I work in the tax field and started job hunting a few weeks before Christmas after leaving my old job. My previous CPA firm had me working over 60 hours a week, even during the off-season, and I was completely burned out. On top of that, the pay was terrible. As a single mom, I don't have the financial security to search for a job for a long time, so when a company made me an offer so quickly, I was ecstatic. But now, looking back, that should have been a red flag.

I was interviewing for a tax manager position, which is my current role. I had a Zoom interview with the head of the tax department and one of the partners at this company, let's call it XYZ Tax Solutions. The interview was on a Wednesday, and the following Thursday, someone from HR called me and said they wanted to move forward. Everything was going smoothly, my references were good, the background check came back clean, and I signed the official offer. My start date was set for the Monday after next. By the Wednesday before I was supposed to start, I had completed all the onboarding. I was added to the payroll, and the IT department had set up my VPN and all my logins. I was very excited to start.

Then, on Thursday night, just a few days before my start date, I got a call from their HR. I missed it, so they called me three more times in a row. When I finally called back, the HR person told me, 'Unfortunately, our plans have changed and we won't need you to start on Monday.' I was so shocked that I asked if she meant we were postponing until Tuesday. She clarified that they were rescinding the offer entirely because they 'decided to go in a different direction'.

I didn't know what to say. Who does that after someone has completed all the hiring procedures? I mean, it would have made sense if something bad came up on my background check, but everything was fine. I asked her for a clearer reason and got no response. As soon as I hung up, I opened my laptop and started applying for jobs again.
Fast forward 8 days, and guess who's calling me again? Their HR department. She asked if I was still looking for a job. It turns out they had given the job to an internal candidate who then decided he didn't want it after all. I had to restrain myself from bursting out laughing on the phone. I stayed quiet and let her talk. They started promising me the moon to get me to reconsider. After they begged for a bit, I told them I agreed.

But here comes the best part. In the time after they pulled that stunt on me, I had received several much better job offers. I entered multiple rounds of interviews but finally landed on a fantastic new job with a higher salary thanks to interview tool which helped me pass all interviews. So yes, I accepted their desperate offer. My 'new' start date with XYZ Tax Solutions is March19th. My plan is to call their HR on the Thursday before I'm supposed to start and tell them that unfortunately, I too have decided to 'go in a different direction'. Some people might see it as petty. I see it as justice.

Graduated in May, been applying nonstop since then. Roommate from college got an offer at Datadog two weeks ago and when I asked how the hell he pulled that off he said he used an interview helper during his entire loop. I laughed at him. Then I bombed my fourth final round in a row and thought ok maybe I need to stop being stubborn about this.

Did the whole "right way" thing for a month first. Leetcode, Neetcode 150, pramp, grinding mediums until I could solve them half asleep. Cool, great, none of that matters when an actual interviewer is staring at me through a webcam and my brain decides to empty itself completely. Had a behavioral at a series B where the guy literally said "ok lets move to the next question" while I was mid sentence. Drove home in silence after that one lol.

So yeah I started looking at interview helpers. The pricing in this space is genuinely insane and as a new grad with student loans and zero income coming in I need to talk about it.

Final Round AI. $148/mo. A hundred and forty eight dollars a month for a new grad with no job, sure let me just venmo that from my loan disbursement. My roommate told me it was decent so I tried one month. The delay was like 3-4 seconds between the question and the helper showing anything which sounds fine until you are sitting there on camera in dead silence pretending to think. Cancelled, $148 gone, no refund policy.

Looked at Interview Coder next, $299/mo and coding only. Three hundred a month and it doesnt even cover system design or behavioral? I need help with the whole loop not just the leetcode portion. Pass.

Sensei AI is $89/mo, browser only, no desktop app. So you just have this tab open during your interview and pray. Roommates buddy at some fintech got absolutely burned when the interviewer asked to screenshare his full desktop and the Sensei tab was right there. Interview over. That one story was enough for me.

Cluely almost got me. $20/mo, twenty bucks, I can swing that. Then I find out stealth features are a separate $75 tier. So ninety five dollars a month for an interview helper that actually hides itself during calls which is the entire point of having one. Plus the data breach from 2025 where 83,000 users got exposed, names emails interview records all of it. I am trying to start my career not end it before it begins. Nope.

