For other candidates - you will be unable to take what sales leadership sales to you at face value. For example, the interviewer might say "you are a great fit" just to get a vague rejection email from HR.
Other Cons:
Major Lack of Alignment: There is a glaring disconnect between the hiring managers and the recruitment team. After receiving explicit, positive feedback from senior leadership about how my background was a perfect fit for their success model, I received a vague rejection stating my experience "isn't quite aligned."
Generic Feedback: For a role that requires a high-level technical and strategic interview process, the vague rejection is disappointing.
Process Transparency: Hard to recommend anyone invest time in a multi-stage process when the feedback from the people doing the interviewing is completely contradicted by the final HR rejection letter.
Advice to Management:
Ensure your HR/Recruiting team is actually calibrated with your Senior Sales Executives. When leadership tells a candidate their profile is exactly what the team needs, but HR sends a "not aligned" notice, it damages your credibility in the small world of genomics.
For candidates - even though the job description lists this as an 'entry-level' role requiring 1+ year of experience, the interview process demands the strategic depth of a experience Rep. Better alignment between the posted requirements and the interviewers' expectations would improve the candidate experience. Even though the job description lists entry level, be prepared for senior sales execs to ask you how to navigate complex 12-18 month SaaS sales cycles.