I'm not at Cohere but I've placed a couple of people there and have had extensive debrief calls with their recruiting team, so I can offer a bit of outside perspective on the Cohere recruiter phone screen.
First: they're thorough. This isn't a five-minute scheduling call masquerading as a screen. Budget 30-45 minutes and actually prepare for it.
What they typically cover: Your background walk-through. They will ask follow-up questions, so know your own resume cold. 'Tell me more about what you built there' is common. Why Cohere specifically. This matters more than at most companies. They're a well-funded AI infrastructure startup in a very competitive talent market and they genuinely want to know what draws you to enterprise AI/NLP vs. a consumer AI company or a FAANG. Vague answers don't land well. 'Because AI is hot right now' will not impress anyone. Compensation alignment. They will ask what you're targeting. Be honest. They're generally paying competitively in the Toronto / remote US range but they don't want to waste time if there's a gap. For senior IC roles in 2026 I've seen offers in the $180-220k total comp range depending on experience and location, though that's anecdotal from my placements. Logistics: timezone, work authorization, start date flexibility. Straightforward but they ask directly. What you're looking for in your next role beyond comp. This feeds into their values alignment check later in the loop.
One thing candidates consistently miss: they often ask 'what do you know about Cohere's products?' If you've only heard 'enterprise LLM API company' and haven't looked at Command R, the Embed endpoints, or their RAG tooling, you'll sound underprepared. Spend 20 minutes on their docs and blog before this call.