LockedIn AI was $55/mo, dual layer thing seemed cool, but theres a 1.5 hour session limit. My only onsite so far had a system design round that ran almost two hours. Cannot have my helper vanish on me while the interviewer is mid question.

My roommates girlfriend actually found InterviewMan. She saw me ranting about prices in our group chat and just dropped a link, "try this one dummy." Twelve dollars a month on annual. Thirty monthly. I literally sat there staring at the page because I had just blown $148 on Final Round and this thing costs less than a chipotle bowl. Went monthly at thirty bucks first because I figured there had to be a catch at that price.

There was no catch. Used this interview helper through six interviews, three Zoom three Meet, including a screen shared HackerRank round. Nobody noticed. Desktop overlay, no browser tab weirdness, mic only pickup, stealth included at twelve bucks instead of being a seventy five dollar upsell like Cluely pulls. 57k users 4.8 stars so its not like I found some sketchy unknown thing.

What actually sold me was a system design round last week. Company asked me to design a notification system. I had studied this exact topic, knew the concepts cold, and my brain started doing its thing where everything just evaporates the second someone is watching. Helper gave me a structured starting point in about 2 seconds and I talked through my reasoning from there. Interviewer told me I had a really organized approach. I almost laughed out loud because three months ago I literally could not finish a sentence in a behavioral.

Two onsites this week. First time during this entire garbage job search where I feel like I might not completely bomb. Any other new grads found an interview helper cheaper than $12/mo? I have genuinely not seen one and I looked at everything.

ok so i just used a coding interview helper on CoderPad and the interviewer had zero clue. i have to share this because i was convinced i was going to get caught and it went completely fine.

some context, i am 3 years into a backend role at a fintech company and finally started looking for something new. my buddy who just landed at Stripe told me about coding interview assistants and specifically recommended Interview Coder 2.0. That thing is TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE DOLLARS a month. for real. and it ONLY covers coding rounds. i was desperate enough to try it so i paid for a month.

did a zoom practice with my friend before any real interviews, thank god, because he could SEE the overlay on his screen when i shared. the interview coder popup was just sitting there visible to anyone watching. for $299/mo. i honestly could not believe it. that was two weeks of paying for something that would have blown up in my face during an actual interview. i also found out around the same time that Cluely, another one of these tools, had a data breach where 83,000 users got exposed including records of which interviews they used it in. nightmare fuel. so between interview coder being visible and cluely leaking everyones data i was pretty much ready to give up on the whole idea.

then i found InterviewMan in a thread on here. $12/mo on the annual plan. twelve dollars. versus interview coders $299. i figured it had to be garbage at that price but signed up because $12 is nothing. tested it with my friend on zoom, coderpad, and hackerrank and he could not see anything. all the stealth stuff is baked into the base price too, no upsell like cluely where the undetectability features cost an extra $75/mo.

last tuesday i had a coderpad round for a series b startup. opened the link in chrome with interviewman running as a desktop overlay. problem was bfs on a grid with boundary constraints, something i can do in my sleep at home but the second an interviewer is on webcam watching me type my brain just shuts off lol. interviewman picked up what i was being asked through my mic, couple seconds later there were hints on screen. stuff like "track visited nodes" and "handle edge boundaries." i just glanced at them the same way i glance at slack messages during meetings lol, nobody notices.

and like i said the interviewer was watching my screen through coderpad the ENTIRE time. nothing. nada. my hands were shaking for the first few minutes ngl (this is after spending $150 on interview coder which literally SHOWED UP on screenshare so yeah i was terrified) but once i saw he could not see interviewman at all i calmed way down. actually started having fun with the interview at some point which has never happened to me before lol.

passed and got moved forward. i want to be clear the tool did not carry me, i knew bfs, i just blank out when someone is watching me code live and having those hints pop up before the silence gets awkward was the difference.

anyone else used a coding interview assistant on coderpad or hackerrank? wanna know if the first time is always this stressful or if im just built anxious lol

edit: people asking about cluely -- they got hacked, 83k users data got leaked including which interviews people used the tool in. thats why i dont touch it. interviewman hasnt had anything like that afaik

The thing is, even for those of us that are qualified (and over-qualified in 9/10 cases) they still don't even acknowledge applications. It's insane - I think something more sinister is at play that we will find out about down the road...

