Don't be ridiculous. HR gets paid to talk to candidates. I don't get paid to apply. The initial screening call is what allows a company to gauge the relevancy

Don't be ridiculous. HR gets paid to talk to candidates. I don't get paid to apply. The initial screening call is what allows a company to gauge the relevancy of a candidate. Let him speak about some of the topics and see how in-depth they go. Either the HR is familiar enough with the tech to understand proficiency (think a student listening to a maths professor) or they let a TL have a short conversation. I've overheard unqualified HR do their jobs badly, too; They laughed at picking them by looks and "feels". But, that's out of scope here. A large company has millions to invest in different areas. Intrinsically, it has a much larger margin of error. You accidentally overprovisioned some resources and cost the company 10k? Tis but a scratch. You POC some personal project and accidentally get billed 10k? That is not the same. A company can spend money on hiring. It is expected to. A private person can't spend money on applying to jobs. It isn't expected. It's interesting to see how the shift goes from the self to the company [and to the country]. A little bit of communist propaganda goes a long way, eh, comrade NPC?