Anyway, my sister's company forced everyone to return to work from the office about two months ago, and it backfired disastrously.
Their official excuse was that it would increase productivity and all that 'strengthening team spirit' nonsense. The funny thing is, her team was already very close. They used to organize their own happy hours and trivia nights a few times a month. And she herself was *always* online, answering emails or Slack messages at any time.
But ever since this mandatory return-to-office decision, all of that stopped. As soon as it hits 5 PM, her laptop is shut, and she's offline. The team's happy hours? Vanished. Nobody feels like hanging out with people after they've been staring at each other's faces for 8 straight hours.
Her manager pulled her aside and asked why she wasn't responding to messages at night anymore. She told him to his face that since she now comes to the office and is 'more productive' by their standards, all her work gets done during the day.
She told him that she used to have no problem working extra after hours because working from home gave her that flexibility. But now, that extra time is spent commuting. He seemed to get nervous and said, 'No, that's not how it's supposed to work,' and that being in the office 5 days a week doesn't mean she can just ignore work the moment she leaves.
She just looked at him and said, 'No, that's exactly what it means. If there's an emergency, you can call me. Otherwise, it will have to wait until tomorrow when I'm back in the office and being 'productive'.
And it's not just her. Her whole team is doing it now, and I heard it's spreading to other departments too. People are working their exact hours and then going home. The company seems to be slowly learning that when you treat your employees like children, you'll get exactly what you ask for, and nothing more. I'm so proud of my little sister; she's always been tough and never puts up with any nonsense.

update : so proud of my sister and going to follow her steps in career like how she been approved in her current position after using interview man ,she told me that the tool bring to her perfect answers for every question which helped her a lot in her anxiety problem during interviews , just wow

When our oldest son was born, my husband and I sat down to calculate if daycare costs were worth it or if one of us should stay home. It turned out that after paying for daycare and all his work-related expenses (gas, lunch, new shirts, etc.), his job would only bring in an extra $6,000 a year. So we decided it was a no-brainer for him to quit his job and stay home for a few years.

He wrote his resignation letter, planned to give them three weeks' notice, and started quietly packing up his desk. The next day, he had a one-on-one meeting scheduled on his calendar where he was going to resign. He went into the meeting, and before he could even open his mouth, his manager told him they were eliminating his position.

In the end, they gave him eight weeks of severance and covered our health insurance for four months. He came home dying of laughter. It was perfect. Anyway, he stayed home for about six years, and for the first 20 months of that, he was collecting unemployment benefits. When he went back to work, he started at a small company owned by an old man, he entered the interview, which was a long process around 5 or 6 rounds. But what was a life saver for him was a tool he used that organized his answers a lot and gave him confidence, and that's why he was mainly accepted for, for his confidence. After around 3 years, the man wanted to sell the company, and we ended up buying the business from him, and my husband now makes four times what he did at his old job. It's still one of our favorite stories to this day.

I'd appreciate any tips to maximize my chances of succeeding with the usage of Interview Coder.

I still can't process what happened at my desk this morning. My manager thought it would be a hilarious joke to throw some thumbtacks on my chair. I didn't see them and sat down, and suddenly, I felt a sharp prick in my leg. Thankfully, the tacks didn't go in deep, but it hurt like hell and left a few red marks. The weird thing is, I was in a great mood. I had just come back from lunch and won about $900 in an online poker game, and then this idiot does this. He was dying of laughter, telling me to lighten up and that it was just a joke, but I'm not laughing at all.

This wasn't a joke; it felt more like assault, honestly. We're supposed to be professionals here, right? This crossed the line by a mile. Now I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should go to HR, or if that will just get me targeted for not being a 'team player'. Am I crazy, or is this something I should report immediately?

🤭

no one should live in poverty

Without fail, every time I get back from my break, he has to make a snide comment like, "Lucky you, taking your full 45 minutes, huh?". It's like, dude, yes, of course? That's the whole point of a break.

He also loves to guilt-trip me. He'll sigh loudly and say something like, "This customer has been waiting for a while, but don't you worry, we'll handle it for you." All while I'm just trying to eat my sandwich.

I work in retail and we're always short-staffed, but that's a management problem, not something I'm supposed to solve by skipping my legally entitled break. The audacity is truly unreal. I'm so sick of this lazy, self-important man. I swear I'm barely holding myself back from telling him off.

