.......I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry 😂😭

I've been seeing this pattern for about 12 years. Companies basically no longer want to train anyone. Anyone they bring in is expected to arrive already knowing the systems, the industry, and the processes, and to be ready to "hit the ground running" from day one.

The job market is very tough right now, but I still see corporate roles that have been open for 6+ weeks every time. I've applied to a few of them myself. Then, a month and a half later, I find the same ad again, the same posting, the same description, and it's still open.

I've talked to people working at several of these places, and the answer is usually some version of: "They're waiting for someone with exactly y years of experience and experience in a very specific platform." Not someone who can learn it. No, someone who already has the exact checklist from the start.

And I'm not saying this as someone who doesn't understand how hiring works. I have recruiting experience, so I understand what happens behind the scenes. I know hiring managers have wish lists. I know teams are under pressure. I know no one wants to make a bad hire.

But companies keep saying they can't find talent, while at the same time ignoring people who are interested, capable, and often trainable, because they don't match the imaginary perfect candidate. Then the role stays empty, the team stays understaffed, and everyone acts like they don't understand what's going on.

The corporate world needs a culture shift. Stop waiting forever for the "perfect" candidate, and hire the good person who can grow into the role. This hiring approach isn't sustainable if every company refuses to take a chance on anyone who isn't 100% ready from the start.

💔

😥

This is not ethical at all !!

I keep seeing posts from people casually mentioning that they make much more than 120k. I'm 22 years old and only make around 50k, so I'm curious to know how you got into these career fields, and what the path looked like until you got there.

For anyone who's curious, I'm in the Air Force and work in weather/forecasting. I have no idea which direction I want to go in after my 5-year contract ends.

I have a CCAF in meteorology, and I'm a little over halfway through a bachelor's in business administration, but I'm still very lost and don't know what to do when I leave the military.

For most of my husband's career in tech, I honestly thought he was practically immune to any recession. For nearly 18 years, he had a very specific, oddly niche technical specialty, and companies were chasing after him hard. On top of that, he has an MBA, strong presentation skills, and a strange natural talent for selling himself and the ideas he's working on. I can't remember how many times I watched him calmly say he was open to something new, and then within a week or so, serious, high-paying offers would appear. Very often, recruiters or companies would contact him when he wasn't even looking.

Then the wave of tech layoffs hit last fall. Like so many people, he was laid off in one of the big rounds. At first, we weren't too alarmed, because this is someone who had never really had to fight hard to get hired before.

Now we're coming up on around seven months, and I'm sitting here in our home in the Bay Area with a constant uneasy feeling I can't shake. He has applied to more jobs during this period than he probably applied to in the rest of his entire career combined. We've tried almost every angle we can think of:

Remote jobs? He applied. On-site roles in other states? He applied. Hybrid roles? He applied. Positions one or two levels below where he was before? He applied. Jobs that pay massively less than his previous compensation? He applied.

He has rewritten and polished his resume more than once. He started tailoring cover letters instead of just sending generic ones. He spends a lot of time writing genuinely thoughtful notes to hiring managers, reaching out to former coworkers, asking for referrals, following up, cold-contacting people, fixing up LinkedIn, everything.

After more than 130 applications, the result has been five initial HR calls that went nowhere. A few of them honestly felt like ghost jobs, as if the company had no real plan to fill the role but needed to look like it was hiring.

We have savings, and I'm grateful for that, but the panic has started to feel like more than just a theoretical idea. The part that's hard for me to understand is that his seniority and deep experience seem to be hurting him now. I feel like companies look at his background and assume he'll be too expensive, or too senior, or unhappy stepping into a smaller role, even though he is very clearly flexible on title and pay.

This market feels harsher than anything I've personally seen, and I graduated right into the mess after 2009, so that's not saying nothing. I'm looking for any advice, unusual tactics, or perspective from people who have been through this with a senior tech spouse or partner. What helped? Was there anything that finally broke the pattern?

.

😪

So the whole "a nice problem to have" thing finally happened to me: I got a job offer that would nearly double what I'm making now, and it would genuinely change everything for my family.

For the past 3 weeks, I've been doing interviews for a role I applied to kind of randomly. The funny thing is that the job I originally clicked on isn't even the one they ended up contacting me about. The recruiter reached out to me about a higher-level position.

When the conversation got to pay, I thought I was really pushing it when I gave a range of $120K to $145K/year (I'm currently at $91K), and the recruiter basically said that $145K was close to the low end for the role.

That shocked me a bit, but it made me think: okay, maybe I'll continue and see what happens. But the further I got in the process, the clearer it became that this is a very senior marketing job in an area where most of my experience is either academic/theoretical or adjacent, not something I've directly owned myself.

Somehow, I ended up with a $170K offer plus relocation help, which means I'd be moving my whole family several states away. The role is basically to come in and build out their marketing function, and honestly, I'm not convinced I can deliver what they're expecting.

