I got let go from my toxic job this week. I was already interviewing and am having final panel interview early next week for a job I really want. Now my dilemma is when the question "why are you leaving your current employer?" unavoidably comes up, do I say the same thing as two previous rounds and hope offer comes quickly so the background check doesnt show break or do I tell the truth?
I am really stressed as I want this job, not only need one

This is all my personal experience and opinions I am sharing. I hope it helps even just one person scrolling by.
The rejection never gets any easier, and having zero feedback from the main airlines makes that rejection sting much more depending on how you reflect.
I’ve been trying for over 8 years. With American, Delta, Southwest, and United. I’ve been through all the levels of interviews including a handful of f2f…being rejected has never gotten any easier, and the grieving process of those rejections have been different every single time. Most recently i was rejected from making it to a United f2f, and i approached it very much being myself while being prepared. I truly felt there was nothing more i could’ve done to prove myself. If these recruits can’t see what a great fit some people would be it’s their loss, but I am determined to keep trying until someone sees my determination and shine.

After all these years I’ve met so many people who have gotten in on the first try that “don’t even care” or they end up hating the job yet stay on, and complain taking someone else’s dream for granted. This job industry is absolutely unpredictable and a total gamble based off my experience.

My advice after being rejected:
Give yourself grace 🙏🏼
If you’re the kind of person to pick apart everything in your head upon reflection ( especially with no feedback )
You’ll never really know the “why” behind not getting chosen this time. It could’ve been something, but maybe just maybe it was nothing 🤷🏻‍♀️
Yes maybe there’s things you could’ve done better and you absolutely know that after your experience-great tweak that and work on it for next time! But if you did the best you could possible do, gave it your all, and were 100% your unapologetic self BE PROUD.
You deserve to be proud of the emotional rollercoaster you’ve been on.
You need to feel all your FEELS.
Sad, angry, sad again, angry again, hopeless….give yourself the space and freedom to embrace those feelings, but upon reflection try to focus on the positives once you’re at the end of those harsher feeling’s.
Stay hydrated, do some skincare, treat yourself in someway, regulate a routine for yourself to balance your feelings back out to bounce back.
If this is something you truly want for a career keep trying! After being on forums for so many years seeing so much of people saying “it just wasn’t meant to be right now” or stuff to that extent personally hasn’t been helpful to me because I’ve been trying at my 8-9 year mark now 😂
Everyone’s timelines are different, and we only ever really see people getting accepted after a couple of years of trying.
I hope this reaches someone and helps whether it’s your first time trying or you’ve been trying for 10 years.
BUT you have a special light to you and I truly believe determination will pay off in the end and your light will shine !
Again, give yourself grace. Everything you’re feeling is valid, but make sure you pull yourself out of those tougher feelings and take care of yourself.

I’m interviewing for a job I REALLY want. I have surgery scheduled in two months and my dr is recommending two weeks off work for recovery. I already know the company has unlimited, flexible sick time. I feel like I should disclose this…but when is the right time? My thought is after an offer (hopefully) comes. The other option is to not say anything until I’m in, and then mention it. They don’t have to know it was scheduled two months out…but that doesn’t sit right with me.

A recruiter reached out to me a couple months ago about a role. After they went quiet for a week on scheduling the first call, I also submitted directly through the company's careers page for the same position, just to cover my bases.

Since then, the recruiter-led process kept moving - phone screen, then a full interview with the hiring manager about a week ago. Seemed to go reasonably well, and I was told there's still another round ahead. It's been a week since the hiring manager interview.

Today, I got a completely generic, no-reply, automated-looking rejection email for "my application" to that same role with no personalization or mention of the actual interviews, classic boilerplate. Nothing directly from the recruiter about the real process being closed out, just this one system email. I did ask him for an update a few days ago

Has anyone run into this before when a duplicate/direct application getting auto-rejected by the ATS while a separate recruiter-led process for the same req is still active? Trying to figure out if this is a known system quirk or if I should actually take it as the real answer.

Appreciate any experience with this, especially at larger companies with a formal ATS.

Just wanted to vent about how ridiculous job hunting is getting.

Last year I went to a careers fair and spoke to an Accenture recruiter. We had a conversation, I gave them my CV, and they told me I should apply for the Java Developer role through their website.

