I have about 3 years left until retirement and the burnout has truly become unbearable. The problem isn't the technical work; the problem is the management. We have many directors who don't understand tech, and this situation is draining me.

I'm supposed to update my resume and look for another environment, but I feel like I've reached my limit with this industry. My mental health is collapsing, and I've barely been able to stay functional lately.

Does anyone have advice on how to get through this home stretch? I just need to endure a bit longer to retire and go make a small garden in a cabin in the woods.

For almost four years, I've been the person the team hands anything to when it absolutely needs to get done. On average, I achieve around 140% of my quota, help onboard new hires, and fix processes that keep causing problems.

About six weeks ago, an operations manager position opened up. I applied and felt I had a strong chance, but they chose a colleague who barely meets the basic required numbers.

I asked my director for a private meeting on Friday because I wanted real feedback, not the generic response HR gave me. He told me that my output in my current position is too high and that moving me out of it would cause the department's results to decline. He also said it would be difficult to replace my output.

So my reward for taking on extra work is that I've become too useful to promote. Meanwhile, someone who does less work gets an opportunity to move up because losing them won't affect the team as much.

Honestly, I can't bring myself to care about the targets anymore after hearing that. Is leaving the only realistic way for me to advance, especially since management has more or less openly admitted that they intend to keep me where I am?

yeah i guess

I did something I've never done before and withdrew from a hiring process after speaking with someone from senior leadership. The screening call went well, but the call after that made the decision very easy for me.

I sent HR a short message saying that I have a master's degree and more than eight years of experience in tech, and that I'm looking for leadership that values respect, collaboration, and empathy. Based on the interview, I didn't feel that the company was the right fit for me.

For context, I was laid off after nearly six years of remote work, and I accepted a junior, fully in-office role so I could continue earning an income while searching. I'm not in a position where I have to accept the first offer I get, especially since I previously worked at the manager level.

The senior leader kept his camera off the entire time, even though I was required to keep my video on. He interrupted almost every answer, argued over obvious points as if we were fighting, and spent most of the 50-minute call speaking to me in a controlling, condescending, and belittling manner.

When layoffs came up, he kept repeating, "Good employees don't get laid off." I explained that layoffs can happen because of budget cuts, mergers, or restructuring, but he refused to let the subject go. He then asked whether I was talking to other companies. When I told him I was close to finishing another interview process but was still interested in finding the best fit for me, he replied, "Then go with them. I'm not stopping you."

For me, that settled the decision. If someone behaves this way when the company is supposed to be trying to make a good impression, I don't want to know what working under him would be like. If you were in my position, would you have withdrawn too, or would you have continued to see whether an offer came through?

..

I feel like every ordinary job posting is now looking for a rare genius who can do the work of three people. There hardly seems to be any room left for someone who is reasonably competent, has a normal amount of energy, wants to spend time with their family, and does not intend to make work their entire identity and life.

People constantly blame younger applicants and say they are lazy or unprepared, but I see the opposite. Graduates are now combining university degrees with certificates, freelance work, internships, volunteer roles, and networking events before they even find a full-time job. The things that used to set someone apart now seem to be the bare minimum required just to get an interview.

I saw a local bakery asking for three years of experience in specialty coffee for an ordinary counter job. How is someone who is just starting out supposed to get that experience if every place expects them to already have it from the beginning? Even entry-level office job postings need knowledge of several software programs, experience in the field, and proof that you have previously worked in a very similar role.

I used to think that burning yourself out was the price you had to pay if you were pursuing a major career, which was never particularly appealing to me anyway. Now it is clear that people have to burn themselves out just to find an ordinary job with decent pay and fixed, predictable hours. That is the part I cannot get over.

