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Tactical Reflections – Job Search 2025
I wanted to summarize some tactical thoughts I had as I searched for a new role at the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. I won’t name names or companies here, because the idea is not to shame any particular entity. That said, if people can learn from my experience, that would be a positive. I’ll address my emotional thoughts as well as the interview experiences themselves in other posts.
I should start by saying I’ve hired many engineers throughout much of my career. I’ve lost count, but it’s more than a hundred. I’ve also hired engineers at Amazon, and participated in over a hundred Amazonian interview loops, for my team and on behalf of other teams, at every level from junior developer and intern to senior engineer, product manager, technical project manager, and engineering manager.
Valuing the Candidate Experience
With the exception of a few companies, the candidate experience bar no longer exists. This shouldn’t come as a complete surprise to anyone, but having been on both sides, I found the experience to be mostly unpleasant. I expected it from the discussions on social media, so I made sure as much as possible to dismiss the lack of response as part of the process. Becoming discouraged would have not helped in any way.
As a result, I didn’t spend a lot of time reflecting on the experience if the company did not reach out to me. If they only sent a conciliatory email saying my resume had been reviewed and I was not chosen, I also did not reflect much on those events once I felt I got my resume formats under control.
Two things really caught my attention from a candidate experience standpoint.
When I was a hiring manager, when I found the right candidate, it was time to move and get that person in their seat. Notice I did not say the perfect candidate. The first right candidate. The number of reposted jobs in the market indicate that companies have become very risk averse, or have decided to look for the perfect candidate, and that’s translated into a lack of urgency that is honestly disturbing. As a hiring manager, I have a team that needs to get stuff done. I’ve seen companies waiting months for the perfect person rather than getting value out of an excellent person. In one case, I had passed all the interviews, and the company was still hesitating. I sent a polite email to my recruiting contact basically saying that I was ready to accept an offer, the role seemed like a good fit, interviews had passed, so if they were to extend the offer I’d accept. They sent me a note the next day removing me from consideration. Companies are letting perfection get in the way of progress, and the lack of urgency is showing. As a result, after the first three weeks I stopped applying to any positions I found that had been reposted.
I withdrew myself from candidacy several times during my search. In all cases but one, there was a clear misalignment in some capacity, and I felt I would not be good for the role. That’s expected and it’s necessary to have an objective viewpoint on your own appropriateness for a position.
However, one company’s screening call was so horrible that I withdrew on the spot. While I can’t guarantee it, it seems as though the person doing the call was a contractor. They were short-tempered, monotone, appeared to be reading from a script, and automatically shut down any question or nuance in any answer given. For example, when I was asked for a start date, and I reasonably mentioned that would be contingent on offer timeline, they interrupted me mid-sentence and again demanded a start date. Similarly when I was asked about compensation, my question about compensation components and equity structure was also immediately shut down. The interviewer closed the conversation by saying they’d pass my information on to the hiring manager. I went into their jobs portal and withdrew.
There Are Quality Recruiters and Companies Doing The Best They Can
With the exception of that one screener I mentioned, the recruiters I did speak to were excellent, and they represented their companies well. Several went above and beyond to ensure transparency of communication and alignment of expectations. One went so far as to call me to ensure that the holidays would not impact their ability to extend an offer if a hiring decision was made as the holiday period impacted people’s availability.
In one instance, a no hire decision was delivered via conference call, in person, promptly. While I was not selected, I was impressed with the company’s commitment to their candidates.
The other no hire decisions were delivered with less personal notes or tone, but I remind myself that there are now legal ramifications to how information is delivered. I was not ghosted after getting into hiring pipelines, but a couple of the no hire decisions were odd and abrupt, at a time I was expecting to discuss an offer. A few other companies might have ghosted me after final interviews, but I was diligent in following up and asking for next steps. The lack of feedback in these situations is frustrating to be sure, but having been a hiring manager I understand it.
The one use case where the lack of feedback has a direct impact is with companies that follow a model where you can only reapply to other positions after six months, or possibly even a year, has elapsed. In theory this allows the candidate time to address any perceived gaps. In cases where there were missing data points, or spots where a particular bar was not quite met, offering a chance to reapply after growth has occurred doesn’t really help if feedback is not provided, because gaps can’t be perceived with any accuracy. Many companies do this as part of their process.
Companies Don’t Know What They Want
I’ve been an engineering manager for more than 12 years. With that, I can generally get a sense of how teams are running based on the information I can ascertain during an interview. Two things stood out to me as I cycled through the process.
In some cases, companies don’t understand what a healthy engineering culture looks like. This surfaces in topics like their approach to operational excellence, their perspective on support or on-call rotations, and their approach to collaboration. In one instance, I went through seven interviews for a company. The recruiter, and an “advisor” that I had a chance to speak with, both stressed leading with empathy as a key component of their culture. It appeared that their interviewers did not share their sentiment, as none of them asked me to introduce myself, and one of them actively interrupted me almost at every step of every answer to keep the process moving.
