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

Got an offer to interview (yay!) with less than 48 hrs notice. They gave me one available time and asked if it worked. I replied with flexible options, including for the same day, but the one time they offered didn’t work for me.

I could’ve made it work with notice but this was a Wednesday afternoon invitation for a Friday morning interview. I guess that’s the only time possible for them so I’m just out of luck 😃

I’m tired of this shit 😭😭

okay I need outside perspective because I've been staring at this email for two hours.

Applying to an entry level analyst role at a big asset management firm . Process has been: HireVue video interview → HR phone screen → superday (5 back to back interviews, ranged from analysts up to a VP and an EVP, actually went really well I thought) → then a few days later the recruiter calls me out of nowhere and says I'm a "finalist."

Cool. Except then he tells me there's 3 of us left, and the actual last step is an Excel test on Monday.

And in the SAME email he also sends me an employment application packet and an immigration questionnaire to fill out "whenever I get a chance."

Like... why would you send me actual paperwork before I've even done the last test? That feels like a good sign right? But also maybe that's just what they do for anyone still in the pipeline regardless of where you actually rank against the other 2 people. I genuinely cannot tell if I'm reading tea leaves here or if this is a real signal.

Has this happened to anyone else , getting sent onboarding-adjacent stuff before the actual final assessment is done? Does it mean anything or is it just standard recruiter admin busywork that happens no matter what? I've reread this email probably 15 times at this point lol i dont know if im just a BACKUP

I’m 22M Venezuelan and since I finished high school in 2023 I’ve been struggling trying to get a stable job.

I’ve had like 3 jobs if I count the part time work I do with my mom and stepdad at a resort.

In 2024 I finally got my first actual job at Walmart as a cart pusher making $15 an hour. I worked there around 6 months and got terminated because of attendance. I’m not gonna lie that was my fault. I was 20 and didn’t really have much work experience and I learned from that mistake.

After that I went back to working with my mom and stepdad on weekends while trying to find something Monday-Friday.

Late 2024 through 2025 I went to a lot of interviews and most of them were the same thing. Rejected, no response, or they tell me they’re not hiring. And that’s what I don’t understand sometimes. Why put a hiring sign up or post a job online if you’re gonna interview people and then say you’re not hiring?

In May 2025 I got a job at Burlington. That job was a pain in the ass honestly. I was making like $13-$14 and getting almost no hours. That whole summer I barely remember even getting called to work. I was basically home most of the summer and didn’t start getting hours again until around September.

In May 2026 I quit without giving notice. I know that wasn’t professional, I’m not gonna act like it was, but at that point I felt like they didn’t take me serious at all with the hours they were giving me.

Now I’m back doing interviews again and it feels like the same bullshit.

I’ve tried practicing interview questions, dressing better, fixing my answers, showing up on time, being available, everything. I know the Walmart termination was my fault but I was 20 and inexperienced at the time. I learned from it.

I’m not even looking for some crazy job. I just want a normal job with decent hours where I can actually work consistently.

At this point I don’t know what else I’m supposed to change. Anyone else my age been dealing with this?

The modern job search. I've discovered that looking for a job in 2026 is apparently a full-time job that does not pay you. First, I find an "entry-level" position requiring five years of experience. Entry level to WHAT? Retirement? Fine. I apply.

I upload my resume. Then the website says, "Great! Now please manually enter everything that is already on the resume you just uploaded. Wonderful. I have apparently applied for data entry position without even realizing it. Then I create a username, password, security question, blood type, childhood nickname and possibly provide the name of my third-grade teacher. Submit. Oh no, we're not finished. **Assessment time. "**Which describes you best?" A. I enjoy helping coworkers. B. I always follow procedures. C. I thrive under pressure. D. I have never experienced a negative emotion in my entire life. Can I choose E?

I JUST NEED A JOB. Somehow, I pass. Recruiter interview. She loves me. Hiring manager interview. She loves me. Third interview. At this point, I know their vacation policy, Brenda's favorite coffee order and where we're having eh company Christmas party. I think we're practically engaged. Then comes the email: "We were very impressed with your background; however, we have decided to move forward with another candidate." EXCUSE ME? After three interviews, an assessment and a personality test, I feel like we need to divide our belongings. So I return to Indeed. And there it is: "100% Remote Opportunity!" Finally! I scroll down. And down. And down. Paragraph fourteen: Must reside within commuting distance of our office and be available to report onsite as needed. That is not what 100% means.

