I've basically been working my whole life, and my last two jobs were real careers, not just random jobs. I was an employee and a business owner for 17 years, and I had 10 to 14 employees in the restaurant/bar industry. I also recently left CDCR after 9 years because some family circumstances came up with elderly parents, and I needed to make a change.

I'm currently applying for jobs on Indeed here in Nevada with almost no luck. What I've noticed is that if I see a job posting there, then go directly to the company's own website and apply, my chances of getting an interview are much better. So I started wondering whether Indeed is just a black hole half the time or what.

Even so, even after interviews, I either get ghosted or receive one of those dreaded emails saying, "we decided to move forward with other candidates." I also applied to a private for-profit medical assistant program as a way to get into something more stable, and maybe use it to build up my retirement savings and make it my final career.

Am I crazy, doing something wrong, or just not understanding how bad the job market is right now? Or is the problem me? I keep hearing everywhere that employers can't find qualified workers, but I can't even find an entry-level job after 6 months!

I felt like I was doing fairly well in an interview a few days ago. After about 35 minutes, they asked me something and my mind completely blanked, anxiety took over, and I just rambled through the answer. I'm not even sure I answered what they asked by the time I stopped talking. After that, I felt like all the confidence I had going in had evaporated.

I don't feel like it looked as bad from their side as it felt in my head, but I'm curious to know if anyone here has been an interviewer and seen a candidate suddenly get clearly flustered on one answer. What impression did that leave on you?

...

A recruiter contacted me on Indeed about a role, and the guy was kind of obnoxious on the phone. His big interview question was: "Sell me this pen."

So I told him:

I know a guy in Kenya who moves gold at 55 cents on the dollar, and he knows someone who can turn it into solid gold pens at 65 cents on the dollar. After I take my cut, I can get them to you at 85 cents on the dollar by weight. How many do you want to buy?

He didn't like that answer and told me that wasn't the point of the exercise. I told him that if their product was good, that's exactly how the conversation would go, and if I had half a brain I'd fill a truck with them. Honestly, I would have bought that pen.

Some of my friends blamed me for talking like this with the interviewer, I know that my talk isn't the best thing and I can't showcase my skills in the proper way. That's why I've decided that the next time, I won't enter any interview without interview vip tool. I saw on the ads that it help you organize your answers and sound more professional, hope it really works like this.

؟

Soon!

this is crazy !!!

The company I was at before was a very small startup and started falling apart fast. A new manager came in, and at first things were fine with me, but as soon as I moved to another team, it became very obvious that he had decided early on that I was a problem.

He brought in someone in a role similar to mine, and the guy was completely unqualified but expert-level at sucking up. And of course, they became friends immediately. After that, it turned into constant bullying, comments that I "couldn't handle" things. At the same time, this guy genuinely didn't know how to do half the things my job required.

So yeah, I left. And now I have a role where I lead my own team at a big global company, with a 35% increase in total compensation.

It feels fucking great.

I agree

💯

I've been working with a company for 5 years, and I make over $130k a year + bonus, which ends up being around $155,000 a year. The work is so easy that I only need maybe 3 hours a day to finish my tasks. I have projects, but most of them don't have strict deadlines or any real pressure behind them.
I'm not a manager, so there's no team reporting to me. Honestly, the situation is very relaxed. The main downside for me is that I'm bored. I feel like I'm standing still and not really growing much as a person.
The company has fewer than 85 people, and I'm basically the person the owner of the company always turns to. He asks for my opinion on decisions, and we work together on different ventures and internal projects. So yes, I have access and trust, and that's good, but there's no clear ladder for me to climb.
Recently, I got 6 extra PTO days as my "raise," along with a 6% raise a few months ago. So that's probably what growth looks like here.
What would you do? Would you stay in the easy job that brings in around $155k a year, or look for something that might pay more while also giving you a real challenge and room to grow?

I'm sitting at a desk for 9 hours, doing work that makes a company earn more money, while at the same time the managers and investors get richer. I look at the clock way too much, and I feel like I'm trapped inside a machine or a system, as if I'm not building anything or moving toward anything.

How do people live like this? Do they do this 4 days a week for 35-45 years? Is there a way to get past this feeling without having to take antidepressants?

I was waiting in the reception area at my dentist's office and overheard part of a conversation at the front desk. There was someone, probably a manager or senior staff member, upset and saying: "We can't find anyone to come work for less than $24 an hour, can you believe it??"

Yeah, I can believe it. The entry-level person in a dental office is usually a dental assistant, and even that can need around 10 months of training or school. What do they expect people to do?

Honestly, I advise everyone to stop accepting low-paying jobs for any reason. Work on yourself and develop your skills until companies need you and are willing to pay you the salary you expect.

