{"course":{"slug":"ai-careers","title":"Working in AI","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers","level":"beginner","track":"work"},"lesson":{"slug":"the-shape-of-the-process","title":"The stages, and what each one is really testing","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/the-shape-of-the-process","position":50,"of":85,"minutes":7,"answer":"Every interview stage tests a different thing, and knowing which stage you are in tells you what to say.","keyIdea":"Every interview stage tests a different thing, and knowing which stage you are in tells you what to say."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## The standard sequence\n\nMost data and AI hiring processes are some subset of seven stages. Knowing what each is for stops you giving a round-four answer in round one.\n\n**1. Recruiter screen: 20 to 30 minutes.** Tests three administrative facts: can you legally work there, are you in the salary band, and can you describe your experience in plain language. It is not a technical conversation and trying to make it one is a common error. Give a two-minute version of your background, ask for the band, ask about the process.\n\n**2. Hiring manager screen: 30 to 45 minutes.** Tests one thing: *would this person be useful on my team within a few months?* This is where relevance and communication decide everything, and where depth matters least. Talk about what you built and who used it.\n\n**3. Technical exercise: a take-home, or 45 to 60 minutes live.** Tests whether you can actually do the work. Its own lessons follow.\n\n**4. Deep dive on your own work: 45 to 60 minutes.** Tests whether the things on your CV are yours. Expect \"why did you do it that way\" three levels deep on a project you named. Prepare the two projects you will be asked about; do not let them pick a third you barely remember.\n\n**5. Design or case conversation: 45 to 60 minutes.** Tests whether you think in constraints and trade-offs rather than tools.\n\n**6. Behavioural: 45 minutes.** Tests whether you can work with people and whether you tell the truth about failures.\n\n**7. Offer.**\n\n> Figure: Seven stages, and what each is testing. Timeline: Recruiter, 20–30 min, Can you legally work here, are you in the band, can you describe your experience plainly. Not technical.; Manager, 30–45 min, Would this person be useful on my team within months. Relevance and communication decide it.; Technical, Can you actually do the work: a take-home, or 45 to 60 minutes live.; Deep dive, 45–60 min, Is the CV yours. Why did you do it that way, three levels deep, on a project you named.; Design or case, Do you think in constraints and trade-offs rather than tools.; Behavioural, 45 min, Can you work with people, and do you tell the truth about failures.; Offer, Two to eight weeks from first contact is normal.. Knowing which stage you are in tells you what to say. A round-four answer in round one is a common error, and the notes from each round travel forward to the next panel.\n\n## Timelines, and what they tell you\n\nTwo to eight weeks from first contact to offer is normal. Under two weeks usually means a small company or an urgent gap. Beyond about ten weeks, with long silences between rounds, you are learning something real about how that organisation makes decisions, and you will experience the same thing as an employee waiting for a decision about your work.\n\nAsk at the recruiter screen: how many stages, and what is the expected timeline. A recruiter who cannot answer is a signal in itself.\n\n## The thing nobody tells candidates about feedback\n\nPanels write down their assessment after each round, and those notes travel forward. The interviewer in round four has usually read what round two thought before they meet you.\n\nTwo practical consequences. First, a weak first round is not erased by a strong third; prepare the early rounds harder than instinct suggests, because they are cheap for the company and decisive for you. Second, if you gave a poor answer, you may raise it later (*\"I have been thinking about the join question from Tuesday and I got it wrong; here is what I would do\"*) and it is read as strength rather than weakness, because the notes are already there and you are showing you can revisit your own work.\n\n## Between the rounds\n\nSend three lines afterwards, naming one concrete thing from the conversation. Not for politeness. It puts a written trace of you into the loop, in your own words, at the moment the panel is deciding.\n\n```\nThanks for the time today. The point about the nightly load\noverlapping with the batch export was the part I keep thinking\nabout — I had not considered that the retry window and the\nexport window could collide. Enjoyed the conversation.\n```\n\nFour sentences, specific, no request.\n\n## Rejection, and what you can learn from it\n\nYou will usually be given no reason. This is legal caution rather than rudeness; a specific reason is a document that can be argued with, and most companies have decided not to produce them.