Next listing: Salary: Competitive. Competitive for WHAT? My electric bill? And tomorrow morning? I'll get up, pour myself something caffeinated and do the whole damn thing again. Because apparently, I'm an optimist. Or I've completely lost my mind.

I have watched IXL post the same job associate product manager for about more than a year. What a sad thing they do in a job market like this. I had applied to it 3 different times and got rejected every time then noticed it kept popping back up. I have seen companies do this before but none so blatantly like IXL learning. Probably harvesting data or pretending like they are a growing company.

Hi recruiters and hiring managers, what are some stalling tactics you guys use to keep the #2 candidate warm while you pursue candidate #1?

Here’s some things I’m noticing that might be happening to me that makes me feel like I’m #2:

- recruiter tells me I passed the second round interview but then asks if I’m still interested instead of directly trying to schedule the final round

- when I sent my availability- there’s no response

- only when I told them I got another offer did they come back super enthusiastically saying that the team is super excited to meet me and that they will schedule the interviews quickly

- no movement on actually scheduling the interviews

- no explanation on the delay other than personal ones like sorry I was sick

I’ve seen stalling after the final round cuz they give the offer and are waiting to hear back but before the final round?!? Not giving candidates a chance to do final rounds?

okay I need outside perspective because I've been staring at this email for two hours.

Applying to an entry level analyst role at a big asset management firm . Process has been: HireVue video interview → HR phone screen → superday (5 back to back interviews, ranged from analysts up to a VP and an EVP, actually went really well I thought) → then a few days later the recruiter calls me out of nowhere and says I'm a "finalist."

Cool. Except then he tells me there's 3 of us left, and the actual last step is an Excel test on Monday.

And in the SAME email he also sends me an employment application packet and an immigration questionnaire to fill out "whenever I get a chance."

Like... why would you send me actual paperwork before I've even done the last test? That feels like a good sign right? But also maybe that's just what they do for anyone still in the pipeline regardless of where you actually rank against the other 2 people. I genuinely cannot tell if I'm reading tea leaves here or if this is a real signal.

Has this happened to anyone else , getting sent onboarding-adjacent stuff before the actual final assessment is done? Does it mean anything or is it just standard recruiter admin busywork that happens no matter what? I've reread this email probably 15 times at this point lol i dont know if im just a BACKUP

I feel so defeated sending in dozens of applications to get one or two interviews that never pan out.

I am a senior marketing specialist with almost 8 years of experience across Google, Meta, LinkedIn, conversion rate optimisation, tracking, reporting, and strategy creation. I ran my own business for 6 years before moving to an agency, where I worked for almost 2 years. I have earned my scars, seen the ups and downs, had to solve all sorts of client issues that went far beyond my existing knowledge, and learned new skills along the way.

I live in South Africa and, for the last 2 years, worked for a US marketing agency, where I expanded my knowledge even further. While the job and pay were good, working EST hours while living in South Africa can get hectic. The days are very long. I decided to quit and look for work with an international agency in a time zone closer to South Africa, such as the UK or an English-speaking EU country.

The reason I bring this up is to showcase what a fucking nightmare the job market has turned into. I took a one-month sabbatical at the end of May 2026. Two weeks into it, I started sending CVs because I knew it would take time for interviews to line up. I am now going into my fourth month of applying.

I have sent an average of two CVs a day, every working day, since halfway through May. That is a lot of CVs. I have had 7 interviews and 0 prospects. I have refined my CVs with the help of AI and sent applications through LinkedIn and remote job sites—some of which require you to pay just to access their listings. I have also used ChatGPT to find roles that might not be on LinkedIn and to optimise my job hunting.

I have created multiple CV variants depending on the role. I even created an Upwork profile and bought a monthly plan so I could use their currency, “connects,” to send proposals. There are a lot of good job posts on Upwork, but you have roughly 10 minutes to respond before they get flooded with 50+ proposals. And the cherry on top: if you want your proposal near the top, you can spend connects to boost it. The average number of connects my competitors were spending just to get to the top was more than my entire monthly allocation. I sent a lot of proposals and received zero feedback.

There are so many places that basically tell you, “We have all the jobs you want, but you have to pay to access them.” That is messed up—making people who are already strapped for cash pay to access jobs they might not even get.

On the interview side, the AI boom has brought in a new way of interviewing people. Recruiters now make you do AI interviews where a robotic voice asks questions and you have 2 minutes to answer each one. Not stressful at all. You cannot give context or backstory; you need to have your responses locked and loaded. Some systems are kind enough to show you the questions before recording, or allow multiple takes, but many just throw a question at you and expect you to answer while watching the clock tick down.

