I'm an agency recruiter and I've prepped a handful of candidates through Palantir's screen stage this year. Here's what the recruiter phone screen actually looks like, because most of what I found online was outdated.
Format: 30 minutes, internal recruiter (not a 3rd party). Video call, not phone in most cases now.
What they cover: Basic background. Where you've worked, what you built, rough timeline. This is quick, 5 minutes max. They've already read your resume. Why Palantir. This is not a throwaway question. They actually care. Vague answers like 'I like hard problems and mission-driven work' don't land well because every candidate says that. They're looking for something specific: did you read about a particular deployment, a public contract, a product area? Specificity signals genuine interest. Work authorization / visa status. If you're on a visa they ask early. Palantir does sponsor H1B transfers but they want to know upfront so they can route correctly. Timeline and competing offers. They ask if you're in other loops. Be honest. They're not trying to rush you, they just want to know if they need to move fast. A brief technical question -- sometimes. Not always, but a few of my candidates got a light "walk me through how you'd approach X" at the end. Nothing deep, more of a sniff test.
Biggest mistake candidates make: treating it like a formality. The 'why Palantir' question eliminates more candidates than the technical screen. I've seen strong technical folks get filtered out because they couldn't say anything specific about the company that didn't sound like they'd said the same thing to every company that week.
Do your homework. Know one real thing about what Palantir actually builds and who uses it.