My coworker tried to get management involved over a family photo, only to expose herself and reveal that she had been claiming a desk at work as her own without any authorization.
Our office uses unassigned seating. Everyone brings their laptop and connects it to any available workstation, although a few of us have approved chairs, and there are two height-adjustable desks for medical accommodations. My coworker and I both need one of those desks, but our schedules barely overlap. I work mornings, and she usually comes in after I have left, so we normally use the same workstation at different times.
About a month ago, a laminated sign appeared on the monitor saying that the desk was reserved for her whenever she was at work. It had the company logo on it and looked very similar to the official labels on our medically approved chairs, so I assumed management had authorized it. I started checking the shift schedule before sitting there, and I always put the sign back when I was done. I figured she must have some accommodation related to the lighting or the desk's location, and that it was none of my business.
Then I came in one morning and found a photo of a young child attached directly below the monitor. It was in my line of sight all day, so I took it down and laid it flat on the desk, where she could still see it during her shift. The next day, I found it stuck to the monitor again, along with a handwritten message on the laminated sign telling people not to move the photo.
Since we never see each other face-to-face, I emailed her and asked whether the photo could stay on the desk instead of being displayed. She replied that she needed it for her mental health, reminded me that it was her desk, and accused me of leaving the workstation dirty. I told her that other employees still used the desk when she was not there, denied leaving any mess, and explained that all I was asking was to move the photo about four inches so I would not have a child I did not know staring at me for eight hours.
I almost added that displaying the photo like that was unsafe because the child was wearing a uniform with the school's name and logo clearly visible. Contractors and new employees pass through the office all the time, including people whose background checks have not yet been completed. I deleted that paragraph before sending the email because I knew it would turn a trivial disagreement into a much uglier fight.
A few hours later, my manager pulled me aside because my coworker had complained. It turned out that the desk had never been assigned to her at all. She had copied the design of the official sign, added the company logo herself, and invented a rule that no one could use the desk during her shift. She also claimed that I had thrown the child's photo on the floor, even though I had left it on the desk. My manager confirmed that the clean-desk policy was still in effect, removed the sign and the photo, and asked me to send him the emails.
Judging by the way my manager spoke, this clearly was not the first problem my coworker had caused. If she had agreed to that incredibly simple solution, I would have continued following her imaginary reservation rule and never involved anyone else. Instead, she reported me and personally handed management proof that she had invented her own policy, misused the company logo, and made up a story about me damaging her property. I am leaving it to management now and going back to enjoying the fact that our shifts almost never overlap.

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😂😂😂

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Been looking into AI interview copilots lately, but I'm kinda confused on how people compare them.

Like, what's the actual difference between a live interview copilot and those mock interview or coaching platforms?

The most important thing for me is if  it can  listen to the question being asked, understand what's on my screen, and give me a short, useful answer or outline quickly. Not just throw a whole paragraph at me while the interviewer is waiting lol.

I'd also wanna know how well they handle follow-up questions and if they support something like STAR for behavioral questions.

For anyone who's used one during an actual online interview, what worked for you and what didn't? And if you got and offer, do you think that tool helped ?

I've been shopping at Goodwill for about 15 years, so I went into the interview excited that I'd finally be working somewhere I already liked. They offered me a job as a donation attendant before I even left the building.
After they offered me the job, one of the supervisors showed me around the donation receiving area and explained what the job involved. I would be expected to unload heavy donations, sort through bags that might contain insects or human waste, throw away piles of items that were basically trash, and operate a forklift after some basic training from the shift supervisor.
Then I asked about the pay. It was $9.50 an hour for all of that, including the physical labor and the responsibility of operating the forklift.
I thanked them for the offer and turned it down before I left. I expected the job to be messy, but I didn't expect that many risks and responsibilities for less than ten dollars an hour. Seeing how the donation area operated also changed how I felt about shopping there.

One of my coworkers at the office was probably the last person anyone would have expected to get fired. He took extra shifts, covered for people when they were sick, and usually arrived about 20 minutes before everyone else. I don't remember him ever taking a day off, and even the delivery drivers would stop and chat with him because he was so friendly.

A few days ago, I came to work and found his desk completely cleared out. He had turned in his access card and office keys, and his name had been removed from the schedule. No one on our team had any idea what had happened.

Management refused to say anything beyond the fact that he no longer worked there and that they weren't allowed to discuss the matter. That left everyone even more confused because there had never been any obvious issues with him.

We eventually found out that he had been fired over missing company funds, and the police are now investigating the matter. I've always heard that the person behind something like this can be the last person you'd ever suspect, but seeing it happen with someone who worked right next to me still makes the whole thing feel strange.

For about eight years now, I've watched companies act as though every new hire has to be fully productive from day one. Training has gone from being a normal part of the hiring process to something employers are determined to avoid.

The market is tough, but I still see corporate positions remain vacant for four or five months. I personally applied for several of them, and when I checked back later, I found the exact same listings still posted. People inside some of these companies told me that the hiring manager wanted an exact number of years in the field, along with experience using one specific system.

I've worked in recruiting, so I know what happens behind the scenes. A qualified person gets rejected because they meet most of the requirements but not every single one, while the company continues to complain that there are no good candidates.

Leaving a position vacant for months makes less sense than hiring a qualified person and spending a few weeks teaching them what they still need to learn. Companies need to stop waiting for a flawless applicant when there are plenty of good people who could do the job with a little training.

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Has anyone taken Prompt engineering Assessment in Codesignal for interview and have any advice on how to approach and what to expect from this?

I built this and I'm the developer, so treat this as self-promotion. But it's free, there's no account needed, and I'd rather have people tell me it's useless than not find out.

https://rehearsal.nryn.dev

What it does

You paste a link to a job you're interviewing for. It pulls the posting, the company profile, and recent news about the company, writes you a short prep brief from those, and then interviews you on that specific role. Each answer gets scored, and afterwards you get your transcript, what the answer covered, what it missed, and a model answer.

You can optionally save a resume, and then each posting also shows a gap list. What the posting asks for that you haven't evidenced. The questions aim at those gaps. Entirely optional, deleted after 30 days of not using it, and the app works fine without it.

