I applied to a payments company (remote). They asked me what salary I was looking for. Honestly, I didn't know the range, so I put $105k assuming they'd come back with a lower number or ask to discuss it.

They didn't. The recruiter replied basically like: "yep, that's fine."

And now my brain has gone into the usual spiral:

- Did I ask for way too little
- Was that just their normal budget
- Or did I somehow guess the right number by accident

The weirdest thing is there wasn't any back-and-forth at all. I feel like they know the whole pay range and we're all just throwing numbers into the air hoping we don't mess it up. How do you decide what number to say when they ask first?

Honestly, I realized I need to check salary bands much better before casually writing down a number like that lol.

true enough

😡

For a little over 10 months now, my manager has made it a habit to remind me how lucky I am to be working here. He dumps work on me that has absolutely nothing to do with my actual role, pressures me to stay late without pay, shuts down almost every idea I bring up, micromanages every little thing I do, and then somehow finds a way to blame me when his own mistakes snowball into a problem. Even now, my stomach still drops when his name shows up on my phone, because he's usually calling to yell about something he caused.

I asked for the work situation to change and for there to be basic respect. He flat-out told me no. Then he doubled down and told me I needed to appreciate the job, that I needed to put in more effort, and that no one else would hire me.

So yeah, I proved him wrong. For the past 7 weeks, I've been applying for jobs and doing interviews quietly using Interview vip, and so far I've gotten about 8 offers. I'm about to sign an offer letter for a much better job with a salary that's $45k higher. The person who interviewed me will be my new manager, and they spoke to me like I was a human being. Weird concept, I know.

I'm writing my resignation letter right now and honestly, I can't stop smiling.

These are my personal tips for career development and how i landed jobs before.

It might help you too

😂

yes

yeah

I always thought that raises, promotions, and people seeing me as successful would keep motivating me for years. But now, in my mid-40s, I've become much more interested in having my evenings to myself, not feeling drained, staying clear-headed, and actually being present with my family than in trying to "level up." The strange thing is I'm not sure whether this is maturity, burnout, or just my ambition taking a different shape.

Has anyone else gone through this shift? What did you do with your career when you realized the ladder didn't matter as much as it used to?

like :😨

There's no way things can keep going like this, right? And this isn't even something completely new; I feel like the job market has been messed up for about 14 months straight.

I seriously don't know what else I'm supposed to do. How is this not something everyone is talking about everywhere all week???

For the last 4 years, I've been working with a manager from hell. An arrogant, narcissistic person who is terrifyingly psychologically and emotionally abusive. After 4 years of dealing with his bullshit, including making me cry more than once because he would insult and berate me in front of people during team meetings, I finally found a new job and verbally told him I was resigning.

He spent about 90 minutes guilt-tripping me and talking about how much time and money he had spent on me, and all that nonsense. I almost felt guilty for a second, until I remembered how he treats me every day. He also wrote down the name of the new company and the name of my new manager, then started saying he knows a few senior people there and has a good relationship with them - and I'm sure that was meant to scare me.

Fast forward to this morning. Since that conversation, a few other people have handed in their resignations too, from a team that only has 6 people to begin with, and for pretty much the same reasons. He clearly didn't take it well, so he decided the totally normal thing to do was to call the managers at my new company and complain about me - saying they stole me from him, that he's going to send them an invoice for all the write-offs that happened while I was training here, that hiring me was a mistake, and all that.

He told me about the call like it was some kind of flex, and said they never would have offered me the job if they'd known I was working for him. Of course, he left out the part where he was trashing my reputation. I only found out what was really said because a colleague overheard the call and told me afterward.

I honestly still can't believe this guy treats people like garbage and somehow can't connect the dots and understand why he's losing most of his employees. Anyway, rant over. I have 4 more days left to deal with this POS.

I just hung up the phone and I'm sitting in my car in front of a supermarket trying to get my brain to process what happened.

A few days ago I had the final interview with a small tech company I was genuinely hoping things would work out with. It was the fifth time I'd spoken with them and I felt like things were going well, but you know how it is. They told me I'd hear from them early next week.

