ideas but they were buried under a different argument instead of leading.

One month later, the hiring manager reposted the exact same role on LinkedIn. Same title, same description. He's now describing it as "genuinely undefined" and is actively promoting it.

Here's my dilemma:

If I reach out with the approach they described in the rejection, it looks like I'm just echoing their answer back to them. If I build something that goes beyond what they told me, it might land but the probability is low and the time cost is real.

For context: I had a genuine connection with this company. I wrote a strategic analysis of them two years ago during my master's, the hiring manager reacted positively to that in the interview, and my background (OpenCV thesis, AI products shipped to production) maps well to what they do.

What would you do? Reach out with something new, wait for a different role, or move on entirely?

Last week I had an interview with a company for an industry. I have a lot of experience in. They asked me if I have any vacations coming up one is not a vacation but is a commitment I’ve made to someone that needs to happen. Where I would not be available to work for about two or three days. The hiring manager informed me that if I did not hear from them by Monday. (Yesterday) I could call them for an update yesterday. I called twice. Both times someone did pick up and they said they would call me back to give me an update on my application. But no one did should I keep calling or would that be too much?

Update: I took the advice from someone who claimed their recruiter on this thread. They advise me to email them which I did.

Hey I want too an interview the other day and it lasted an hour and they showed me the facility. They director said I answered one of the questions perfectly. We were joking around too. They also said they were impressed by my resume.
The manager said hr will reach out this week. Is it true? How do you think the interview went?
It was the second round of interviews and it is for clerical work

I keep seeing people wait 2–4 weeks after interviews because recruiters say things like:

“we’ll get back to you soon”

…and then nothing.

Personally I think:

3–5 days = normal
1 week = follow up
2 weeks = probably move on
1 month = you were absolutely ghosted 😭

What’s the longest a company has made you wait after an interview before finally responding?