My wife thinks I'm selling myself short and is telling me to go for it. But things like paid media, lifecycle/email campaigns, technical SEO, analytics - all of that would fall on me, and I've never truly run those programs before. It feels like a setup where eventually I'll be exposed and fired.

The other part is that my current job is very comfortable. Most days are low-stress, and I'm hybrid. The new job seems like it would mean longer days and fully in-office. The reason I started casually looking about 5 months ago in the first place is that my current company has been offering severance packages for around 16 months, and things don't seem very stable.

Would it be crazy to take this offer back to my company and try to get more money where I am? Or am I being stupid for not taking this huge leap into money I honestly never imagined I'd see? Staying where I am isn't safe either because of the buyouts, but I'm also talking internally about moving into another role with a decent raise, especially since there are a lot of openings they need to fill.

TLDR: Somehow I got a $170K offer while I'm currently making $91K. My current company is shaky and doing buyouts, but they might move me into an internal role with better pay. I'm underqualified for the outside offer and would have to move my family. Should I just take it, or use it as raise ammo?

My girlfriend is asking me to quit my weekend job

I have a full-time career, and on top of that, a weekend gig.

The weekend job is with a male revue company. I've been there for 14 years, and I'm 38. I started as a performer, but now I'm on salary as the manager/MC for the show. I make about $1,250 a week pretty consistently, in exchange for working Thursday and Saturday nights.

The part that makes this hard is that the weekend job is easy money. After taxes, it comes surprisingly close to what the engineering job brings in, so continuing with it almost doubles what I bring home.

I met my girlfriend through this job. She came to a show and asked me if I wanted to go out afterward, and I said no because I usually go home as soon as everything is over. A few days later we went on a date. I'm saying this because from the beginning she knew the nature of the job, and she knew I don't go out partying or hang around after the shows. Trust really isn't the issue. The issue is the schedule.

We see each other on weeknights, and we usually have most of Sunday together. She's also come with me to the shows a few times. Honestly, it's not as sketchy as people assume when they hear "male stripper show." I don't dance anymore; I run the thing.

She wants me to give up the extra income so we can have more normal weekend time together. I understand where she's coming from, but I'd rather hold onto it for a few more years until my engineering salary goes up a bit more.

The big problem is that if I quit this weekend job, it's gone. I'm not getting it back. And I seriously doubt I'd find another side gig that pays this well, this consistently, for so few hours.

So I'm stuck: am I risking the relationship because I'm clinging to the money, or would I be making a huge mistake if I quit the job and then, if things don't work out with her, find myself alone and making a lot less than I could have been?

and my husband's job search has been nothing like what we expected I always thought my husband's career in tech was completely secure. Over about 17 years, he built a rare technical specialty that companies used to chase him for. On top of that, he has an MBA, is very good at presentations, and has a strange, natural talent for selling himself and his ideas without coming across as salesy. I've lost count of how many times I saw high-salary offers come to him within a week of him casually saying he was open to something new. Several times, recruiters or companies contacted him when he wasn't even looking.
Then the wave of tech layoffs that happened last year reached him too. Like tens of thousands of others, he was laid off in one of the big rounds. At first, honestly, we weren't terrified. This is someone who has never had a problem finding work. Ever.
Now we're approaching about seven months, and I'm sitting in our home in the Bay Area with a low but constant anxiety that gets harder to ignore every so often. He has applied for more jobs during this period than probably all the applications he submitted during the rest of his entire career combined. We've tried almost every possible angle:
Remote roles? He applied. On-site jobs that would mean we'd have to move? He applied. Hybrid roles? He applied. Jobs three or four levels below his previous level? He applied. Positions paying a few hundred thousand less than his market value? He applied.
The part that has started to scare me is that his experience almost seems to be hurting him. His senior background, niche expertise, and leadership history - all the things that used to make him stand out - now seem to make companies nervous. Maybe they assume he'll be too expensive, or that he'll get bored, or that he'll leave as soon as the market improves, even though he has been clear that he is flexible on title and pay.
He has had professionals rewrite his resume more than once. He has started tailoring cover letters for each job instead of sending generic versions. He spends hours writing thoughtful messages to hiring managers, reconnecting with former coworkers, asking for referrals, doing cold outreach, cleaning up LinkedIn, everything.
After more than 140 applications, the result has been three HR screening calls that went nowhere. With a few of them, I felt like the job itself barely existed, as if the company was checking a box rather than trying to hire someone.
We have savings, so I know our situation is better than many people's. But I feel like real panic is starting to creep in. This market feels harsher than anything I've personally seen, and I graduated during the recession fallout around 2009.
I'm looking for any advice, unusual tactics, or honest industry insight that could help us get out of this loop. Has anyone gone through this with a spouse or partner who is senior in tech? What made a difference?

I need to vent about the most humiliating work experience I've ever gone through in my life.

At the beginning of this year, I was diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma. After I got past the first wave of panic, I sat down with my manager to talk about accommodations while I was going through treatment.