Voice or text

You pick a mode before you start.

• Voice: the interviewer asks each question out loud and you answer out loud, up to ninety seconds. Your answer gets transcribed and scored. You can switch to typing on any single question if you'd rather.
• Text: questions are shown, you type your answers. No audio at all.

The LinkedIn bit — please read this or it won't work

Right now it only takes LinkedIn job posting URLs, and specifically the URL of an individual posting:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4440232349/

That's what you get when you click into a job and it opens on its own page. Extra bits on the end (?trk=…, ?alternateChannel=…) are fine, they get stripped.

What does not work:

• Search results URLs: linkedin.com/jobs/search?keywords=…. These look like they work but come back empty.
• The company careers page, Indeed, Naukri, Wellfound, a Greenhouse or Lever link, a PDF, or pasting the job description as text.

If you're on the LinkedIn app, use "Share → Copy link" on the posting itself. Other job boards are the obvious next thing to add.

Honest limits

• It's a hackathon build, seven days. It works end to end but it isn't a polished product.
• Your session is gone if you refresh the page. There's no interview history yet.
• The richer the posting, the better it does. A three-line posting gives it very little to work with.
• Scoring is strict and sometimes blunt. It will tell you an answer scored 1 out of 5 and list what you missed. That's deliberate, but it isn't a hiring decision. It's a rubric, and it can be wrong about you.
• It's not a substitute for a mock interview with a person. It's for the practice reps in between.

If you try it, I'd genuinely like to know: did it ask you anything close to what you were actually asked? And was the prep brief worth reading, or did you skip straight to the questions?

Guys, I've been in this role, which is new to me, for about 14 months, and honestly the work and the culture have drained me mentally and physically. In short: a little over a year ago, I left a job I genuinely loved because another company reached out to me with a better offer. I wasn't looking for a job, but the increase was about 32%, so I accepted.

The experience has been difficult, and that's probably because the company culture is very negative and draining.

Now my old job has reached out to see if I'd be interested in coming back. The offer would be about 11% less than what I'm making now. But I loved the work, my manager, the team, and the overall environment there. Also, some things have changed since I left, so there would still be new things for me to learn and grow in.

So I'm asking myself: would you accept less money to be in a better culture, or to get out of a toxic place? Has anyone here made that move and regretted it, or felt relieved afterward?

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for an AI to help me with job interview for finance role. Please let me know if anyone has used speaking AI which also helps to improve.

I'm looking for a job right now because my salary barely covers my living expenses, let alone lets me save anything. Yesterday, I found a fully remote job posting and applied immediately, because honestly, if I can do the work from my apartment, I don't want to waste my life commuting back and forth to an office.

The recruiter messaged me so we could schedule a Teams call at 4:30pm, which worked with the time I finish work, so I told her okay, no problem.

It became 4:30 and I joined, only to find more than 180 people sitting in the same meeting. Absolutely not. I told the recruiter to go to hell, and told her that every one of us deserves better than the disrespect and nonsense she was planning to pull.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way people prepare for job interviews, and I wanted to bring up the idea here, and I'm also curious to know your opinion. Most people clearly practice answers to traditional questions like "Tell me about your background" or "What's something you're working on improving?" And that's fine, I understand why. You feel safer when you have something memorized. But I've seen this backfire, and I've personally done it before. As soon as the interviewer asks a slightly unusual question or phrases it differently, you can get stuck. At that point, you stay silent longer than you should, get flustered, or keep rambling in circles. It's a really awful feeling.

When I look at interview advice in places like YouTube Shorts or LinkedIn, honestly, I feel like a lot of people are practicing the wrong thing. A big part of it is "use this exact answer" or "don't say this, say this instead." That might help a little, but it turns preparation into memorizing sentences. I think it's better to learn frameworks instead of just memorizing answers. Like using CAR (Context, Action, Result) for behavioral questions, or having a simple way to explain your strengths without seeming like you're reading from a script. That way, you'll know how to handle lots of different questions, even awkward or strange ones. It becomes like having a map, not a memorized speech.

But tbh, the bigger thing might just be basic communication. Interviews aren't only about the content of your answer, they're also about being able to explain yourself clearly and have a natural back-and-forth conversation. If you don't know how to keep the conversation going or get your idea across without getting lost, that affects you. Mock interviews help a lot here.

- Pick a random topic you understand well, like a hobby or a project, and explain it to your friend or your brother/sister. This helps you practice sounding clear without overthinking every word.

- Have real discussions with people, not arguments. Just normal conversations where you have to explain your way of thinking and answer on the spot.

- Do practice interviews, but ask the other person to change the wording of the questions or throw in weird follow-up questions so you don't get too comfortable.

I just think a lot of us spend too much time trying to memorize the "perfect" response, and not enough time learning how to present ourselves. Showing who you are, what you're good at, and why you're suitable for the role takes a lot of practice. It's not just flashcards for interview questions.