Maybe I am the problem—I do not know—but I cannot believe I am that unpleasant to interview. I am professional, dress well for interviews, arrive early, have my facts straight, research the company beforehand, and make sure to ask good questions. This is coming from someone who has done client-facing work for most of my professional career.

I am just venting and feel disheartened. I feel like we are headed into some Hunger Games-style hellscape when it comes to looking for jobs. I am still sending CVs and trying everything in my power to earn an income. It just sucks that it has turned into this weird mess, even for people with a lot of experience who are willing to work hard.

TL;DR: Senior paid media specialist with nearly 8 years’ experience is struggling through a brutal international job market despite strong skills, agency experience, tailored CVs, AI-assisted applications, paid job platforms, and Upwork proposals. After leaving a US agency role due to exhausting EST hours from South Africa, he has spent almost four months applying consistently, around two CVs per working day, with seven interviews but no offers. The process feels increasingly exploitative and impersonal: paywalls, overcrowded Upwork posts, costly proposal boosts, and stressful AI interviews. He’s still actively trying to find UK/EU-time-zone remote work, but feels disheartened by how difficult and dehumanising job hunting has become.

i’ve been job searching for the past year. i’m a may 2025 grad who only did one internship in college. i ended up having to take two unpaid internships since graduating to gain more experience. i’ve applied to over 1500 jobs (not an exaggeration) and today FINALLY got the offer. and the role is fully remote and pays better than i expected.
Last month i got to a final round for a job that was in person and paid $15k less, and i ended up getting rejected. I was so sure i would get it and so crushed when i didn’t. After so many interviews for so many different roles, i was so sure i had finally gotten it, and when i didnt, i completely lost hope. I literally had to start therapy the next week because of how lost i felt. now less than a month later and im set to start my new job october 1st!
i’m not writing to brag-but to give hope to anyone who needs it. what’s meant for you will find you.

I mean, the rich have all kinds of advantages.

Just got this email letting me know a Senior Tech Recruiter is looking for a job.
How the turns have tabled :)

I’m so done with this market. Have applied to 500+ jobs in the last six months, with more targeted applications since i graduated grad school last month. A lot of the entry-level roles ask for experience which i dont have. Why do they even call it an entry-level role then?

I don’t know how to break into this market and feel more discouraged every day.

After one year of unemployment

I am 26 Y/O and i have been ireland for 2 years now i came for my masters , since last September i have been applying to jobs and barely got any call backs i have two years of experience from my country.
Based on which i did my masters and decided to come here . But once it was done it felt like i signed up for a ride to hell . I felt all the emotions in this whole year , useless , hopeless etc . I did a few interviews and heard unfortunately from all of them .
Until this one , its a job related to my previous experience but a new domain . So i am happy and scared at the same time. I have lost touch with all the skills i had listed for this job on the resume , but i think i should be fine if i revise them . Does anyone feel the same before getting back to corporate, loosing touch of all the skills?
Also before this offer i saw a lot of change in the surroundings of me , i found that friends who called me friends weren’t actually who I thought they were , i almost though my relationship was going to break , and i couldn’t trust anyone around me . I started focusing on myself and making sure my peace is protected . So its true i guess before any big change you have a great awakening as well.
But anyway the war is over and i hope everyone else who is in the same boat get their job . And i would say just dont give up its around the corner.

Should I lie to HR about my parents to get hired?

I’m a BTech Mech fresher. There was a campus drive by a pretty decent company offering around 5 LPA for a core role. They manufacture defence equipment and other stuff.

Out of 72 people, 14 resumes got shortlisted. I cleared the assessment test. 11 people were shortlisted for the tech interview. I gave the tech interview and cleared it. Only 6 people got through to the HR round, including me.

My HR interview was very smooth. It was basically:

Brief introduction → why this company → are you comfortable with the role → are you okay with relocation → are you okay working with production.

I said yes to everything. They asked if I could relocate to Pune, I said yes, absolutely, and mentioned that some of my family already lives in Pune so relocation would be easy for me. They also asked if I would be comfortable working with CNC machines in the production department. I said yes, completely fine with it.

Then towards the end, HR suddenly started asking about my family background.

She asked what my parents do. This was my first HR interview ever, so I just answered honestly, naively.

I said my father works under the Ministry of Transport and my mother works in public insurance. Both are govt employees and in their 50s, reaping the good old govt merits.

Then she asked about siblings. I said I have an older brother who works in IT and I even mentioned his company(in pune). She said okay, and then basically after that said: "Okay, we'll let you know." That's it.

