So i am facing this a ton, where the recruiting team comes back saying profile is not a match. have got this from Dropbox Flexport Square Slack Cruise automation True Car Got in touch with recruiters through linked in and had a brief call but after 2 days they said not a match. Currently i am a Sr Director Tech in a tech consulting firm, i have extensive experience in leading teams. 19yr exp, 260k TC and open to a step down to Engineering Manager/Sr. Engineering manager role, open to move but no dough. Oh yea and I am on a H1B. Is it a poor resume, agism, the black mark of consulting? i keep myself upto date, been leetcoding for 4 months, feel i can do most easy-medium LC. when i started prepping, never thought getting enough interview calls would be the problem. i look at posts here where folks go for 10 phone screens, get to 5 onsites and get like 3 offers. without this volume of interviewing it seems impossible to get your dream job really struggling to find enough opportunities to do tech screens. so far got three phone screens (Braze, Yelp and Stripe) passed 2 out of 3 ans moving to their onsite rounds. any suggestions on what could be the issue?
Maybe they are looking for a particular skill or technology? Do you ask them why it is not a match? The biggest thing companies look for but candidates don’t have is experience with a particular technology.
I asked them but nothing useful. Mostly they ghost out, others say we don’t have any specific feedback for you
Recruiters will never give you honest feedback, there's no benefit to them and it can only get them in trouble. Try to seek out feedback from a mentor instead, or someone who would normally review resumes such as yours (at a similar company to what you are targeting). Or, as others have said, just find directors or senior managers for the team you are interested in and message them on LinkedIn (or even better email their personal email you find on GitHub etc).
Try bigger companies, they need all kinds of people (especially Amazon).
Totally agree.
Yea amazon is just one. I feel for reasonable odds you really need to interview at like 10
It’s ridiculous that someone at the Director level has to leetcode.
I am personally ok with the LC grind, it hard at start but you eventually get into the grove. But agree it’s a bit odd, but hey you gotta do what needs to be done.
I guess that’s the price of admission if you want to get into faang. Otherwise, there’s plenty of startups and big companies that only ask practical questions.
Which ones? Except amazon I have not found a single one that said no coding
Sr managers/director matches are tough. Have you managed managers at your current/prev job? Also why tf are you doing LC? Afaik sr managers and up are only asked design questions even in faang
1. Yes I have managed manager and sr manager for over 4-5 yrs 2. Coming from consulting I am assuming they will put me a level down and I am ok with it given that the salary bump will be significant 3. I thought all Manager/Sr. Manager roles required some amount of coding. Does cruise not do coding round for sr. Mgr interviews? Would you be open to referring me?
Fyi blind threading is a thing
1. - good, that’s usually #1 req that I’ve seen people don’t meet. 2 - don’t think necessarily warrants a downlevel depending on your actual projects 3 - from the panels I’ve been on at cruise sr managers/directors don’t get asked lc at all, only design within their area of expertise. Even line managers only get asked lc easy just to see if they have any technical chops at all
I have recently done loops for SEM roles and all still required coding, many during the phone screen so stick with it
How was your experience? 1. Was it mostly LC medium? 2. Also how important is dynamic program 3. Is Grokking the system design interview, enough for covering system design rounds?
Recruiters are like hitters in baseball. At best, they get it right about 1 in 3 times. At worst, they haven't got a clue. You need to short circuit the process. Bypass them entirely and network directly with hiring managers.
How do you know who the hiring manager is? Most of my applying is on jobs via LinkedIn and vettery
You need to search creatively. Don't search directly on LinkedIn. Instead, search "company" + "team name" + "manager" + "linkedin" on Google. That usually gets you what you want. You need to leverage the old adage: every step up in difficulty eliminates a disproportionate amount of competition. Most people apply through recruiting portals, and are consequently filtered out. Comparatively few find a way to obtain a warm intro or referral, and immediately rise to the top of the stack. It's often nontrivial to do it, but it's strictly better than relying on a non-technical recruiter's imperfect estimation of your technical abilities and experience.