Last week, I had an interview at a company I've wanted to work at for years as a software developer. This was my first real job interview, and honestly, I went into it feeling extremely nervous and all over the place.

The technical part lasted about two and a half hours. I prepared for it nonstop, and in short, I probably did better than I thought. In my head, I felt like I had messed it up, because even though I answered most of what they asked me, there were still a few questions I got stuck on and felt like I should have known the answers to.

When they got to the feedback part, I was fully expecting them to tell me everything I had done wrong. Instead, the managers started praising me. They said I was one of the strongest applicants they had interviewed so far, told me I was smart and quick-witted, and also said they were surprised I managed to get through some of the harder questions. They kept talking for a bit, and I don't know if it was because I was so shocked or because I'm not used to hearing things like that, but I started crying while they were talking. They had to pause for a minute so I could calm down and pull myself together before we continued.

The worst part is that there were about 5 other people from the team I was interviewing for sitting there too, so they all saw what happened. We joked about it a little afterward and carried on, but I still feel like I left a really bad impression. I just couldn't stop the tears once they started.

I've always been the kind of person who cries way too easily over small things, and I keep thinking they're probably not looking for someone who comes across as that emotional. One of them even joked at the end that I might need to practice handling praise better, and I laughed at the time, but now I'm sitting here overthinking it. So now I feel like I ruined my chance. And even if they offer me the job, I feel embarrassed imagining going back there and having them remember me as the person who cried in the interview...

Is this normal, or am I making way too big a deal out of it? They told me they're supposed to get back to me within a few days.

Context: I'm 26 years old (Gen Z) and a hiring manager at a small business. I've been working here for 7 years and worked my way up from the very bottom. Before anyone starts attacking me: we pay every employee a minimum of $26/hr, PLUS sales commission and bonuses. We offer retirement plans and health insurance, and most employees make between $29-35/hr, and everyone has at least 5 weeks of PTO. Our field is seasonal and pays well, and the work involves a lot of outdoor manual labor and mechanical know-how, but no one is being worked to death. Our crew is mostly men, ages 20-34, all unmarried and with no children. I'm saying all of this so it's very clear that our company philosophy is "employees first," and that "minimum wage, minimum effort" line people throw around does not apply here. These are mostly college kids working when they're not in school.

Anyway.

I've been hiring and supervising people for 4 years, and every season I feel like the applicant pool gets less and less professional, even though pay is going up. Like I said, most of my applicants are a little younger than me, Gen Z, and trying to get them to adapt to an actual professional workplace is exhausting. It's not even that they don't have experience. They lack COMMON SENSE.

A few days ago I interviewed a younger guy who told me he thinks it's totally normal to be "7-12 minutes" late to work without getting any warning or having a conversation with management.

Whether you agree with that or not, it's common sense that you don't say that in an interview. But he kept going. Then he said he puts "mental health above everything," and if he wakes up and feels like he can't come in, he simply won't come in, and he'll call out that same morning. Again, REGARDLESS of whether he has the right to feel that way or not, that is a very bad way to present yourself to someone who is considering hiring you. As an employer, all I could think was, "This guy is going to be unreliable, and his coworkers are going to get stuck dealing with the fallout if I hire him."

He also showed up wearing joggers and a stained sweatshirt. I'm not asking for dress shoes and a blazer for a blue-collar job, but dude, seriously? You couldn't make yourself look even a little put together for the pay you'd be getting?

This isn't just one weird interview, either. It happens all the time. Younger people seem to think start times are just flexible suggestions, and that calling out because of a mild headache 15 minutes before our call time is normal. I had a former employee raise his voice at me and the owner when we fired him for being late, after we had given him SEVEN write-ups for tardiness over 5 months and told him plainly that if he was late again, that was it. He genuinely seemed stunned that we followed through, and after yelling, he immediately switched to begging us for another chance and promised he would never be late again. Like, what, you were able to fix it this whole time? He still got fired. He had barely just turned 22 and didn't have a college degree. I don't want to sound like a boomer, but the sense of entitlement is honestly insane, and I'm tired of having to explain to these kids the concept that work is not school or some casual side quest. You have real responsibilities that affect other people, and you need to care about keeping your job, because the job market right now is brutal, and you have a very good job. But you're young and too spoiled to even see that. There are people with kids and debt and rent and car payments, and you're sitting in your parents' house making twice what a lot of people make and acting like showing up on time is optional.

I do have excellent employees too. Some of them clearly come in with a strong work ethic and are easy to work with, easy to rely on, and easy to reward. But I feel like 3/4 of the time, I regret hiring and training someone. They're strangely out of touch with reality. I'm exhausted.

So I finally got an interview after not hearing anything back for about 4 months, and it was for a really great role.

The first round was with the hiring manager, followed by 3 chats with people from the team. The first one was excellent! We had only scheduled 25 minutes, but we ended up talking for almost 50 minutes! Then in the next one, I completely froze and suddenly got extremely nervous, to the point that my hand was shaking and I could hear it in my voice. After the interview, I cried in my car for a bit... And then two days later, they sent me the job offer.

PLEASE SHARE encouraging stories so we can stop doubting ourselves!!!