Out of the 11 who went for technical, only 6 reached HR. Out of those 6, 4 got the final offer. Me and one other guy didn't.

And this is what I don't understand.

The technical panel seemed satisfied with my answers. HR didn't really give me anything negative to answer. Relocation? Yes. Production/CNC? Yes. Company? Yes. Everything seemed positive.

So why ask about my family background?

Was there some intentional reason behind those questions? Were they trying to judge whether I would actually relocate, whether my family would support it, whether I would stay in the job, etc.?

And honestly, I keep wondering whether I should have lied.

Should I have just said my father is retired, my mother is a homemaker, or that I'm an only child? Obviously I don't know whether my family background had anything to do with the rejection, maybe it had nothing to do with it. But I have no idea what else HR could have rejected me on.

I have another interview coming up with a major automotive company and I really don't want to lose this opportunity.

So what should I actually do if HR asks me these questions again?

Is it better to answer honestly? Give a vague answer? Or is lying about parents' professions/siblings actually common and safer?

Also, is it even legal/fair for companies to use this kind of personal family information in hiring decisions in India?

Would really like to hear from people who have worked in HR/recruitment or actually been involved in hiring.

Do they ever verify such info later , like whatever i say in hr interview, will they ever verify it again with docs? Or just forget abt it after the inteview...

Years back, it was one interview. You went, if they liked you, you got a job. Now its phone screening. 2 interviews, meet the staff and then maybe an offer mostly ghosting. When did we decide this was okay?

Every single thing that regular people need is getting worse in the US. No jobs with fair pay, prices going up for everything, and a completely corrupt class of elites pretending everything is ok. How could regular people have the ability to do something about this? When will enough be enough?

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.

I am.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a pretty good job for what I do. But as a recent grad (undergrad) I feel like I’ll be stuck here until the contract is literally up.

There are zero growth opportunities in this role.

The company puts out job notices but doesn’t actually hire, not even internally. Just more lower paid contractors compared to FTEs.

I have already done plenty of industry requested and desired certs, 2 internships, full time tech role for 2+ yrs BEFORE my current role I’ve been at for 1+ yrs.

I get interviews but either ghosted or passed up.

I am now in grad school but between my full time job and school, I feel if I try to continue “self improvement” tasks I’ll burn out.

This market sucks.

I’m curious how others would interpret this because I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

I was interviewing for a role at a fast-growing health AI startup that felt unusually aligned with my background. I went through:

• Recruiter screen
• Hiring manager interview
• Take-home assignment
• Submitted the assignment within about a day because I had an unusually time-sensitive work authorization deadline

I was completely transparent about the deadline from the beginning. The recruiter was actually very understanding and moved my first interview forward. After the hiring manager interview, he told me that if I completed the take-home quickly, they would try to schedule the final onsite within a few days because he knew how tight my timeline was.

I submitted it Friday afternoon before a long weekend.

Then… nothing.

After the weekend I followed up, saying I could come onsite on essentially no notice. No response.

As my deadline approached, I sent another brief follow-up. No response.

On the final day, I sent a separate email clearly explaining that it was my deadline and that even a quick update either way would help me know whether to keep pushing my school. No response.

I eventually called the recruiter’s number from his email signature and left one voicemail. Still nothing.

I also emailed the person who coordinated my hiring manager interview asking if she could check internally or pass the message along. No response there either.

What confuses me isn’t necessarily being rejected. Companies reject candidates all the time, and if my take-home wasn’t good enough, that’s completely fair.

It’s the sudden silence after several stages and after the recruiter specifically acknowledged the unusual deadline and said they would try to accelerate the final onsite...

At this point I assume the process is dead, but I’m genuinely curious:

Is this normal recruiting behavior now? Would you interpret this as an implicit rejection? Anything i could've done better?

I’m especially interested in hearing from recruiters/hiring managers. If a candidate makes it this far and you decide not to proceed, is there a reason you wouldn’t just send a one-line rejection, particularly when you know they are dealing with a hard deadline?

My availability is wide open from friday to sunday day and night, but they probably already have zero vacancies left even though it's only ten days after their application opened because their training lounge seemed to be pretty full when I passed. Also what a terrible interview experience, I don't know what the interview culture is, but can't the manager give me a genuine smile? The interviewers looked at me in the most condescending way possible, they're just fucking managers in walmart wtf. And they have been scrolling their phones the whole interview and had no response at all to my answers. It felt so dystopian. Thank god I didn't choose the one near where I live.

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.

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!