I think this is approximately the optimal way to play the job search process as a candidate: https://www.utsavahuja.com/p/d2039b6a-2592-4ef6-8740-a03076fd315e/ … Note in particular being organized, treating it as a sales pipeline, pursuing multiple offers in parallel, and practicing for interviews.
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(Suffice it to say that I am astronomical units away from believing the tech industry has a rationally constructed process for attracting, evaluating, and closing candidates, but given that the equilibrium is where it is, this is—descriptively—how to play game well.)
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As I think about this more I almost want to provide an annotated version to show what is (probably) happening on the other side of the table which explains some of the candidate's experience.
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Example: this anecdote is a) widely replicable at many high-status organizations, b) indicative of a strategy you can actually use, and c) absolutely crazymaking for me.pic.twitter.com/ioTGDUlecP
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Recruiters, including internal recruiters, are far more akin to sales professionals than most candidates model them as being. Early in the conversation, a recruiter will often implicitly or explicitly run lead qualification on you.
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Because the tech industry is fundamentally unserious about how it attracts and evaluates candidates, this is not nearly as rigorous as lead qualification by sales organizations, which generally have a defined methodology and checklist by the time they're large and sophisticated.
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One part of that lead qualification practice is "Does this candidate *feel like* the sort of candidate I will regret our peers scooping me on?" and aggressively frontloading "I am a plausible candidate for high status employers" moves you way up that ad hoc gut feel gatekeeping.
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In the instant case, the candidate used this to bypass the team screen, which is almost certainly to the candidate's advantage, since the team screen at most orgs only exists to *cheaply generate negative signal on 50%+ of applicants.*
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This is so known to be true that some organizations have *formalized* pathways to skip that (and other proceesses) for favored candidates, and many more have informal methods to circumvent the formal processes. A repeatable way is to get someone internal enthusiastic about you.
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If you think "Hmm plausibly these sort of hidden shibboleths have distributional consequences with respect to offers received because if you went to Stanford or otherwise have network advantage then 5+ people already explained how the world actually works" then you are right.
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