Why does round one break first at a small startup?
At a startup, first-round screens are run by founders and engineers who are also building the product, so every screening call comes out of the same week as everything else. When a role draws more applicants than anyone can call, the team skims résumés and talks to whoever applied first or looked familiar on paper. The first round is where a small team runs out of hours, and it is where good candidates get dropped without a conversation.