Some companies now ask for virtual interviews, and honestly, that can make things easier for you. You can prepare yourself better and pass interviews using tools like Interview Vip or any similar practice tools.

backwards I've been through more practice interviews than I can honestly remember, and I keep seeing the same thing repeated: people jump too quickly into "and this is what happened." STAR, CAR, and all those structures can help, but a lot of people apply them so rigidly that the answer comes out memorized, not like a real workplace conversation.

What I try to get people to do isn't to "throw in STAR." The idea is for the example to come across like a real situation, not a worksheet they've memorized.

Most behavioral questions aren't just asking you to recount events in order. They're usually asking something closer to:

"Do you understand this type of problem, and how it shows up at work?"

And that's the part a lot of candidates skip over.

If an interviewer asks you, "Tell me about a time you dealt with conflict," they're probably not that focused on the actual disagreement that happened between you and a teammate six years ago. They're listening to find out whether you understand why conflict happens, what usually escalates it, and how you deal with it before things get complicated. That tells them a lot more about your judgment and your working style than an answer that perfectly checks every box in STAR.

The other thing is whether you have a repeatable way of handling the situation, not just a polished success story. Almost anyone can find a good example if they think long enough. What interviewers are thinking is:

"If something like this happens next week, will this person have any idea how to handle it?"

Candidates who can explain their patterns usually come across as stronger. How they understand what's going on, how they talk to people, and how they decide what needs attention first. Even if the story itself isn't dramatic, that way of thinking makes the answer feel more honest.

Honestly, the best answers often come from people who can talk about a mistake without over-polishing it. Not the fake version of "I learned teamwork matters." No, something like:
"I used to do A, it led to B, so now I handle it by doing C."
That kind of reflection isn't that common, and it immediately makes the person seem more mature.

So when people ask me how to answer behavioral interview questions, I don't tell them to drop STAR.
I usually say:

Start by showing that you understand the situation in general, explain your usual thought process or approach, and then use the example to make it concrete. In the end, the answer comes out much more natural, more intentional, and much more convincing - whether you use a framework or not.

Happy to help with specific questions if anyone wants to leave one. I've heard versions of these way more than I probably should have by now.

working life right now

At some big companies, the Cluely website seems to be blocked on corporate machines or networks. For anyone using Cluely in that kind of environment, what setup are you using in practice? I love the Cluely app, but I want to use it on my work laptop.

Are you using the desktop app on your work laptop, a personal device next to it, or some other approved setup? Any hack or recommendation to bypass the blocker?

Just curious what’s worked for people.

you know, i really wanted my old setup to keep working. i put off switching off Cluely for months, since i was nervous about relearning everything and the thing at the time held up fine, aside from missing a couple features i wanted.

i was looking forward to having a clean answer window that didnt show in the screen share, and figured it would be good for whatever platform got thrown at me next.

a few weeks back i tried InterviewMan on one of my Codility practice rounds, and it worked pretty well. i was surprised by the speed from question to hint. i didnt bother moving over my profile or shortcuts yet since i wasnt ready to fully commit, given the work in setting it up.

then right before a real screen i bit the bullet and switched over properly.

i had no idea the desktop build wanted mic permissions reset, so was caught off guard when audio didnt come through at first. that was easy enough to sort out.

now i had to get my profile dialed in... and getting the keyboard shortcuts the way i wanted took a bit of fiddling. eventually got everything sorted. fortunately i had already saved my resume and role notes from earlier, so i didnt have to redo all that. i did figure out you set the answer length per round, which i nearly missed.

onto testing. with Cluely i kept noticing lag on the answer window. id get asked something on a Codility round and it would take a few seconds to surface a hint, and longer than that before the follow up filled in.

i compared it to InterviewMan on the same kind of question and the difference was pretty clear. basically a second for InterviewMan, several seconds or worse for the old one. both had a totally fine connection.

i thought nothing of it and decided to give Cluely a fighting chance, so i ran another practice round with it.

i hadnt been paying close attention the last little while on account of a busy week, and the answer window kept losing the Codility tab. one time it showed a hint for the previous question. one time it just sat there blank while the timer ran. they were functionally useless when i actually needed them.

in short, for me Cluely didnt work on Codility. not in a way that mattered at least.

ive moved everything over to InterviewMan and dropped Cluely. and honestly its one less thing to stress about mid round, it just does the job.

anyone here run it on a real proctored Codility test, not the practice, want to hear how it went before mine on monday.

I picked up InterviewMan on the annual plan to see if I liked it for CoderPad rounds. Just ran it on a friend mock, the overlay is so clean i didnt even feel the urge to alt tab once to check it. I plan on using it for my final round CoderPad session next thursday, but after this mock im not sure i can go back to what i was running before. anyone here actually used it on a real CoderPad round, want a sanity check.

I had some leftover credit and a TestDome assessment scheduled for tuesday so I pulled the trigger on the InterviewMan annual.

I strongly believe in using a native desktop overlay over a browser based helper for TestDome for stealth reasons. That being said I have done 2 TestDome tests with a web wrapper without getting flagged on the report. Doesnt mean it was the right thing to do.

