I think this is approximately the optimal way to play the job search process as a candidate: utsavahuja.com/p/d2039b6a-259…
Note in particular being organized, treating it as a sales pipeline, pursuing multiple offers in parallel, and practicing for interviews.
Note in particular being organized, treating it as a sales pipeline, pursuing multiple offers in parallel, and practicing for interviews.
(Suffice it to say that I am astronomical units away from believing the tech industry has a rationally constructed process for attracting, evaluating, and closing candidates, but given that the equilibrium is where it is, this is—descriptively—how to play game well.)
As I think about this more I almost want to provide an annotated version to show what is (probably) happening on the other side of the table which explains some of the candidate's experience.
Example: this anecdote is a) widely replicable at many high-status organizations, b) indicative of a strategy you can actually use, and c) absolutely crazymaking for me. 
Recruiters, including internal recruiters, are far more akin to sales professionals than most candidates model them as being.
Early in the conversation, a recruiter will often implicitly or explicitly run lead qualification on you.
Early in the conversation, a recruiter will often implicitly or explicitly run lead qualification on you.
Because the tech industry is fundamentally unserious about how it attracts and evaluates candidates, this is not nearly as rigorous as lead qualification by sales organizations, which generally have a defined methodology and checklist by the time they're large and sophisticated.
One part of that lead qualification practice is "Does this candidate *feel like* the sort of candidate I will regret our peers scooping me on?" and aggressively frontloading "I am a plausible candidate for high status employers" moves you way up that ad hoc gut feel gatekeeping.
In the instant case, the candidate used this to bypass the team screen, which is almost certainly to the candidate's advantage, since the team screen at most orgs only exists to *cheaply generate negative signal on 50%+ of applicants.*
This is so known to be true that some organizations have *formalized* pathways to skip that (and other proceesses) for favored candidates, and many more have informal methods to circumvent the formal processes.
A repeatable way is to get someone internal enthusiastic about you.
A repeatable way is to get someone internal enthusiastic about you.
If you think "Hmm plausibly these sort of hidden shibboleths have distributional consequences with respect to offers received because if you went to Stanford or otherwise have network advantage then 5+ people already explained how the world actually works" then you are right.
