My past initial screen was hilarious:

  - I see that you worked for a consultancy firm on your previous job. Do you
    have experience working with clients?
  - Yes. My client at the time was XXX Bank where I was involved in foo bar
    baz...
  - So you don’t have experience working with clients.
  - What? Yes, yes I do. I worked and interacted with them on a daily basis,
    with meetings and the like.
  - Okay. Do you have experience with databases?
  - Yes. Mostly Oracle and MySQL. Some postgresql. I’m also quite comfortable
    with NoSQL databases such as Redis and MongoDB.
  - Good. Do you have experience with programming languages?
  - ... Yes.

Some codility tests and interviews later I was notified I was not getting an offer due to lack of first hand experience with AWS (previous interviewers were apparently fine with that, but this one saw it as a red flag, although it was not listed as a requirement in the job offer).

Definitely a good call for both ends, as this was one of those modern companies where everyone are supposed to be friends, play with nerf-guns and have after work drinks. I think I’m too old for that.

For the record, it feels good for once being rejected on lack of technical merits rather than failing some “culture fit” interview. A trend that is giving me the worst interview streak of my career and is making me consider a change of profession.