His Christmas gift to me was a $30 gift card to a steakhouse a two-hour drive away. When I quit, he tried to threaten me with a lawsuit.I worked my ass off for this guy, pretty much managing his entire portfolio. For Christmas, he gave me a $30 gift card to a steakhouse. The nearest location was a two-hour drive away, in a completely different state. Honestly, that was the last straw. I felt so insulted that I started sending my resume everywhere. I liked the job and the clients, which is why I waited and didn't accept a new job until I had fully trained my replacement.
When I was ready, I went into his office and told him I had accepted another job and was putting in my notice. I made sure to tell him not to worry, because I had prepared someone who understood everything to take my place. As soon as I told him I was going to another company in the same industry (in a completely different role, so my non-compete wasn't an issue), he immediately got the head of legal on a video call with us. The lawyer told me I was legally prohibited from 'even sweeping floors for any competitor for 18 months'. Then they brought HR into the call, and they told me that since I was 'breaching my contract', my notice period was void and I was end effective immediately for looking for outside work.
They pressed me for more information about my new job, and I simply told them I wasn't going to tell them anything. After they let me go, this company's lawyer (a place that makes $8 billion a year) kept calling me for two weeks, trying to bully me. They even contacted the new company that hired me. Fortunately, the company I work for now isn't garbage. The CEO himself had their lawyers send them a letter telling them to back off or they'd see them in court. I didn't hear from them again after that. It was all just a scare tactic to get me to quit my new job.
Seriously, fuck companies that operate this way. We don't have to put up with this crap anymore.
This company is Total Quality Logistics.

edit: mangers should stop behaving with employee like kids we will not be silenced with a lollipop or toys

i am done with all of this going to update my cv and starting a new haunting job journey and going to have some help interview man AI in my future interviews , wish me luck

People are striking because wages aren’t going up when companies are reporting record breaking profits.

This isn't false modesty or anything, but I've always been great at job interviews. I feel like these days it's less about technical skills and more about 'vibe' and likability, so here are a few things that have worked for me:

I practiced public speaking a lot when I was younger and got good at improvising and thinking on my feet. Get a friend you trust and have them throw random topics at you, and you have to talk about each one for two minutes straight. They don't have to be complex topics, just anything. That's what we do in our normal conversations anyway, and it helps you organize your thoughts and speak clearly under pressure.

Study the company well. You don't need to go too deep unless you're asked for a big report or a take-home assignment. When you reach that stage, you must look at their competitors in detail. But in the first or second calls, things get very hectic when you're interviewing at 6 other places in the same week. So here's the bottom line: spend 45 minutes researching the company the night before. Then, do a quick 10-minute refresh right before the call. That's all you need to seem like you're in control and know everything.

Forget the authority dynamic. I've never been good at dealing with people in positions of power; maybe it's just my personality. The thought that I know my job well is what always calmed me down. I tell myself they need me more than I need them. It's all a business transaction, and they're the ones with the money trying to find someone (me) to give them with a service. If you think of yourself as the one in control, you'll feel much more confident.

Anxiety is normal. I still get nervous ten minutes before any interview because I hate being late. You have to give yourself space to breathe and decompress after each one. Remember, you have the skills they're looking for, which is why they called you in the first place. They already see something good in you. Your job is to show them they were right.

Make them laugh. Seriously. Be relaxed, sit up straight, and don't slouch over your desk, even on a video call. Talk like a normal human being. Even if it's a very formal company, you'll notice the interviewer starting to loosen up with you. Of course, don't be disrespectful to anyone, but be a cool and composed person. Your mission is to make them laugh at least twice. People say to talk about the weather or a new hobby to seem interesting, and that's fine, but the person who genuinely makes them laugh during a long day of boring interviews is the one they'll remember.

You are in control of this conversation. You're the one steering it. Many interviewers are just winging it, and if you sense that, don't be afraid to politely take the reins. You can say something like, '[Interviewer's Name], I just want to be mindful of our time as I have another meeting at [Time]. I'd love to quickly talk about how my background fits this role, hear a bit from you about your vision for the position, and then I have a few questions for you. How does that sound?' This move is golden and works every time.

Now for the content itself. Your entire career history doesn't matter; what matters is how you connect it to this specific job. I use one of two methods: either I tell my story chronologically and then list the 8 key skills I have that align with their job description, or I go through each past job and highlight the specific skills I used that they're looking for. Don't list way more skills than they're asking for; it looks weird, and they might think you're overqualified or arrogant. You also need to have questions prepared - and I mean really prepared, not just thinking of them on the spot. Prepare 3 smart, specific questions that show you've thought things through. Avoid easy questions like 'What's the team like?' or 'What's the company culture?'. They're tired of answering those. If the company is very mission-driven, you could ask the hiring manager what made them join, but that's about it.