Some companies that are growing fast and trying to scale either personnel-wise or technically don’t really know what they are looking for from a skills or experience perspective. This leads to some difficulties in things like a proper job description, or a proper evaluation of skills. One company advertised for an engineering manager but really wanted a senior engineer that could lead projects. Another was reimagining the engineering manager as more of a hyper-technical TPM or operations role. Others weren’t sure how stable the team size would or should be. When that’s combined with either leadership that doesn’t really understand how engineering works, or with an unhealthy culture, getting to a hire decision becomes very difficult.
In these cases, I tried to ask open ended questions when my time to ask was provided, but also looked closely at the questions I was being asked. I paid particular attention to the types of challenges the interviewer was referencing. In situations like this I seek to remove as much ambiguity as possible about the role and the environment, while still presenting myself in the best way possible.
Managing Applications, Resumes, And Cover Letters
I’ve previously posted about my adjustments to my resume and my change in cover letter approach. I won’t go over those again here, other than to reiterate that I eventually decided on formats and approaches that were right for me, along with my background and experience. I think one should be happy with how they represent themselves to prospective employers should a human actually read what one produces.
I used Teal’s free job tracker to manage my applications, and it worked mostly well. The one gap that I found, but did not explore too much, was I could not see a clean way to track applications through statuses, meaning I could not filter by applications that were once in Interviewing but were not any longer. Other than that, it was reasonable, and the integration between their browser extension and job application sites was mostly well done.
I put up the famed green #OpenToWork banner on LinkedIn almost immediately. I’m not sure it made any difference in the early stages, and there was debate about its effectiveness as well as possible negative outcomes by using it, such as companies not wishing to hire people who were unemployed, or giving up leverage during the offer stage. After some consideration, I took the banner down publicly, choosing to leave it up only for recruiters. I have no way of gauging its impact on my job search, but I felt vaguely better not having it on my profile.
LinkedIn’s notifications systems have degraded considerably. There are noticeable delays, sometimes hours, between when an action occurred and the notification arrived. I am repeatedly reminded to accept a connection request that I had accepted hours before. Even the job search alerts seem less relevant time wise. I’m going to assume it’s a scale thing given the traffic likely on LinkedIn at the moment.
Referrals Ultimately Made The Difference
My ultimate success story would not have happened without a timely and unexpected referral. I think they remain the best way to get in the door. That said, I do think my resume adjustments had an impact on response times, and were helpful in landing the other interviews I participated in.
Results
Overall, I applied to 241 positions over close to four months.
| Status | Total | Percentage |
| No Response | 150 | 62.2% |
| Rejected without Interview | 76 | 31.5% |
| Withdrew during screening | 4 | 1.6% |
| Interviewed | 11 | 4.6% |
| Interview: Did not make final round | 5 | 2.4% |
| Interview: Made final round | 5 | 2.4% |
| Offer accepted | 1 | 0.4% |
Behavioral Interviews
I’ve had the opportunity to participate in many, many interviews over the course of my career, including over a hundred as an interviewer at Amazon. Over time I’ve developed a perspective on behavioral interviews. Over the past couple of months, as I’ve conducted my job search, I’ve had the chance to be on the other side of the equation with high profile companies such as Meta. That has sharpened my perspective on this interview approach.
About Behavioral Interviews
Behavioral interviews focus on past experiences under the belief that past behavior best predicts future behavior. Candidates provide examples of how they handled real situations. Through conversation, candidates reveal their skills, competencies, how they handle challenges, their approach to teamwork and collaboration, and their problem-solving capabilities.
Questions are typically posed as a variation of “Tell me about a time you did a thing”, and answers are generally expected to be in the STAR format. The STAR format is prescriptive, requiring the answer to be presented with a Situation, the Task outlined to solve it, the Actions taken, and the Result.
My Candidate Approach
One of my core goals as a candidate is to present myself as calm, confident, and competent. I don’t want to be reading from a script, or perhaps perceived as leveraging AI, so while I have my list of examples sitting in a spreadsheet, I have them mostly memorized; I want to respond naturally as much as possible. I want the interview to be a conversation, not an interrogation. I want the person interviewing me to get a feel for what a working relationship would be like. I like to think I’m a strong communicator, and making the interview conversation go smoothly is a specific goal I have in mind.
I also don’t necessarily follow the STAR format as closely as I’ve seen others do it. In my opinion, its rigidity leads candidates to believe they should prepare every potential answer ahead of time. As a result, it can lead to answers that lack personality, lack depth, and sound more like a resume reading session. It also tends to mean that answers come from that predefined set of prepared responses even if the answer doesn’t clearly match the question. I prefer to tell a story, to provide a narrative, with an opening, a description, and a conclusion. I incorporate parts of the STAR format into those narratives, but I’m aware of the limitations in that format and the likely gaps it will force into my answers. Instead, I’d like to address those gaps in my initial answer; I want to control the conversation, not allow for the possibility that a follow up will take me in a direction I may not necessarily be prepared to go.
Sometimes that means I take a moment and think before answering. I do this deliberately, and I think it’s acceptable, sometimes even necessary. I make sure that my eyes are not going to what might be perceived as another screen; I’m keenly aware of body language and when I do stop to think I tend to make sure I’m looking upward if I have to avert my eyes to gather my thoughts. I’d much prefer to take a couple of moments, cycle through my examples in my head, and then answer with something as befitting as possible, or acknowledge my answer might not be the best and explain why it might still be relevant.