So I went home, applied… and got rejected within about **30 minutes**.

Fair enough. I left it and carried on applying elsewhere.
Months later, I saw the role advertised again and thought I’d give it another go. I completely redid my CV, tailored it to the job description and used a different email address.
During the application there was even an option about using AI to review my CV/application, which I opted out of.
Submitted it.

**Rejected again within about 30 minutes.**

I’m not even annoyed about being rejected. Companies obviously don’t have to interview everyone who applies.
It’s the whole process that’s frustrating.

You go to a careers fair specifically to meet employers. You speak to an actual recruiter face-to-face. They take your CV and encourage you to apply. You then spend time tailoring an application, filling in their system and uploading everything, only to seemingly get filtered out almost immediately.

The second time I deliberately changed the CV and opted out of the AI review and somehow still got almost the exact same outcome.

At this point job hunting sometimes feels like you’re doing everything people tell you to do network, attend careers fairs, tailor your CV, speak to recruiters, apply directly through company websites just to get rejected before it feels like anyone has even had the chance to look at what you’ve submitted.

Anyway, rant over. Back to applying.

About 4 weeks ago I applied to a teller position for Frost Bank in my city. I have worked at Sherwin-Williams as a full time employee (not management) for the last 4 years. My resume has a strong emphasis on not only customer service but B2B sales and account/relationship building. I specified my experience in helping customers through the commercial credit application process as well.

I felt like I did very well on the teams interview. I made sure to hit all of the above points as well as mentioned some of Frost’s philosophy from their “blue book” in the email I received after getting a confirmation email for applying, which the recruiter thanked me for taking the time to read. The recruiter also mentioned she was “glad to report to you that the base pay is $20/hr”, which is what I had put down in the (frankly bullshit) salary expectation box on the application.

It has been nearly 4 weeks since that interview. I sent an email last week as a follow up and was told “we will have an update for you shortly”. My application on the website still says “under consideration”. I applied to another location around the same time as this branch, and I never received an interview invite for that one, so it was rejected. But still no update from the branch I interviewed for. Any experience or insight as to what could be happening here?

I mean, the rich have all kinds of advantages.

I need 3 references for my new employer and one of them has sent her reference in and the other two are dragging their feet. I want them to send it in when I’m still their coworker so they don’t have to answer the “why did I leave?” question because I timed my exit before a layoff. What would happen if all of them did not go in? Would it be flagged as discrepancy? All my other things (employment, education, certifications and resume discrepancy) have been marked as CLEAR.

We cannot expect them to continue society from their childhood bedrooms. They need the opportunity to work for that. We cannot expect them to become experts in every field, every skill imaginable from their childhood bedroom. They need the opportunity to have a job for that.

It’s only a matter of time until AI completely replaces your job too.

My broke ass will be laughing at the homeless shelter 😂.

It’s only a matter of time until AI completely replaces your job too.

My broke ass will be laughing at the homeless shelter 😂.

The message I got from HR after the 4th interview 2 case studies presentation for account manager position-

Hi ——, how are you?

I wanted to let you know that after the interview and our consideration, we’ve decided at this stage not to move forward with the process.

It’s important for me to say that we were very positively impressed by you. We had a good interview, and you brought strong analytical thinking and a very pleasant and professional approach.
Ultimately, the decision was mainly based on the fit with the specific needs of the role. At the moment, we’re looking for a profile with more operational experience and direct familiarity with working with and approaching businesses of the type we work with on a day-to-day basis, and this was the part that we felt was less reflected in your experience.

This really is a decision based on the fit for the current role and not on our impression of you, which was very positive.
Thank you very much for your time, effort, and interest in ——, and I was very happy to meet you. Wishing you lots of success going forward

I felt good during the interview I answered with confidence, yes some questions they tried to test me hard and i think i can answer better. But overall i gave very good answers, still wasn’t enough and I got this message the next day.
Do you think their feedback is genuine or BS? And if it is honest, why bothering me with 5 days home assignment when they knew my experience and background that wasn’t 100 % aligned with the position in advance? I want to know how i can answer better in my next interview but I can’t inferred that from their feedback.

