Recruiter says I passed the onsite and am a fit “for amazon” but not for the specific role/team I interviewed for. Says that I am now a “recycle”. Is this new? Am I now officially in team matching / offer stage and it’s up to me to find other roles? Or do I have to re-interview again? This was for a SDM position in AWS.
Sounds like they’ll pay you while you find a spot. Enjoy it
Not what it means
Mostly they could downlevel you. Watch out for that !
Recycle means not an offer.
Wow your recruiter is transparent :) you are lucky she told you. This isn’t new and no it doesn’t mean you passed. You actually failed your onsite but the interviewers think (or all voted) for you to be in a different role. Likely they all liked you and do think you are a fit in Amazon but just not with the role you interviewed for. Just wait to hear back and you might either get an offer for different role OR you get to do another round of interview for that role. It is extremely unlikely to directly get an offer and so expect another round of interview with a different role.
Another round of interviews, yep. I’d speculate you passed on Behavioral stuff, but enough were not inclined on technical questions, if this was a tech role. Bone up on your whiteboard coding and system design and you’ll probably pass next time.
Thanks for the info here. I have offers from other companies coming in this week so need to move quickly, so probably can’t afford to just wait to hear back. The recruiter is getting ghosty as well. This was for a L7 SDM btw, so no coding was asked.
Microsoft does it all the time too, so it’s normal.
Sounds like you are not the top choice but pass the bar. Does not sound bad at all.
You are a culture fit just probably not where they need you to be technically. They will search around to see if you fit any other team. It might or might not happen depending on the circumstances since the team where you might fit needs to have head count.
Should I proactively reach out to other recruiters or hiring managers now? I’m in a time crunch with other offer deadlines.
Before doing so I would reconfirm with the original recruiter you were working with. Just check in with him/her to see if there were any open positions they would consider you for and let him/her know you do have a deadline. It's just a matter of that recruiter finding the team, and that team having an open position. He/she would have more visibility than you would. Sometimes things line up and sometimes they don't. After checking in if you don't hear anything then I would apply to other open roles that you feel suit you. Make sure that you meet or exceed the technical bar since that might be the reason why it didn't work out with this last team.
In practical terms, it means you can interview again (with a different team or for a different role; depends on the feedback) without a cool down period. The rest is just noise.
Thanks, that’s helpful. This was for a L7 SDM role so maybe they feel I should be a L6 SDM instead. I’ll work my network of recruiters and contacts at amzn to look for interesting and relevant SDM openings across the company ASAP, and won’t hold my breath for my most recent recruiter to help me now that her group has passed.
Yeah, down-leveling is a common reason for a recycle after an on-site. Recycling due to role fit is more common after a screen. You won't necessarily have to go through another full loop or a bar raiser round, either. Again, depends on the specifics (which would only be known to the people on the debrief, including your recruiter).
Btw - something similar to this happened in 2017 - the specific team I was looping for was a pass, but I was immediately connected to another hiring manager in that org, we had a couple of phone interviews, and then I was extended an offer. Ended up going to msft but it seems like this does happen, and maybe even makes future loops easier?
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