Did the Perplexity recruiter screen last week for a biz ops / strategy role. 30 minutes, pretty standard intro call but a few things stood out that I wasn't expecting.
The recruiter (friendly, clearly knew the company well, not reading from a script) asked: Walk me through your background, but specifically: what have you shipped vs. what have you influenced? The framing was deliberate. They want to know your actual footprint, not just what your team did. Why Perplexity specifically? And then a follow-up: what would you change about the product if you worked here? This isn't the usual "why do you want to work here" softbal. They pushed on the second part. I gave a real answer about AI search UX and they engaged with it. What does your current comp look like and what are your expectations?
On comp: they asked early. Don't dodge it. They laid out a range (I won't post specific numbers, varies by role/level) pretty openly and asked if it was in the ballpark. I appreciated the directness.
Things that didn't come up: company culture fluff, "where do you see yourself in 5 years", team-player cliches. This was a tight, functional screen.
A few things they seemed to be filtering for based on follow-up questions: do you actually use Perplexity (they can tell if you don't), are you comfortable in a fast environment with changing priorities, and are you the type who waits for direction or goes and figures things out.
If you haven't used Perplexity heavily before the screen, spend a week with it and have real opinions. That comes through.