My Interview Experience at LinkedIn – Sourcing Role
I applied to a sourcing position at LinkedIn around two months ago. Despite following up multiple times via LinkedIn and email, I only received a response after getting referred internally by a current LinkedIn employee.
Eventually, I was contacted by a recruiter and scheduled for a sourcing simulation round. Unfortunately, my experience with this round was not what I had hoped for.
The panelist did not offer any formal introduction or set expectations for the round, which created an uncomfortable and unclear start. The conversation felt more like a one-sided interrogation — heavy probing, very little context sharing, and a tone that lacked empathy or openness. It felt like I was being judged on a very rigid idea of "how sourcing should look," without room for creativity, different strategies, or even a basic two-way dialogue.
Despite the challenging atmosphere, I completed the exercise. I did my best to showcase my approach, including sourcing for a role outside my past experience, and focused on how I think and build pipelines with minimal information. However, I left the interview with the sense that the panelist had already made up her mind — and unfortunately, the interaction left me feeling disheartened.
That said, I’m still grateful for the opportunity and the learning. I truly believe that interviews should be a space for mutual respect and exploration, not gatekeeping. And while this experience didn’t go as I’d hoped, it reinforced my commitment to staying kind, curious, and resilient in this journey.