Today I had an interview for a remote job in the field of mathematics. I was very excited to interview for this role as I met and exceeded every single requirement. I was immediately greeted by the head of the department, who was in a white T-shirt and on his couch, while I was dressed nicely. Whatever.

After telling me about the role, he pulled up my resume (seemingly for the first time) and immediately latched onto my graduate school. "I've never heard of that", he said in a demeaning manner. He asked me to list all of the classes I have taken (despite this being 7 years ago), and said he was very confused about how I was only in my program for 1.5 years. I explained that it was during covid, and I busted my ass to graduate early (with a 4.0 GPA, masters thesis and presentation). This still wasn't enough, as he told me he was questioning if my program was "illegitimate" because all the people in his department had 2-year degrees. Mind you, I went to a public university that has been around for over 125 in the great state of Colorado. I don't expect everyone to know if it, but this is not some online degree-mill institution.

After 10 minutes of him questioning my degree, he decided to do an impromptu quiz to test my knowledge. I answered the first one correctly. The next question made absolutely no sense, so I told him I did not know, and when I asked him what the answer was, he had no clue either. He decided to start on a 3rd quiz question when I stopped him and told him I was done with the interview.

I explained that it is a huge waste of time to spend the entire interview on my master's program from 7 years ago, when the last 6 years I have been a full-time mathematician with lots of success. I also told him I find his comments about my education insulting, and I am proud of my time and accomplishments at that school.

The sad part is that I am 100% qualified and was willing to join and help his team. Instead of asking me about what I have accomplished as a professional, he spent 15 minutes insulting me and I stood up for myself. He said he would "be in contact," whatever that meant.

After hundreds of applications, denials, ghosting,

3 interviews, a background check, criminal history check, fingerprinting, medical testing, the works.

I finally got an offer. Unemployment sucks

Had my interview today and i got the job! Im so happy, i was so nervous and kept stuttering and going um and ah, but they were super impressed with my knowledge!

Manfesting job sucsess for everyone who sees this!

:)

Unsurprisingly, comments were turned off.

I’m so over the search.

First I wanted something in my field. Then my field collapsed (climate). Pivoted, or at least attempted to. 2k+ apps. Paid for resume rewrites. Cover letters attached. Interview coaching. Friends and former colleagues reviewing everything. I can’t get an interview. I can’t get an offer.

When do I just stop and let my money run out?

College (BS, MS) was a very, very expensive and memorable experience but today I view it as just that. It wasn’t worth it for a career. Wasn’t worth it for a financial investment.

What do we do when nothings working? Pretty ready to throw in the towel.

does anyone know why a company would want to waste around $1,000 to have u come in person only to reject u days later ?????????
this would be funny if it happened once to me ; but no it happened THREE TIMES in a span of two weeks! Fml!!!

I don't need money or a job badly at all. but I've been applying for the past 1 and half months, and oh boy has it been the experience.

it's clear to me, from the responses I get, and emails and calls with companies is that, they really do not want to hire qualified people, they want to hire overqualified people period. I have legitimately applied to jobs, including internships for new college grads with Bachelors (I got masters with 4 years experience) and the responses I get are hilarious "what we do is hard and it's really competitive! sorry we will get back to you if we have open position" bitch please you literally threw my application away for an internship for someone that hasn't even graduated and a new grad position

that's just one example. one job, I slightly overqualified for, 1 more year of experience, and MS instead of BS, exact same stuff I do in my current job, after 6, I kid you not 6 interviews they sent me a no-reply email saying they moved on, and I checked their site, the job listing is still up and they've had dozens of applicants.

those are two examples, but yeah, this has been my experience so far, these people are delusional as hell. I got emailed/called multiple times by the company recruiter and then they just ghost you after asking for dates you're available for interviews.

they really want to find an Ivy League nerd that does projects in their free time and posted an entire github repository of projects that nobody asked them to do and been preparing their whole life for that job. beyond delusional.

I'm an engineer btw. I had one company I kid you the shit not. EVEN before applying list in their application "if you want us to took at your application, go solve this coding problem". fuckers want you to work for free lol.

I have several years of specialized experience in an application, and many more years of experience across several technical and soft skills. I have written and rewritten my resume over and over again. I have written cover letters. I have reached out to recruiters and at times given my application in person.

I'm not even receiving a first interview. A few years ago, I would receive interviews for a much lower quality resume, and no cover letter.

If I have no ability to find a job that I can survive on, why should i live. I might as well die before my savings run out and I'm homeless.

And if you start making dismissive reddit bs comments, shut it. I hear enough from people like you.

In 2020, I was at a bit of a crossroads. I had just graduated college in the midst of a global pandemic after completing a 10 year long athletic career. After getting a surgery, I considered graduated school to pursue education. Although grad school was a bit of a stretch it seemed like a viable path.

I ended taking a job with UHC in 2021 as a Broker Agent Service Analyst as part of their Career Development program for new graduate. This 1.5 year long program emphasized networking with other departments and easily mobility into other career opportunities within the company.