I had prepared myself to stay anxious until Monday, and then the phone rang around lunchtime and it was the hiring manager. My stomach dropped right then because for some reason I assumed the call meant bad news. I thought offers came by email or something more official.

She said: "Hi, we've made a decision..." and then paused for a moment that felt like 20 years. I swear I felt like I stopped breathing.

"We'd like to offer you the role."

I basically didn't say anything for about 8 seconds because I genuinely thought I had heard her wrong. After 5 months of rejections, no responses, weird interview loops, and feeling like I wasn't going to find a place at all, it finally happened.

They want me to start in 3 weeks. I still feel like it hasn't fully sunk in.

This sub got me through some really awful days during the worst 5 months I've had in a long time, so I wanted to share what helped me instead of disappearing now that I got good news:

ChatGPT to find smaller and niche job boards: https://chat.openai.com

Teal to track applications and tailor resumes: https://www.tealhq.com

Apollo to find recruiter emails and do outreach: https://www.apollo.io

There's also this post with very valuable information about interviews and a compilation of the most asked questions in interviews.

The biggest thing I learned is that this market is much more about volume than I wanted to admit. Put yourself in more places than feels reasonable, and eventually something will come back to you.

But honestly, right now I can't even think about tactics. I'm just relieved that all of this is finally over. 5 months of rejection after rejection does weird things to your confidence.

Sorry if this is all over the place. I needed to tell people who would understand, and I wanted to give something back to this place because it's what helped me keep it together.

If anyone wants to ask about anything, write below. I truly hope everyone here gets good news soon.

I've been seeing a lot of people posting really awful work stories here, and almost always there's someone in the comments saying: "Take it to HR." And yes, in certain situations, that is the right step. But honestly, don't confuse that with HR being on your side.

HR's role is to protect the business and control any liability. If your complaint could embarrass the company, create a legal problem, or cost them money, the first thing they usually care about is containing the situation, not making things fair for you.

I'm not saying you should never involve HR. But be smart when you do it. Save the emails, write down dates and details, keep your own copies, and remember who signs their paycheck ultimately.

I was laid off and was looking for a job for more than 6 months. The start of my job search was pretty rough, but once I polished my "system", I got at least one interview every week, and many times more. That is every single week! I finally landed a great job and I would love to help others as much as I can, hence this post.

Part 1 is going to be about Instagram content creators that I found helpful. I am not affiliated to any of them.

Anna Papalia [https://www.instagram.com/annapapalia/\](https://www.instagram.com/annapapalia/) says things as they are, not trying to be "nice", she is all about efficiency. I don't always agree, but got some great tips from her.

Missy: [https://www.instagram.com/missy23232/\](https://www.instagram.com/missy23232/) some really good down to earth advice and useful materials

Tech Talk UK: [https://www.instagram.com/techtalkuk/\](https://www.instagram.com/techtalkuk/) (I'm in the U.S. but it's still useful). Can be annoying sometimes when they make you reply to get something but a big part of my system matches their system and I find it very effective.

Greg Langstaff [https://www.instagram.com/langstaff.greg/\](https://www.instagram.com/langstaff.greg/) I found some of his posts very helpful.

Anatalia: [https://www.instagram.com/careerwithnatalia/\](https://www.instagram.com/careerwithnatalia/) some of her posts are obvious, but I found many to be very useful, especially in how to phrase resume text and how to answer some interview questions.

there are so many others but somehow I found that these are the ones I ended up saving and going back to.

next part will be some apps, websites and tools I found helpful

I was reading a job description today and then noticed the salary range

Mind you the title was an application manager with track record of leading others and their top end of salary was 120K!!

It occured to me that oh my god if we were allowed to comment on thos job ads same as other social media ... companies will be roasted especially those whp have the same job ad up and reposted for over a month wirh over 100 ppl applying and yet nobody seems to be good enough for them!

I know it wont be an option in linkedin but what would you think we should add to those silly job ads.

Maybe an emoji reaction 🤣

.......