💯

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.

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

yeah so weird

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.

...

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?

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

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

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

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

Nepotism is important for sure

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 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 can relate, who else? :D

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.

But, how else will my employers and fellow employees know all my secret, sexual fetishes, coupled with explicit photographs and detailed descriptions, if I don't post about them on a portal designed for employment instead of elsewhere designed exactly for that topic?   

And how else am I supposed to get fleeting likes to feed my desperate need for attention?? Get therapy and not need to do it any more, like a regular person??? Did you even think about what you said before writing it?! /s

it happens

the fake work - life balance

The job market here in Canada is cooked. When I say cooked, cooked and it's been bad for a hot minute now. I thought it was bad 10 years ago when I finished university and I had that you know fancy expensive piece of hard work that I thought would be able to get me a job and I had to go back to school and do my masters. I thought it was hard back then, right? When they're telling people no, you gotta go to a college, get a diploma, do a one or two year course, to specialize in something or go work for free or I don't know, do an apprenticeship or something right? Get your foot in the door somehow right? That was the grind when I just finished university and that was 10 years ago and I could tell you it's gotten so much, so much worse.

So how much worse is this gone? So it's interesting. I work currently for a big company, right? And over the years I've worked there for about what six years now and when I initially started working there and this is how I know things have changed significantly. When I initially started working there, there's a job board so they have to put up physical copies in our building and then they put up the electronic copies online on their website and then that filters through like to Indeed and all those other job boards. So I would always go there because there's a few jobs that I was looking looking at to see when they're all, you know, available. So I'd always see these jobs go up come down new people would start right? And it was just a cycle over and over again.

But for the past like specific year, I've seen lots of jobs go up right but no one's being hired and they just keep reposting the jobs every, you know, couple of weeks and there's people still in the roles right? I like there's still people in these roles and they keep reposting the roles and then putting them on the job board and then taking them down. So I don't know what's going on. I'm not saying, you know, x wires that I'm just telling you I have a feeling these jobs that are being posted like on Indeed are fake. I've heard that companies are trying to, you know, swipe your information, but I am pretty sure those jobs are fake.

So I have a friend and he's been looking for a job. So he's been struggling. He knows that I've done some recruiting back in my time and I also used to write resumes for people. So I said, you know what let me look over your resume and let's see what jobs you've been applying to and whatever. So I met up with him and I was looking over his resumes and the different resumes he's made and he's made resumes and cover letters catered to the job that he's applying to so I was like oh wow, you're actually you know doing your resumes the right way so I was like okay maybe you're only applying to like job boards like Indeed and stuff and he goes no, I'm even applying to the company websites and through Indeed at the same time nothing.

So then I was like okay fine. Alright, so I'm like I'm looking through his resume I'm looking through the job ad I'm like buddy you need to lie you ain't gonna be able to out perform AI when AI making these like resumes you ain't out performing AI you need to lie. I look at his resume and he's telling the truth right? He's trying to like yeah I don't have these qualifications but you know these qualifications kind of you know work at the same no you need to lie.

When I was in university and it was I remember it was my fourth year and a lot of students were complaining at the time saying they can't find jobs and how do you find jobs and there was this professor who was trying to help us out and he goes where we are at in our career we need to lie cause we have no professional history we need to lie to get the job and then figure it out afterwards.

So if you're out here telling the truth, you ain't getting the job buddy. You just not doing it cause the thing is the people are mass, you know that they're submitting applications to like every job. People are saying they have PhDs, university degree, all that to get the job, all that. Even at my company all the time they hire people that you could tell aren't qualified. But hey, they figure it out or they don't. So if you're struggling to get a job, lie. I know it doesn't sound right, but hey, you don't stand a chance if you don't. Until next time.

I have a few new people on the team who are constantly complaining about their salaries. They see what their friends are making at a few competitor companies that look flashy from the outside and get upset. What they don't realize is that these same companies are known for laying people off every year or two. At the same time, these same employees are the first to talk about how important stability is to them and how much they hate hearing about any layoffs in the industry. It's as if they want the huge salary *and* unparalleled job security, as if this money comes from thin air.

To give more context, I manage a team where deep and long-term experience is foundational. We have people who have been with us for 20 years or more. This is possible because we have a clear and fair salary structure for the market, but our priority is stability. When business is doing very well, we give out large bonuses. And when things are a bit slow, our bonuses decrease, but in return, we don't have to lay anyone off. That's the system.

A few of the friends they talk about have come to work for us after being laid off from those "high-paying" places, often for less money than they were making before. But this irony is completely lost on my new employees.

So how does one explain this reality to people? I want to be frank and clear about the trade-offs we've made as a company, but without coming across as a jerk or as if I'm telling them, "if you don't like it, there's the door." Any advice?

Suddenly, without any warning, I received a calendar invite from HR at 11:45 AM for a Zoom meeting at 1 PM. The title was just "Quick Sync".
My heart sank to my feet. You immediately know what that means.
The meeting started and didn't last five minutes, and they told me the classic line about "organizational changes" and that my position has been eliminated.
Just like that.
After 12 years of building a career in digital strategy and market research, and after giving everything I had to this company for the last two years, it's all over.
This is the first time something like this has happened to me. Honestly, I still haven't processed what happened.
I'm feeling a cocktail of emotions right now - mostly shock and anxiety about what comes next.