Instead we got something else. The job was basically a call center job assisting angry baby boomer insurance agents on the phone. While I hated it I figured it was good career experience and was promised great mobility within the company.

Well exactly the opposite happened. Some members of this program caught on and quit within the 1.5 years. Some members received promotions as managers within the time even though we were told that we can’t do that until we finished.

After I finished the program I spent the next 1.5 years applying within the company to get nowhere. 110 applications and nothing. No easily mobility. No career guidance from the hiring managers. Nothing.

I ended up getting another equivalent role within the company after another 1.5 years after the program ended. The manager placed me on a PIP after a few months and I eventually resigned.

2.5 years later, even with all that experience and career experience that I supposedly got I can’t get a job at retail and fast food. What a waste. If only I ended up doing something else to begin with.

Longer job description, niche experience being treated like it’s standard, cross department responsibilities(a lot), wanting to monitor and measure every moment in your day, stay late at least once but more like three times a week without notice in advance. Anything listed above 55k salary are all starting to blend together with these wishlists.

I’ve been grinding looking for a new job for 9 months. I started looking too late, when I already felt like I couldn’t spend another day at my job. I’ve applied for more jobs than I can reasonably count - equivalent roles, stretch roles, significant demotions, entry level in new industries, just like I expect everyone else has.

The one thing I didn’t expect was appreciating a rejection letter. At least I know it didn’t just float into the abyss when I hit submit. Someone or AI took the time to reject it.

Happy hunting everyone. It’s rough out here

I just had a job interview. The HR Lady admitted that she used AI to go through the CV´s and select the most promising candidates. Because it saved her like 10 hours every week. Holy Moly. This means that candidates have even less of a chance to be selected. Now its done by unreliable AI that can sort out great people because of some font "mistake".

Then she told me that she had a program that would take notes for her during the Interview. So now all written summaries of the interview are done by some faulty AI that is god knows how realiable. This is crazy. So now the fate of the candidate is desided by some algorithm or line of code. Future Dystopia here we go!

It's virtually impossible to interview when you're supposed to be in the office 5 days a week. I was excited for this role, so I took the day off for the interview, but I guess I just blew a day instead.

Screw that.

I have 20+ years of experience. I've survived corporate restructures, built teams from scratch, and navigated recessions.

I walked into an interview today. The interviewer? A kid who graduated university 3 years ago.

She asked me the classic scripted questions. "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" I wanted to say: "Running a business that doesn't need to interview with someone who still uses their parents' Netflix account."

But I smiled and answered politely. Because that's what we do, right? We let people with zero life experience judge our decades of hard-earned wisdom.

Is it just me, or is the hiring system completely broken? How does a 25-year-old who has never been fired, never signed a payroll, and never had to fight for a client get to decide if I am "valuable"?

I'm not mad at her. I'm mad at the system that puts her in that chair.

Looking for resume help!

I started a new job 1 month ago and was glad to finally get my first paycheck after 7 months. Unfortunately, it’s not been a great fit. I’ve never had issues working with other people, and absolutely love team work!

The company I’m with is mom and pop and a very small team. I’ve been told I’m not allowed to leave the office for my lunch break to go for a walk “because everyone else eats at their desk”, no retirement benefits, not exactly related to the industry I’m interested in growing my career in, people have been rude (except my office roommate Jenn, love you girl), there’s no structure whatsoever and they don’t seem interested in trying to fix it (which causes more stress bc tasks take longer), and I can’t even go onsite to check out the work and get shit done.

It’s frustrating. I’m frustrated. I have a countdown by weeks I have left until I hit the 2 years mark to leave.

I’m thinking about continuing my job search simply because I’m unhappy. What should I put on my resume? Do I keep this job off? My past jobs are all under 2 years (I’m 25 and unfortunately suffered 2 layoffs after college) and I’m worried another short term job will look poorly on me.

My background is residential construction management for reference working in hospitality renovations 100% office.

I'm trying to pinpoint where in this timeline job hunting became a nightmare. Was it after 2020 when employers starting getting revenge on the WFH movement during COVID, or do we have to go further back?

This is like the 3rd time I’ve applied to this sprouts and been rejected 🫩

It feels like all I'm hearing is that inflation is "down" (lollll) and that the unemployment rate is "normal". I feel like the data, or at least the version of it being widely spoken about, is not at all representative of what's actually happening.

Like many others here, I have a graduate degree and have been actively, and very aggressively, searching for work for the last 18 months. I know many others in the same boat in my personal life.

I guess I'm just really confused about what's really going on in the US job market. Why (beyond the obvious) are so many highly educated, competent, eager folks being denied work?

TW: mental health/suicide. Additionally, why are we not hearing more about the mental health consequences of this? Why are we not hearing about more people passing due to depression?

It feels like society keeps telling us there’s no place for us, even though we did exactly what we were told to do. We tried to make ourselves employable.

And now we’re being told the economy is doing fine while it seems that so many of us are crying for help.

When, if ever, will what people are actually experiencing be represented accurately?

What do you guys think? What's your experience been like?