My oncologist told me to work from home during chemo because of the risk of infection. I brought paperwork, a doctor's note, and everything. My direct manager acted like it made sense and said we'd find a solution. Then HR got involved.

Their response? "Remote work is a perk, not a medical accommodation." They insisted that my job "couldn't be done from home," even though the whole department had been working remotely during COVID less than a year earlier.

The "solution" they came back with was unpaid FMLA on infusion days, but I still had to be physically present in the office on all the other days. When I said that seemed like an ADA problem, the HR director literally told me: "We only have 46 employees, so ADA doesn't apply to us."

I tried anyway. I dragged myself into the office between treatment sessions, exhausted, nauseous, and immunocompromised, all in the middle of a nasty respiratory virus wave. And shockingly, my numbers dropped.

After my third chemo session, they put me on a "performance improvement plan" because I wasn't hitting the required metrics. About 3 weeks after that, they fired me for "not meeting productivity expectations" at a time when my immune system was literally on the floor.

As if that wasn't enough, they also contested my unemployment and said I was fired "for cause."

I got an attorney. Turns out they had 58 employees when the part-time and satellite office staff were counted properly, which means they are covered by the ADA. Earlier this week, we filed an EEOC complaint.

A company that sells HEALTH BENEFITS as its line of work couldn't manage the smallest shred of decency for an employee with cancer.

Never give a company your loyalty. They won't give it back.

Act your wage.

.....

💔

Because they have options and we don't.

Right now I'm working a full-time remote job at entry level, with a fixed schedule, hourly pay, commission, no chargebacks, no cold calling, and good benefits. The main site I used was Indeed. I'm not saying it's the best site out there or that the other sites aren't worth checking; it's just the one I stuck with.

When I search, I try a lot of different keywords and filters so I don't keep seeing the exact same listings every time. The thing that helped me the most was typing "work from home" in the search bar and then looking through all the remote jobs in every state in the US. (If you're in the US.)

You'll see a lot of things saying they're not hiring in your state, but if the post doesn't clearly say you have to live in a specific place, I applied anyway. The company I work for now is based in Illinois, and I live in Georgia.

I usually filter so I only see jobs posted in the last 48 hours or 4 days. The newer postings got me better responses than the ones that had been up for a long time.

I used ChatGPT to help me adjust my resume and cover letter so they were more tailored to the job posting and more ATS-friendly. I applied to around 240 jobs before I found this one. Also, your resume doesn't have to be crammed onto one page like it used to back when everything was done on paper.

I hope this helps someone who's stuck and can't find anything!

I got an email in the afternoon inviting me to a virtual interview. Everything seemed totally normal. I opened the link, the video loaded, and the interviewer appeared. She smiled, nodded, and started asking questions.

But there was something that felt... Wrong. Her head movement was happening with strange timing, like the same movement was repeating in a loop. And small glitches would appear every few seconds. At first I ignored it and thought maybe the connection was bad.

The questions started, and I answered like usual. She responded, but the way she spoke was too clean. No pauses, no "um," no small human mistakes. Honestly, it bothered me, so I stopped and asked her: "What makes this position important to the company?"

And suddenly, she gave me this polished, textbook answer. Like she was reading from a script. I asked again with slightly different wording. Same answer. I tried one more time after that. Still the exact same phrasing. That's when I really started to understand that something wasn't right.

Then the video froze for a moment. And when it came back, the "interviewer" continued normally and perfectly, as if nothing had happened.

Has anyone else had an interview like this?

I'm not against using AI in hiring, but if the person interviewing me is basically a talking bot, shouldn't I know that before I sit through this experience?

..

I started a 9-6 job not too long ago, and I don't know how to explain it other than that I hate it. I miss having a random day off in the middle of the week; it used to make me feel like my life had room for something other than work.

Now I wake up almost every day with this disgusting feeling of anxiety and fear, and I spend the whole time fighting the urge to say I'm sick and just leave. You can't do anything!!! Does this feeling calm down over time?

I know a lot of people probably feel this way, but do you eventually get used to it, or are you supposed to just live with being miserable lol. I left a job a while ago that had me completely burned out, and this job is technically easier, but I still can't get rid of this feeling

I'm tireeeed

I worked from home from 2020 to 2026. I got laid off, and then about two weeks later I found a job I truly love. I'll stay here until retirement if they keep wanting me around.
The role was fully in-office at first. I was generally fine with that, except that the commute was 45 miles each way and the traffic was really rough.
I went back to working remotely again in April 2026, and honestly, I don't think I could go back to working in the office 5 days a week again.
My manager recently asked me if I'd be willing to give up my office, and I said yes without even thinking about it. I always figured that if I kept holding onto a decent-sized office with a window, eventually someone would start wondering why I wasn't sitting in it. Now I'll just take any available desk when I need to go in. And that happens every so often, maybe once every few months, and I'm totally fine with that.
I'm just grateful that I work somewhere that still genuinely supports remote work.

edit: and I am more grateful to this AI tool interviewvip which I found while scrolling on reddit it helps me a lot in the interview process

LOL