I'm an Indian currently working overseas but planning to move back to India for family reasons. I found an exciting job role in the product team at Cornerstone, India. Here are the mistakes I did for which no one else is to blame: 1. I totally fell in love with the company and job role! To prove that Im a good fit, before applying for this role, I spent some good time researching online about the company, their product (Cornerstone Recruiting), downloaded their product brochures, attended their on demand product webinars and came up with a detailed insights report and attached it along with my application. Too bad no one ever took a look at it, as far as I know! 2. I wanted to let the hiring team at Cornerstone know how much passionate I'm for this role. So after applying on their website, I followed up by sending emails and LinkedIn messages to the concerned HR people. Nobody responded 3. After 2-3 chasers and reminders, I got a response from an HR person after a week asking for my current CTC and expected. As I'm working overseas, my current CTC would obviously be a bit over the top as compared to Indian market and I stressed that my expected salary could even be lesser than what I'm getting right now in order to match the salary bands in India. As expected, there was no reply to this email for another 1 week. 4. After a week I send another reminder to let me know any updates and the HR responded that "Your current CTC is more than the compensation band we have for this role. Unfortunately we won't be able to proceed with your candidature at this moment". Huh? It sounded more like the person just wanted to get rid of me and not at all interested to hear my perspective or negotiate. I truly understood the salary band concern from HR and responded that Im flexible with the compensation as long as the job role excites me. I requested this person that I give a short 5 min call, explain my situation to see if I could atleast have an initial discussion about the role first. I texted this request on email as well as to the person's whatsapp but to no reply so far! Advice to Management 1. If you're not actively hiring, please don't put up phantom job ads 2. If you prefer only candidates who are locally available (due to the current crisis situation), please let your applicants know about it. The whole saga of applying, waiting and chasing for updates is a brain draining exercise. 3. Please advise your HR to have the basic courtesy to respond to applicants promptly. I know you get tons of applications a day so might not be possible to reply everyone. But I'm sure you'll be able to filter out those who really seem serious in joining your team and frequently chase you for updates. Have some appreciation, if not atleast some empathy to the efforts they put to learn about your company, product and job role. By sending you my learnings about Cornerstone Recruiting, I didnt want to prove that Im perfect or an expert. All I expected was someone to notice my application. Whether or not Im a good fit for the role is a different question altogether and I would have left it completely in your good hands to judge it 4. Most important of all - you're selling a recruitment software. So please walk your talk. If an applicant like me dont get any response for my application from your software after 2+ weeks, how do I expect your recruitment product to do well in the Talent Management Systems market? PS: The story ends here. Im no longer keen to work with such unprofessional people. I hope you understand that this review is not intended to put the whole company in bad light. Its just few people inside who cause damage to your reputation

The interview process is streamlined and focuses on assessing candidates' ability to effectively handle the job's responsibilities rather than merely evaluating technical skills. This approach ensures that the right fit is found for both the role and the company culture.