This can lead me to ramble. I’m very self-aware and will pause at natural stopping points and let the interviewer follow up if they choose. One of the risks I pose to myself is being too verbose in my answers; these interviews are conducted on a clock and running out of time could potentially be a deal-breaker if important points are not brought up. As a result, it’s critical to have a perspective on time as well as a perspective on what’s critical to surface to the interviewer. I limit my introduction to a specific set of data and time. I have seen candidates who, once they start, are so eager to check all the boxes that they are not able to put the brakes on as they speak. In the hands of an experienced interviewer, that can be handled with a gentle interruption; but if a candidate encounters one without that experience, they can burn valuable time and risk not providing all the data points.
What Can Go Wrong With The Process
It takes a certain nuance for an interviewer to be able to conduct a behavioral interview in a way that evaluates thought process when the candidate doesn’t provide the “right” answer. When an interviewer can’t do this, the candidate will find themselves evaluated on being able to articulate the answer the interviewer seeks rather than on how they mentally approach a problem. This is poor evaluation technique; not every candidate will approach a problem the same way, or have an approach that aligns with the interviewer, even if the result was successful. In the end, confirmation bias can be more impactful on the decision to hire or not than a clear evaluation of thought process and results.
There’s no way for someone to prepare for every possible question. As a candidate, it’s critical to be prepared to pivot to similar situations, or take that moment to think, or ask follow up questions while they find an appropriate answer. The risk here is that a candidate can be disqualified simply for not encountering a particular situation before, even though they may have been able to handle it perfectly fine based on their experience. After a discussion on coaching engineers, I was asked if I ever had to manage performance of a senior engineer on my team. I’ve been blessed with awesome senior engineers on my teams, so I honestly answered no, and provided a counter-response where I coached a senior engineer who was moving to management, not on performance, but on handling new expectations. I’m not sure if that disqualified me when they chose not to move forward, but I also strongly believe that I shouldn’t be disqualified due to not having encountered a specific situation. My background indicates I’d be perfectly fine coaching senior engineers in any situation.
I’ve gotten into the habit of cataloging the questions I am asked and taking my own notes after an interview completes to specifically target the ones I was not expecting. I actually like getting new questions, as I can incorporate them into my preparation.
There are interviewers who struggle to balance the time involved (typically 45-60 minutes) and the amount of data they need to gather. This can result in two poor outcomes. First, important data that could impact the hiring decision might be missed, as clarifying or follow up questions are not effectively executed. Second, and this happened to me recently, the interviewer is not able to conduct the questioning cleanly. I had an interview where I was interrupted after nearly every sentence to either direct or clarify what I said, before I had finished my point. This resulted in a disjointed experience, where the interviewer’s inability to coherently conduct questioning led to confusion, changes of direction, and a clearly poor result. If a company decides to pass on a candidate because there are missing data points, and the company is not willing to follow up to address those missing data points before making that decision, poor interviewing technique becomes an even greater risk to the process.
As a candidate, it’s important to maintain your composure at times like this and make sure that you are clarifying the questions you are being asked, and completing your thoughts before moving to the next one.
Final Thoughts
Interviewing is an inexact science. But behavioral interviews are even more subjective. Too often the inherent personal bias of the interviewer, the training provided, or the company guidance are more impactful than thoughtful evaluation and listening skills. The end result is companies are just as likely to hire someone that luckily manages to match their bias as they are to hire someone that actually matches their skills and qualifications. In a job market like the current one, where there’s an overabundance of candidates, companies are even less likely to feel certain about a hiring decision, and more likely to wait for that perfect candidate.
The Next Adventure
Yesterday, January 26, 2026, was my last official day as an Amazonian. I was impacted by layoffs in October 2025 after nearly eight years of successful delivery. The moment is bittersweet, as I’ve spent much of my time over this three-month transition period buried in job searches while trying to enjoy the holiday season in spite of the uncertainty. I’ve learned a lot over the last eight years, both what to do and what not to do, and I’ve worked with so many incredible individuals.
Immediately after the layoff occurred, I began looking for next steps. One of the more enjoyable aspects of my Amazon career was being a Document Bar Raiser. Giving back and helping so many people improve their writing was an amazing experience. I prepared a professional service, Hopeful Writing, to engage those who want to be better writers and offer professional help. I’m not sure if I’ll continue it or not if I were to get traction, but I wanted to be prepared in case I was not able to find a new role. Now that I’ve found one, I doubt I will engage much with this, except with interns or students.
That said, I’ve accepted an offer as Senior Engineering Manager at Atlassian, starting in mid-February. I’m super excited to work for Atlassian, and to continue to improve experiences for customers, developers, product owners, document authors, and anyone else involved in building something amazing for their customers. I wanted to find something I could focus on for the next several years, and I’ve been impressed with Atlassian for a while now and can’t wait to get started.
I’ll be posting more about my job search experience and reflections on this period of my life in the coming weeks.
Be welcome and true.
Rob Hope 