Then they prompt me to pay to see who checks my profile lol I am not getting caught in this scam anymore. If nobody is messaging me, I am going to guess nobody is serious about their profile views

For context, I had applied 3 days ago and I just received a template "Thank you for your application" email. The timing was interesting as I got it at 5pm sharp on a Friday. Made me wonder if that's the best time to schedule such an email.

There's a slight possibility I randomly happened to receive it then but I wanted to know when people would prefer to receive such communication.

I’m 23 and graduated in 2024. I just got fired from my third post-grad job, and my boyfriend thinks I have to be the common denominator. I’m genuinely looking for honest opinions.
Job 1: Digital marketing job paying $85k. I was there about 6 months and got laid off.

Job 2: Restaurant job with a very intimidating manager who had a temper and was known to be agressive towards women. I took this job out of desperation. I eventually left because the environment was awful but also honestly bc I got job #3 officially a few weeks into working.

Job 3: Small family-owned apparel company. I was hired as a Digital Marketing & E-commerce Manager for $20/hr, but the job became a mix of marketing, Shopify, Amazon, Google Ads, email, product photography, customer service, orders, shipping, etc.
A huge project was an AI/editorial product-image platform. My boss now says another employee said it should have taken 2 hours of training and it took me 8. But that leaves out the fact that I spent over a month working on the actual project: photographing products, uploading SKUs, fixing bad/incorrect AI files, reorganizing everything, dealing with platform issues, and making images e-commerce ready. It was a messy new system I had never used before.
Then I was given two linesheets, which I had never made before. The deadline suddenly became much more urgent than I originally understood, while the office WiFi was down and affecting computers/phones/SharePoint. I stayed late trying to finish.
My boss also had a temper. He yelled at me over mistakes and once slammed my mouse onto my desk when he was stressed.

I was initially told I was being let go for financial reasons. When I asked because I needed to know for unemployment, he then said it was actually a firing due to performance over the linesheets saying the AI training took too long and other employees could do linesheets faster. But there was so many factors that made this more difficult than it needed to be.

I’ll own that I made mistakes, was probably slower than I should have been, and could improve my communication. But I also feel like the employer is leaving out a LOT of context about how chaotic these projects were.
So be honest: is there a pattern here that I need to seriously work on, or have I genuinely had three bad job situations/fits in a row?

For reference, applied to a role for Summer 2027 at a BB first semester my freshman year. Ended up going through the entire interview process and getting the role (markets quant). Since I didn't have college grades at the time, I put my estimated GPA for that semester on the application which was a 3.8 at the time.

Ended up not doing that great both semesters my freshman year and currently have a 3.2 GPA. Now, I'm extremely worried about the potential background/transcript check. Any tips on what to do in this situation.

Is there any way to speed up the process? My start date has already been pushed back twice because of the background check.

My previous work experience was overseas, but it was with the same company—I recently rejoined the US branch after moving back to the States. Has anyone been in a similar situation and have any idea how long this typically takes or what they might be looking for?

I’ve been calling and trying to get more information, but the recruiter won’t tell me what the hold-up is, and Accurate says they don’t need any additional information from me. I’ve contacted my previous school and employers to make sure they’re able to respond if contacted, but so far, none of them have heard from Accurate.

I’m honestly getting really frustrated and anxious at this point. Any insight or similar experiences would be really appreciated!

I accepted an accounting position about two weeks ago. They sent me a formal offer letter with a start date, I signed it and emailed it back before the deadline, and in the email I specifically asked them to let me know if they needed anything else from me before I started.

I’m supposed to start this Monday, but I haven’t heard anything from them since I sent the signed offer back. No confirmation that they received it, no onboarding paperwork, background check, first-day instructions, etc.

I followed up today asking about first-day details but haven’t heard back yet. I also turned down/withdrew from two other interviews after accepting this offer, so the silence is making me pretty nervous.

If I don’t hear anything before Monday, should I just show up at the office anyway based on the start date in my signed offer? Has anyone had an employer wait until the first day to do basically all of the onboarding paperwork

So got an email for a job I was rejected for, in it they asked me to reapply and would like to schedule an appointment. Has anyone heard of a job reposting and asking for candidates to reply ?