\n\nWhat you can still learn is the **stage**. Rejected before any human conversation means the route or the paper is wrong: go back to the employer categories and the referral routes. Rejected after the technical means a skill gap you can name. Rejected after the final round repeatedly means you are close, and it is usually a small number of specific things; that is the point at which asking a friendly interviewer for one piece of feedback is most likely to succeed.\n\n## Practising without paying\n\nInterview coaching costs from about a hundred to several hundred per hour, and much of what it sells is rehearsal with an audience. A peer who does the job (swapping mock interviews in a community, an hour each way) is free and often better, because they know the questions your market actually asks. Free mock-interview swaps exist in most large technical communities. Record yourself on a phone and watch it back once; it is unpleasant and it works."},"check":{"question":"Twenty minutes into a first call, the recruiter asks what you are looking for in terms of compensation. What is the most useful answer?","options":[{"text":"Give a precise figure slightly above your target, to anchor the negotiation early.","correct":false,"tempting":"Anchoring works when you know the band; naming a number first, before you know theirs, more often anchors you below it than above."},{"text":"Ask what band the role is budgeted at, and if pressed, give a range you would genuinely accept, because this stage exists partly to check you are affordable, and finding out now saves both of you weeks.","correct":true},{"text":"Say compensation is not important to you and that you care most about the work.","correct":false,"tempting":"Sounds agreeable and reliably produces a lower offer, while also failing to answer the administrative question the call exists to settle."},{"text":"Defer the question entirely until an offer is on the table.","correct":false,"tempting":"Preserves negotiating room in theory, and in practice risks four weeks of interviews for a role that was never going to pay enough."}]},"prev":{"slug":"building-with-an-assistant","title":"Building a project you can still defend","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/building-with-an-assistant"},"next":{"slug":"the-recruiter-screen","title":"The first call, and the salary question","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/the-recruiter-screen"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'The stages, and what each one is really testing', in Working in AI. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/the-shape-of-the-process (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"The stages, and what each one is really testing","courseTitle":"Working in AI","module":{"index":6,"slug":"the-interview","title":"The interview, from first screen to signed offer"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Every interview stage tests a different thing, and knowing which stage you are in tells you what to say.","hero":{"kind":"figure","figure":{"t":"figure","label":"Figure 6.1","figure":{"type":"timeline","title":"Seven stages, and what each is testing","events":[{"when":"Recruiter, 20–30 min","what":"Can you legally work here, are you in the band, can you describe your experience plainly. Not technical."},{"when":"Manager, 30–45 min","what":"Would this person be useful on my team within months. Relevance and communication decide it."},{"when":"Technical","what":"Can you actually do the work: a take-home, or 45 to 60 minutes live."},{"when":"Deep dive, 45–60 min","what":"Is the CV yours. Why did you do it that way, three levels deep, on a project you named."},{"when":"Design or case","what":"Do you think in constraints and trade-offs rather than tools."},{"when":"Behavioural, 45 min","what":"Can you work with people, and do you tell the truth about failures."},{"when":"Offer","what":"Two to eight weeks from first contact is normal."}],"caption":"Knowing which stage you are in tells you what to say. A round-four answer in round one is a common error, and the notes from each round travel forward to the next panel."},"alt":"Figure: Seven stages, and what each is testing. Timeline: Recruiter, 20–30 min, Can you legally work here, are you in the band, can you describe your experience plainly. Not technical.; Manager, 30–45 min, Would this person be useful on my team within months. Relevance and communication decide it.; Technical, Can you actually do the work: a take-home, or 45 to 60 minutes live.; Deep dive, 45–60 min, Is the CV yours. Why did you do it that way, three levels deep, on a project you named.; Design or case, Do you think in constraints and trade-offs rather than tools.; Behavioural, 45 min, Can you work with people, and do you tell the truth about failures.; Offer, Two to eight weeks from first contact is normal.. Knowing which stage you are in tells you what to say. A round-four answer in round one is a common error, and the notes from each round travel forward to the next panel."}},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"the-standard-sequence","runs":[{"text":"The standard sequence"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Most data and AI hiring processes are some subset of seven stages. Knowing what each is for stops you giving a round-four answer in round one."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"1. 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