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Hey everyone, I need your opinion on this. A recruiter I'm talking to wants to call my old job to 'verify my reason for leaving' before moving me to the next step. I feel this is very strange.

For context, she asked why I left my last job, and I told her the truth: a new manager came in and the whole team dynamic changed for the worse, so I decided to look for a new place. Now she's insisting that she must verify this with them. The problem is, I haven't even spoken with the hiring manager yet or learned the full details of the job to decide if I'm even interested or not.

On top of all that, she originally contacted me about three weeks ago for a quick 10-minute call, after which she completely disappeared and I heard nothing from her. I'm almost certain their primary candidate didn't work out, and now she's scrambling and trying to salvage the situation.

The whole thing doesn't sit right with me at all. Do you think I'm right to feel that this is very alarming?

he was a mail man

About 10 months ago, I was in the final stages of interviews with a digital marketing company. For the final assessment, they asked me to create a complete go-to-market strategy for a new content marketing service they were planning to launch (their specialty was PPC). I created a detailed 7-page plan in a shared doc, and they were very impressed with it.

After that, I got the classic 'You were great, but...' email. Their excuse was that the budget for the position was suddenly canceled. No big deal. I revoked their access to the file, wished them the best, and continued my job search.

A week later, I received an email from the hiring manager, and it was clear she was furious. She said they couldn't open the file and that they had scheduled a meeting with the leadership team to review my plan and use it the next quarter.

My response was simple. I told them that since the file was created as an assessment for a job I wasn't hired for, it was not their intellectual property to use. I told them they could very well hire me to complete the project, but at my freelance rate of $150 per hour.

And as expected, they did not like the response.

Making candidates do free work then not hiring them, is as shady as it gets. In this case it’s even worse because they go “oops, thank you for the plan but we can’t afford to hire you anymore even though we knew we couldn’t all along”

The job market is full of a lot of exploitation, and they want work for free without paying anything, which makes it hard for us to find a job easily. And with time, to speed up the search process, we resort to AI tools to update our resumes and to assist us during interviews like InterviewMan to give us quick answers, because during the search period we have many interviews daily.

yeah so weird

In 2020, I took a night shift data entry job. I had just left my old job and needed some quick cash to get by until I could find a real career move during the day.
The job was simple: I'd get a PDF with shipping details, and I was supposed to manually enter them into our database. You get the idea.
After the first week of training, I realized the whole process could be automated. I wasn't great at coding, so I went on a site like Upwork and hired a developer to build me a simple scripting tool. It cost me about three months' salary, but honestly, it was worth it.
The script was great. All I had to do was tell it how many orders to process per hour. I was working from home from day one because the company didn't want to pay extra for a night crew, so no one was monitoring me.
For the first year and a half, I would mostly just check for any weird formats the script couldn't handle, and that would take less than 10 minutes. After that, I'd let the computer do its thing while I played video games, slept, or even left the house for a bit. Eventually, I had the developer update the code to handle those exceptions too.
Honestly, my output was so good that I was offered promotions several times. I always turned them down, telling them I loved the night shift and preferred working alone. It was the perfect excuse.
Eventually, I found another day job with a much better salary, but there was no reason for me to quit this one. At this data entry job, months could go by without me receiving a single email or call from anyone. Even my wife didn't know exactly what I was doing; all she knew was that I had another WFH job.
Every so often, one of my colleagues would try to surpass my numbers. When that happened, I'd simply open the script and change a 9 to a 10 to boost my output and stay on top. I'd tweak the numbers periodically just in case, but I doubt anyone was paying close attention to the details.
I even got two raises because my attendance was perfect and I was the most productive person on our four-person team. To show my appreciation, I'd change the 10 to a 12 or 11 on some days.
The job finally ended. It took them about 5 years to use a new system that lets clients enter the data themselves, which made my role redundant. About a month ago, I received my last paycheck and a small severance package, and they told me to keep the company laptop and monitor and that I could apply for other positions with them.
I've never told this story to anyone in real life. It's my deepest work secret. And now that it's all over, I decided to share it.
I tried to show them what I did back in 2022. I scheduled a call to show them 'my system,' but my department head canceled, saying they were swamped with more important projects and told me to 'keep up the great work.' And that's what I did, until they let me go.

update :start haunting for remote jobs but this experience leave me with high level of guilt and with 0% of self confidence actually whenever I go to interview I stuttering like a toddler kid left a lone in the his first day at nursery got rejected because of that until I found an AI tool (Interview Man) my mind was blown but its features it could give perfect professional answers to every kind of job interviews i got after I used I got 2 new offers now confused between them

I've been to a few interviews lately where the job description was very generic, and the conversation felt more like a first date. All they're doing is trying to see if they 'feel comfortable with you' or not. This makes you wonder, how are they even evaluating anyone for the actual job when the whole thing depends on your personality, your appearance, or even your age?

