I applied to AlphaSense online and heard from the recruiter about a week later. During the phone screen the recruiter was clearly checking the boxes for a few specific items and whenever I asked a question to learn more about the role/team/company, I was met with "the hiring manager can speak more to that." No doubt this is true but I was doing a good number of phone screens at the time and this was the only one where I left the conversation feeling unprepared to continue in the process. A few days later a different recruiter reached out to schedule 3 back to back interviews, but I opted out given my experience during the phone screen.

It was a distasteful experience being interviewed by this Head of Sales who gave off the vibe that he already predetermined that I wasn't his ideal profile even before the call started. During the last part where I could ask questions, he started looking disengaged at giving proper answers and instead answered incoherently or deflect my questions back to me asking me to answer my own questions when I wanted to understand more about the business. This shows he gives little respect to a sincere candidate who was genuinely interested in joining the company. It was disappointing to be already feeling rejected during the interview itself and to know that opportunity just blew off since the thought of having to work around him just put me off. It's a shame as I felt I could really work well with the direct manager of this role and perhaps other AEs under this guy whom I probably won't need to deal with that extensively day in day out.