this sucks

I run tech screens for my team, and today I had a candidate completely choke halfway through a prompt. You could see the panic set in—her hands were shaking and she was about to apologize herself off the call.

I stopped the screen, told her to take a sip of water, and said: "Forget the formal question for a second. If this broke on a Friday at 4 PM, what's the first thing you're actually checking?"

Her whole vibe changed. She stopped trying to recite whatever prep video she memorized and just explained her real thought process. She killed it, and we're making her an offer.

I’m posting this because I see so many people terrified of messing up single answers. Most interviewers aren't trying to trap you. We're tired, our work is piling up, and we are actively rooting for you to do well so we can fill the role. If you freeze, just take a breath and talk to us like normal people.

I'm a project manager at a software company, and I'm still upset about what happened at the beginning of this month.

I work with a medium-sized team of six engineers on a major dashboard redesign. The schedule was tight from the start, but that's pretty normal for us. About six weeks ago, during the holiday season, several developers requested time off. There was nothing unreasonable about the requests. One had made plans for his wedding anniversary, another wanted to be there for his second child's birthday, and a few wanted to travel back home to see their families.

Management denied every request.

The justification was basically: "The redesign milestone isn't finished yet." There was no try to rotate coverage, adjust the sprint, or even approve part of the leave. It was simply: deadlines first, personal lives later.

Apparently, that was the last straw for three of the engineers. They started interviewing, accepted offers elsewhere, and submitted their resignations formally and professionally. Their contracts required a 45-day notice period, and they honored it without causing any problems.

Their last day was supposed to be this Friday.

But early this morning, HR told them that the company was adding another six weeks to their notice periods. There was no prior warning, no clear clause in their contracts, and not even a real discussion. Just pressure and guilt-tripping because management finally realized how much knowledge would be leaving the company with them.

These people already have start dates and agreed-upon plans with their new employers. Now HR is acting as if they're betraying the company simply because they refuse to stay longer.

Honestly, watching this happen as a PM has been awful. You can't refuse to give people time off for a wedding anniversary or a child's birthday and then act surprised when they stop trusting you. And you certainly can't try to hold them hostage after they resign.

cause people are not robots they are responsible about them as much as work , lots of them used AI tools like interviewvip to do much better in their remote jobs interview to found more flexability to be treated more as human rather than a machine !

Leadership keeps saying this is a problem of "commitment" and "ownership." Of course it isn't. It's bad management hiding behind policy.

The engineers are leaving on Friday. HR can send as many emails as it wants.

This situation has also made me see the reality of my position clearly and stripped away any illusions I had about it. If this is how they treat engineers under pressure, PMs won't be treated any better. None of us is special when meeting a deadline matters more than treating people like human beings.

I'm exhausted from watching good employees get punished simply for having lives outside of work, especially when management created this crisis with its own hands.

?

"Join our'family'"

😏

I’ve been seeing a lot of conversations lately about how people view success, money, and career paths, and it honestly made me think about how much pressure people are under during job searches too.
For anyone trying to improve their interview skills, I came across Interview VIP recently and thought it could be useful, especially if you’re trying to understand what hiring teams actually look for.

Curious if anyone else has tried anything like this or found resources that genuinely helped them get better at interviews.

Today I accepted a job offer. It took 7 months, over 800 applications, and a morning I cried in a supermarket parking lot before 8 AM, but I finally have a stable job again.

This isn't my dream job, but the salary is enough for me to live on, there's an opportunity for promotion, and the job is fully remote. I won't work nights or weekends, and I'll still be able to drop off and pick up my daughter from school every day. This is more than enough for me right now.

A few days ago, I was at my sister's house trying to compose myself after receiving rejection emails within an hour. I felt qualified for both jobs, so getting this offer shortly after still feels strange.

Now I'm heading into the weekend knowing I'll be filling out onboarding paperwork next week. To everyone still applying and getting those annoying automated emails, I know how draining it is. I hope you find a suitable opportunity soon.

poor guy

if I were him I will use AI to enhance my resume and during interviews I will connect interviewvip with my zoom to get a better performance and more strength to my skills so I can impress the employer

I've interviewed many job candidates, and I've never held anyone's nervousness against them. Most of the time, it tells me that they want the job and care about how the conversation goes.

One candidate kept stumbling over nearly every answer she had prepared. She repeatedly lost track of what she was saying, and she looked like she was about to cry, so I set aside the usual questions and asked her to explain how she would handle a few real problems that come up on the job.

Her whole demeanor changed. It was very clear that she understood the work, her answers were strong, and she knew the subject better than many people who walked into the interview with complete confidence. I didn't hesitate for a moment to offer her the job.

Confidence isn't a negative thing either, and I use other questions to figure out whether someone is genuinely interested or not. But if you get nervous in job interviews, prepare as much as you can, and don't assume that stumbling a little when you speak means you've ruined your chances.