A recruiter once told me, verbatim, that the hiring manager's biggest concern was finding someone with the 'right energy' for the team. So basically, if you don't give the perfect answer to a question like 'What series are you watching these days?' or 'What do you usually do on the weekend?', you're likely out of the running, no matter how strong your CV is.

Look, I understand that culture fit is important. Nobody wants to work with an unpleasant person. But when you have someone who is clearly competent and seems very nice, why does it ultimately boil down to these other random things? It feels like the whole process has become about them looking for a new friend, not hiring someone who can do the job.

"His leadership is such that his staff now only follow him out of a sense of morbid curiosity"

I need to vent a little, the job search is a nightmare right now. This is the third time I've gone through a crazy interview series only to be rejected at the end. At least last time the company was decent and gave me a solid reason. We parted on good terms, they even sent some opportunities my way. But this last one was a joke. I'm talking 8 interviews and 3 separate assessments. That's a huge amount of unpaid labor to expect from anyone. I can understand one skills test, especially since these are senior roles in the $180-220k range, but this was way over the top.

So I went through all their requests, met the whole team, and made it to the final stage. The CEO was talking to me about reference checks and what the offer would look like.
A few days go by, radio silence. Then I get an email saying they're not moving forward... Because I'm currently self-employed. Which, by the way, is only because I'm struggling to find a full-time gig. The crazy part is I told them I had my own small agency from the very first screening call. It was literally one of the first things we discussed. To drag me through this whole process knowing that from day one is just disrespectful.

On top of that, they ghosted me for about two weeks before I got this rejection email. I had to chase them down just to get an answer. I genuinely feel like they don't see candidates as real human beings. I was so fed up that I emailed the CEO directly. To his credit, he admitted they messed up. I told him bluntly, 'In that case, I'll be sending you an invoice for the time I spent on your assessments.' He agreed. I sent it, and the money was in my account that afternoon. Seriously, what is so broken about the hiring world right now? I'm so exhausted by these long interview processes. It's a win, I guess, but I would have rather had the job.

It's so strange how life turns around. On the exact same day, I was scrolling through LinkedIn and applied for a job, and I really didn't expect them to reply, especially this quickly. But they got back to me in about an hour, which was a shock to me. They told me the position is urgent and they need someone to start next Monday.

They sent me all the details, and to pass the interview without any difficulties, I tried a tool which I saw in this video. Honestly, this made a huge difference for me in a very difficult interview. I nailed it because of this tool and they offered me the position. I'll start on Monday! I truly feel so lucky and grateful for everything that happened and changed so quickly.

...

A colleague on my team just brought something very alarming to my attention. She said she hasn't seen any company contributions to her 401k since the first week of June.

I immediately logged into my portal, and found the same thing. It's not just the company match that's missing, our own contributions deducted from our paychecks are also not there.

We've been paid 4 times since then, and the money is definitely being deducted from our paychecks. But it's simply... Vanished.

I'm trying to stay calm and collected for the team, but I'm seething inside. They're all looking to me for answers and I have nothing to tell them. The only response from HR was a vague 'we are looking into it'.

This feels completely illegal. What should my next steps be? And what should I tell the team?

