This is going to be a long story.
I was somehow able to reach out to a recruiter at Nest (let's call her Recruiter A), and asked her for getting me in touch with someone from the company who recruits for my domain (Embedded Systems). She was prompt & cordial, and immediately forwarded my details to a relevant recruiter (let's call her Recruiter B). Recruiter B followed up with me after a couple of weeks with a job position that was let's say a 50% match to my skill sets. I interviewed for the position (telephonic) and expressed my specific interests. My interviewer understood my concerns and I guess provided a feedback saying I am better suited for some other roles. I felt the same way. Recruiter B reached out to me with this info in a couple of weeks. All this while I was sending them reminders & queries for feedback (at least once a week) as I was also interviewing with other companies. Once we agreed that this may not be the best position for me, we decided to wait for a more relevant opportunity to come along. Surprisingly, the same day recruiter B reached out to me again, this time with a job profile which was exactly relevant to my skill sets, and asked me to coordinate with Recruiter C for this new position.
Recruiter C set up a phone interview which went really great. In fact the interviewer commented I was the only candidate who had answered his questions to the level of depth he had asked me, and I was personally aware of my convincing performance as well. However, I didn't hear back from Recruiter C for a full week after the interview. I did send a mail seeking feedback in between, and had clearly conveyed that since I was also considering other opportunities, I would appreciate if they could expedite the process. I even called her (Recruiter C ) one day to convey the urgency. However, she just gave me a text-book reply saying she was waiting for my interviewer to enter his feedback & then would again wait for the hiring manger to provide her with the next step. All this while I was interviewing with other top tech companies in Silicon Valley & had become conversant with the typical interview process. I was kind of surprised with such a laid back and passive attitude on behalf of recruiter C. She wouldn't respond to my emails in a timely manner either. I felt like I was being taken for granted as I knew I was a worthy candidate for the position but was being held up due to bureaucratic and care-free attitude of the recruiter C. One would imagine that someone in her position could easily have asked my interviewer for timely feedback & would want to move ahead with the process, more so when the candidate himself expresses the urgency for it to you.
Subsequently, I received job offers from two top-notch companies and accepted on of those. By now it was about 3 weeks since my last interview with Nest and hadn't heard back from them yet. A week after this period, I received a mail from Recruiter C saying my interviewer was down with flu and so had delayed entering his feedback. She wanted to know my current status. A fair excuse, I agree. But what I cannot digest, is why couldn't she think out of the box, and somehow try to engage with me all this while? Isn't that what her job was? She just behaved like a bot following rules & processes. But anyone with a reasonable amount of sense & sensitivity would have identified exceptional circumstances here, and tried to either reach out to the interviewer just to seek a verbal feedback (a go/no-go maybe) to move ahead with the process.
I was disappointed as I lost out on a good opportunity just due to the incompetence of the recruiter, and kind of offended due to her lack of responsiveness. My unsolicited advice to Nest:No matter how big a company you become (or belong to), you have to give respect to the candidate, and it is indeed being done by your peers in the Silicon Valley. And please hire pro-active recruiters who understand their job rather than just act like bots.