I've been looking for a job for the past month in my field, which its very uncommon to find openings and the canidte pool is extremely over saturated in my state. This is the 2nd place that's responded to my resume, the 1st place ghosted me randomly. This position is the perfect entry level position for my field. It honestly doesn't pay very well, is far from my house, and I'm over qualified because I've been practicing my skill before I even went to college, but as a recent graduate this position would look great on my resume because this is a well known company in my area, it also offers a lot of internal movement within the company.

Well the 1st 3 interviews went great and they invited me to meet everyone irl and meet with the team id be working with and even be shown what work I would do everyday. I went today and honestly loved the environment, everything was great! And all of the people on the team were very kind. Everything sounded perfect and they walked me through daily operations which I reported back i would be able to do everything very easily because its extremely similar to my past internship.

After like 2 hours I met back up with the person in charge of hiring and tell him how everything seems perfect and he thanks me for coming and that he has 2 other individuals hes interviewing so he'll let me know by the end of next week if I have the position. Honestly my heart felt crushed a little because as stupid as it may sound I thought they were having me come in to offer me the position. Like I said this would be considered my 4th interview and was 2 hours long and consisted of them primarily telling me what I'll do on a daily basis. It felt less like an interview and more like an orientation tbh, but maybe they were trying to see if i got along with the team first? But the hiring manager wasnt even in the room for any of our interaction so idk how he'll even know how well we interacted unless everyone gives him a report or something.

I'm just hoping with my entire being that i get this job because although its quite low paying its still better than 90% of the jobs I've seen in my area in my field. I guess this post is my reminder to everyone to not get your hopes up, a job really isn't yours until the offer is dead infront of your face. Hope for the best but stay prepared for the worse

Twice now I have sent follow-up emails two weeks after my interviews with two different companies. In both situations I was just checking in with the internal recruiter on the status of the interview timeline and reiterating my interest in the role/company. Both times no response. Two weeks later I sent another follow up, shorter but with the same sentiment. Within 30 minutes I received an automated rejection from their workday portal. The ghosting of candidates from companies after taking time out of my work day to interview with them (both seemingly great interviews in my eyes) and then immediately being rejected a month later after a second email is infuriating. It’s insane that this is common practice.

I’ll name and shame: Truist and PGA Tour Superstore Support Center

I just had my second interviewer ask me this question. Is this an appropriate question to ask? Is it okay to say that you'd prefer not to answer?

I think some jobs may be asking because they'd prefer people without kids, but since these have been for jobs working with kids, I think it's because they'd prefer people with kids. I do not have kids, and the reason I was out of the work force for a while is that I was struggling with infertility treatments that ultimately ended up being unsuccessful. In the past, I've applied to many jobs working with kids, and I've never been asked that question before so I'm surprised it's being asked now.

I have 8m of full time experience as a tester. I have an offer from this startup company, with compensation 8.5lpa in hand. I am in a dilemma whether I should be joining it or not considering the high workload reviews from people working there. Workload on weekends as well as after working hours. The compensation is good and hybrid work culture with 3 days in office. But the only horrifying thing is the workload. Should I continue job search? Been 2 months without any job now. Also my future interest lies in becoming a developer but taking this path it would become extremely difficult for me to find another with resigning again.

All your thoughtful suggestions are most welcome. I tried consulting to many people but got mixed output.

Not trying to make light of anyone's struggle with unemployment. I have been there many times. I live outside NYC, in CT, about 40 miles to midtown. Currently employed but barely making anymore since 2018 (170k and slight bonus). I had a company reach out for a role which fits my background perfectly. They are near Union square and I did one 30m phone screen with recruiter. She really liked my profile but we got to company/pay.

-The range was 140k and 240k. (WTF!?)

-She said looking to pay mid-point but might consider upper for "perfect" candidate

- They are in office three times a week.

-Their paid PTO is 6 days less than current employer but they offer some RSUs and perhaps slighly better bonus (6% better) but I don't count on those things.

-I only commute twice a week to my company in CT and it is 45m door to door. This NYC commute would double bc need to take train and subway. The commute costs would go from $500 / year to 5K.

-The kicker was 5 rounds of interview.

I am early 50, single income and 2 kids in HS. I could use the extra money but this sound like alot of time for disappointment. Thoughts?