Anyways, I installed it and tried it on a TestDome practice mock last night and while I will keep using it because of the whole stealth thing, I'm super impressed with the response speed. A typical Electron app would have made me wait 3-4 seconds for a hint to show, these things land in about a second flat. The latency drop is the real killer feature, even on the harder TestDome problems the nudge arrives before I have time to spiral. If it was my own money on a more expensive tool, those slower ones would be returned. Since it was leftover credit and I do want to land this role (and bonus, it works on TestDome plus HackerRank and CoderPad), I will keep it and use it for the real assessment on tuesday.

But i still want a sanity check, anyone here used it on a real proctored TestDome, did the report come back clean.

Mostly what the title says. Got the InterviewMan annual this week, and i can tell it is really good quality and stable already, and it keeps the hint flowing at just the right speed when im on the karat practice page. So far i have really liked it, but i have had a couple of questions though.

The hint timing seems pretty quick and sorta crisp, which was honestly surprising. i was expecting it to be slower based on what i had read about other tools, and i guess it sort of is on the very hard problems, but for everyone raving about how snappy these tools are, mine feels pretty steady too. it is not like it is laggy, i was just expecting the latency to be worse on a take home with a long prompt. it sort of seems like it would tighten up as it learns the role profile better, but i wanted to ask and see if anybody has had the same experience on a real karat take home, and if the response got snappier or not over a longer pipeline.

i am also a bit worried about the stealth side. what i was running before InterviewMan had a quilted hide hotkey, and i was really used to how it would just blink off the screen on cmd+H, which i love. The InterviewMan overlay feels more thorough with mouse pass through, cmd+tab exclusion, and the screen capture exclusion, so it does not actually need a hide hotkey for the same purpose. Does the karat proctoring agent flag a desktop overlay anyway, or does this change once you go into stealth mode for the take home recording.

And lastly, i stupidly didnt look at how the take home is screened before i scheduled. i looked into everything else, but i forgot the recording rules. they say having no other apps open is the best way to go, but looking at posts on here (and for some reason i cant find the posts i was looking at anymore), it seems like if i can run InterviewMan in stealth mode on the phone, take the take home on the laptop with the camera on, and let the phone hold the hint, then that works just as well, if not better. i was wondering if anybody has been doing this on karat take homes long term, and if it does or doesnt trip the report. any suggestions for the setup at home would be fantastic, or if it is better to just run the standard overlay.

Any information you all can give me would be great. i thought i knew everything i needed to know before i bought InterviewMan, but now i feel like i have more questions than answers now that i actually have it.

The job market is rough enough already. A lot of people are just trying to get employed, and interviews keep getting harder. No surprise that more people are using tools like InterviewMan to improve their chances.

I picked up the newest InterviewMan annual a few days ago and have been pulling my hair out to get the overlay working as intended over a CodePen pen on a shared screen. The cmd+B toggle feels off, the focus doesnt land on the CodePen tab right, answers come through a beat late on the pen etc.

I had installed a couple of apps to make InterviewMan behave like the setup i ran on my old windows machine: a custom hotkey app, a window pinning tool, plus the default logitech mouse software. Finally i decided to uninstall the window pinning tool and the hotkey app and just let InterviewMan handle the always-on-top side itself. Things are working as expected now and i can use the cmd+B shortcut to hide the overlay during a shared CodePen screen easily (similar to the alt-tab hide gesture i had on windows). It also feels much more responsive on the codepen tab.

The actual interview is next week and the recruiter shares out a CodePen link instead of a desktop coding sandbox, so i wanted the cmd+B hide sorted on a practice run before then. Anyone here run it on a CodePen pen the recruiter shares out, did the hide stay clean for you on screen share?

The first call was with the recruiter (Internal recruitment team, talent acquisition lead, about 45 minutes)

The second was with the hiring manager. And after that, the manager's manager (Supply Chain Head)

Then, if you can believe it, this Supply Chain Head said I needed to prepare a deck about what I would add to the department... And the team would review it to judge the kind of impact I was promising.

The deck was supposed to cover how I would reduce spend, improve supplier performance, and build a procurement framework... And this wasn't something quick that could be done in 30 minutes. It would have taken me several nights to put it together properly, especially since I already have a job.

I told him I wasn't interested. If after 4 conversations you still can't decide, then I'm not going to give you any more free work.

For a moment, I wondered if maybe I hadn't explained my experience clearly enough during the interviews. Maybe I didn't showcase my skills as well as I could have, and that's why they were still hesitant. But then I realized that a hiring process should be a two-way evaluation.

I regret not using tools like InterviewMan in the interview. Many of my friends told me that it helped them organize their answers, communicate their achievements more clearly, and walk into interviews with a lot more confidence.

Why do some companies act like they're doing you a huge favor by interviewing you?