I received a message from a recruiter telling me that I was the "perfect match" for this role. Upon reading the job description, I agreed that it was a great fit and was very interested in the position. I had a call screen with the recruiter a few days later. First red flag was the salary range that was posted on the job description technically was not accurate, as the range she shared with me was much lower because "if you qualifier for the higher range, then that would indicate that you're overqualified for the role." Really? Then why even put that there? List the actual range that you intend to offer a candidate. Once the call was over, the recruiter got back to me later in the week and said the hiring manager decided not to proceed because I didn't have metrics experience. That was another red flag. Why? First of all, that was not anywhere in the job description. Second, if that's what you wanted, I should have been told that so that my resume and me discussing my skills and experience would include that because--gasp--I actually DO have experience with metrics in this role. I don't understand how I could get dinged for not having something that isn't part of the job description or mentioned in a discussion in a call screen. You'd think someone would have mentioned that to me at some point.

I applied through the Zapier website. The next day, I received an email asking me to schedule an interview using an online scheduler. I then received a meeting invite for an interview. The invite was very well detailed. It explained that it would be a 45-minute video interview, and that they would ask me behavioral questions about my current and past roles, how I partner with stakeholders, how I help my team to be successful, and how I mentor and grow successful teams. It then explained that it would be best to structure my answers using the Situation, Task, Action, Result (STAR) technique. At the end of the interview, the recruiter told me that she would let me know my status in three days. She kept to her word. Three days later, she sent me a detailed, empathetic email explaining specifically why they did not choose to continue the process with me. "Empathy" is one of their company values. They practice what they preach. It was refreshing to not be ghosted for a change, and it was refreshing to receive specific feedback on why they were dropping me from the process.