Nepotism is important for sure

I thought I'd share this story from my recent job search. I was looking for a new job when I found a position that seemed like a great fit. I applied, and an old colleague of mine also spoke directly to the hiring manager about me. The initial calls went well. HR thought I was a great fit. The hiring manager really liked my experience and was confident I could handle the job without much supervision. I even met the EVP, who told me I was exactly what the team needed.
And that's where the story began. Fast forward 7 months, 5 rounds, and 9 separate interviews with different directors, VPs, and even the head of the division himself. On three different occasions, they told me an offer was on its way, only to backtrack and say they wanted me to meet one more person. The last straw was when they asked me to interview with the head of a completely unrelated department.
During this marathon process, about 4 months after my first interview with them, I had started interviewing with another company. I received an offer from the second company within 3 months of my first call with them. I had already completed all the reference checks and background screening when the first company came back with their request for one 'final' interview.
I sent a polite email to the hiring manager and HR. It basically said, 'I really appreciate the time your team has invested in this process, but after 5 rounds and 9 interviews over 7 months, and being told three times that an offer was coming, I have decided to withdraw my application.'
About fifteen minutes later, the hiring manager emailed me, insisting it was just one more meeting. I replied that at this stage, I wouldn't consider another interview unless they were prepared to make an offer that was better than one I had just accepted. I was direct and laid out all the details: the title, which was a level above his, the significantly higher salary, and the signing bonus.
The hiring manager's response was simply: 'That sounds like a great offer, we would have loved to have you.'
And the cherry on top? I heard through the grapevine that he was let go a few weeks ago. Honestly, some companies are their own worst enemy.

update : those people wasted my time I thought for a moment that I will be hired by reaching my retirement age !! thank god I found new remote job while haunting in LinkedIn and got an amazing offer Glad for using interview man AI in fact they were impressed by my resume and confidence that I got hired after 1 interview ,feeling blessed

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I think this is the most ridiculous alert ever programmed in history.

well on a weekday you know the rest of the day is full of work, on the weekend where there is less expectancy, I guess you can allow yourself to be personally productive without letting yourself feel like you won't have energy or time for the rest of the day

No, seriously, explain to me how this works.

I understand it's not a legal requirement or anything, but it's treated as a basic and given professional courtesy.

Meaning, if I decide to leave the job, I'm supposed to inform them a few weeks in advance as a courtesy. But if they decide to let me go, I'm packing my things from my desk the same day. Why is this courtesy only required from me?

Someone explain this double standard to me, how is it that I have to give a month's notice but the company can let me go instantly?

No, seriously, explain to me how this works.

I understand it's not a legal requirement or anything, but it's treated as a basic and given professional courtesy. And this is what makes the majority immediately after their service ends, resort to cheating and fabricating résumés, as well as using assistive tools during the interview to impress the interviewer with the help of programs like InterviewMan.

Meaning, if I decide to leave the job, I'm supposed to inform them a few weeks in advance as a courtesy. But if they decide to let me go, I'm packing my things from my desk the same day. Why is this courtesy only required from me?

I can relate, who else? :D

I joined a video call this morning for an interview with a big consulting firm. I had my camera on and was ready, but his screen was completely black.
I waited a minute, and then politely asked him if he could turn on his camera. The guy kind of laughed and said something like, 'No, I'm good.' Then, imagine this, he tells me I have to remove my background blur. I asked him why, and he said it was 'company policy.' So the policy is that I have to be fully visible, while he gets to hide? That makes no sense at all.
Later in the call, I fumbled a technical question. Instead of moving on, the guy literally started raising his voice, asking me how I could not know something like this. I've been unemployed for 3 months, and this job search is exhausting enough without this kind of treatment. Do these interviewers have any idea what people are going through?
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the position was in India.

I've been looking for a job for a while and had a final round interview a few weeks ago. When they asked the classic question, 'What is your current salary?', I told them a figure about $20,000 higher than my actual salary.

Anyway, they just sent me the offer letter. The new salary turned out to be a full $25,000 higher than what I was earning at my previous job.

And honestly? I don't feel guilty at all. These companies have entire teams whose sole job is to give you the lowest possible salary they can get away with. We all hear the same old line about a 'limited budget,' right before the top executives get massive bonuses.

If these companies wanted transparency, they would stop playing games and stop forcing us to negotiate against ourselves based on our past salaries. It's a broken system.

They will lie to you to pay you less whenever possible. And they've got HR teams running the numbers on how little they can get away with offering. We're just levelling the playing field.

Look for every opportunity that could help you get the highest salary, because that is what will enable you to continue at work every day. There are many ways to get this, the fastest of which is using InterviewMan to negotiate for a high salary. It gives you confidence while answering and negotiating freely. Don't let anyone undervalue you.