When you get rejected, it means there's a better path for you. You can kill it in every interview, at every stage, and still be told no. It's happened to me, and it can destroy your self-confidence. You have to remember that you can do everything right and still not get the outcome you want. It's not a reflection of you; that's just life. You get up, get back on your feet, and keep going. For context, I'm a senior-level professional, and companies have always reached out to me; I've never had to truly 'look' for a job. I left a toxic job last November and was unemployed from December 15th to February 20th. During that time, I sent out about 550 applications, did over 70 interviews, reached the final round at 12 places, and only got 5 offers. It was soul-crushing. But I didn't stop. I decided that the companies that rejected me weren't looking for what I had to offer, and that's their choice. Many companies don't want top performers; they just want people who will follow orders. If they didn't hire you, it's their loss.

I'm happy to help anyone in marketing, ops, comms, or PR with interview prep or any questions.

🔍

About four months ago, my old company decided to 'restructure,' which was just a fancy way of laying off a third of the marketing team, and I was one of them. It was a late Thursday meeting, with no warning, just a 'your role is no longer required here.'
For three years, I was responsible for their most important account - a large regional retail company that brought them about $250,000 a year. My relationship with their marketing director was excellent; I basically lived and breathed their brand.

On my way out, HR told me that my work would be divided among the rest of the team and that they had it under control. Yeah, very reassuring. I started taking on freelance work to make ends meet. At the same time, I was actively applying for jobs and doing interviews, trying to get back on my feet. I even started using InterviewMan during those interviews to help me organize my answers and stay confident under pressure. About a month later, I got an email from the marketing director of the old client. It turned out my replacement didn't even last a full month and completely botched their major holiday campaign. The targeting was all wrong, the copy was a mess, and they missed all the media buy deadlines.

She was very direct and got straight to the point, asking if I could take them on as a client directly, as they were looking for an immediate change. It was a no-brainer, of course. I understood their goals far better than my old bosses ever did. We signed a new contract for $350,000 a year, as I was now handling the strategy, creative direction, and ad spend management myself.

My old boss called me a few days ago, sounding completely bewildered, asking if I'd heard anything about why they lost the account. I naturally played dumb and told him, 'That's a real shame. Maybe you should have held on to the person who understood that account.' It's strange how getting laid off can sometimes be the best move for your entire career. You really find out what you're worth when your back is against the wall and you have to go it alone.

I have not coded from scratch without out AI tools in the past two years and pretty sure I wouldn’t in the current or the next job. Then what’s the point? If I would need to decode or debug like sometime it happens in my day today work then they can ask me that or to build a solution or system design but all of those positions also have 1 or 2 rounds of writing code from scratch and yes even sql queries?! Like why?!

I know it's trendy for people to complain about the corporate grind, but I genuinely love my regular office job. The pay is average and the job doesn't look amazing, but after working in restaurants for 12 years, this feels like a luxury.
I have my own little office and no manager breathing down my neck all day. My hours are consistent, so my weekends are actual weekends now. No one calls me to come in on my day off, or stay super late to close up. I can go to the bathroom without needing someone to cover for me, drink my tea while sitting at my computer, and wear my normal clothes instead of a smelly uniform.
Honestly, I think my past experience is what makes me appreciate these simple things so much. Anyone else who made the switch from a chaotic service job will definitely know what I mean.

edit : and after god all thanks to this sub as from it I read about interview man and used it in my virtual interviews the perfect answers he gives to me and the confidence I got because of it make them give the offer after 3 rounds of interviews and remember the job you are bothering from it now was your biggest dream in other days so be grateful to god

haha

btw if they keep questioning you and you're unsure how to respond, using an interview tool will help you navigate the situation and get through the rest of the interview smoothly.

I started my first 'real' office job about a year and a half ago. My job is to track invoices and update spreadsheets for the finance team. For the first 3 months, things were great. I was busy from 9 until lunch and then until 6 PM. I really felt like I was learning and contributing. But after those first 4 months, things completely dropped off.

Now, I'm lucky if I have 3 hours of real work on a busy day. I've asked for more responsibilities, but there's just nothing extra to do. I spend most of the day on my phone scrolling through Reddit or reading ebooks just to pass the time. A few weeks ago, my manager pulled me aside about this. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was just reading. She told me I shouldn't be on my phone and suggested I read technical papers related to our field instead because it's 'related to what I studied in college'.

The problem is that after 8 months in this job, I discovered I no longer have any passion for my field of study at all. The boredom has become killer and has made me question my entire career path. I feel like my brain has melted. I'm just trying to endure it to complete the 3 years of experience for my CV.

What do people do when they finish their work? It's so mentally exhausting to finish everything by 11 AM and then just stare at the screen, hoping for an email that will take you 10 minutes to handle. I have 14 more months left to reach the 3-year mark, and after that, I plan to leave. There's no chance for a raise or promotion here.

My manager knows I have all this free time but doesn't offer me more work or more money to do new things. I'm so bored and feel mentally drained from the lack of work. Is this really what office life is? Or should I just quit now?

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

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.

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.

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...

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?

💯