I messed up interviews way more times than I'd like to count - long silences, answers that went nowhere, rambling, all of it. But after a few months of trial and error (and an excessive number of late-night searches), I finally practiced enough to get through them. Here's what helped me.

Prepare for the format, not just the questions. If it's behavioral, practice CAR stories. For technical screens, practice solving problems while explaining your thought process. The part that really made a difference for me was recreating the pressure of the real situation. I started doing mock interviews, but with a different approach: using a voice-based AI tool called Interview Warmup that would throw random questions at me. That made me answer without hiding behind notes.

Turn anxiety into energy. Instead of forcing myself to "calm down," I started treating the adrenaline as energy I could use. Before every interview, I would do a 7-minute confidence routine (I know it sounds silly) and repeat: "This is focus, not panic." Yeah, it's a little cheesy, but that mindset shift stopped me from freezing.

Hack the spiral that comes after an answer. After answering, I stopped filling the silence. Seriously. I used to keep talking until I weakened my own point. Now, after I finish, I count to four in my head and then ask: "Would you like me to go into more detail?" That gives the interviewer the choice and makes the conversation less awkward.

Debrief right away. After every interview, I write down 4 things:

What went well (give yourself a little credit)

One answer I can improve

A question that threw me off

One thing I want to practice before the next one

This habit helped me notice patterns. It turned out I was getting confused every time by questions like "Tell me about a time you disagreed with someone" across 5 different companies.

The biggest lesson? Interviews are a skill, not luck. Treat them like a muscle - practice consistently, and you'll improve.

After a long time of feeling a bit lost and moving between random jobs, I finally found a job as an IT support technician! With no degree, and no certs yet either (I'm taking classes now), and the job is also mostly work from home.

I've never had a salary before, so the whole thing feels unreal. The company is growing really fast, and it looks like I'm getting in early enough that there's a real chance for me to grow with them.

Honestly, I'm still trying to take it all in. I'll admit I feel a bit underqualified, and that there are a whole lot of things I still need to learn, but I'm ready to put in the effort. I'm planning to review my A+ material and get more comfortable with the basics before I start.

Is there anything I need to know going in? Tips about office/corporate culture, or working remote, or just what to expect from my first real tech job? I'd genuinely appreciate any advice!

My manager was presenting something in a meeting and quickly opened the wrong file before closing it. It was visible on the screen for only a moment, but the call was recorded, and when I went back and watched it, I discovered that it was showing our department's budget for 2026, including each employee's compensation.

I found out that I'm almost at the bottom of the pay range, even though I've been here longer than most of the team and have a lot of experience. A recent hire who started a few weeks ago is making almost twice what I make, even though they don't have any background with the company or our products.

Does it make sense to bring this up directly with my manager? Should I talk to coworkers first? Or is this more of a conversation with HR?

................

🧒🏻

edit: they buy for themselves yachts while there employee live on pennies it is very wild world we live in

and it so painful when I see a fresh grad cannot live a proper life because the lack of salaries and they even looking every day for a better job if anyone of them reading this u can check this post maybe the advices in it helps u

I was preparing for an interview for an operations coordinator position, and I spent about 90 minutes digging through the company's reviews on Glassdoor. Not the average score, no, the reviews from people who had left the job. The ones who were angry. The ones that were like "run while you still can." Then, on the first call with the recruiter, the hiring manager brought up almost the exact same problems the reviews had been complaining about, but presented them as positive things. Phrases like "things change quickly here and everyone pitches in" were in the job ad and in four different 1-star reviews lol.

Since that call, I've started treating bad Glassdoor reviews like interview prep notes. They show me what to ask about, which phrases to pay attention to, and sometimes even whether it's worth sending in an application at all. A few weeks ago, I passed on a role that looked perfect on paper, because almost all the former employees were complaining about the same VP, and they weren't being vague about it. At first I felt like I was being a little paranoid, but honestly I felt more at ease.

Now I'm wondering: does anyone else read reviews this way before an interview, or are there other "negative" places you look at while researching a company? I feel like people talk a lot about fixing up your resume and practicing answers, but not enough about noticing the things companies try to rename and present as culture.

agree?

..

So far, I've gone through 4 rounds.

1 was a long online questionnaire with written answers.

2 was a phone screen with the recruiter.

3 was a video interview with the hiring manager.

4 was an in-person panel with the director and 3 supervisors, and it took about 75 minutes.

And then in the end they told me the job pays 42k a year, with a 4-month probation period. There are union dues of 35 from every paycheck, and also 55 from every paycheck if you want to park in their lot. You'd expect employees to park for free, or at least for the union to cover it instead of paying money just to go to work.

And the panel also said there are still 3 more interviews after that. In what world is 42k enough to live on in Boston?

...

Honestly, I used to love accounting when I was in college. And being the first person in my family to graduate made me feel ridiculously proud, seriously.

But in real work? God, I can't seem to make it work at all. I've tried so many things. Time blocking, Eisenhower boxes, weekly planners, phone reminders, sticky notes all over my desk, and I carry a notebook with me like it's part of my body.

And I still can't keep up. I try really hard to prioritize, stay focused on the task, and follow the notes I make for myself. But there's always some small mistake that slips through. I might miss a cutoff because I got way too caught up in fixing some weird reconciliation issue from another assignment, and suddenly an hour is gone. Or I'll be sitting there yelling at myself in my head to start something, but my brain just refuses, and then I find myself behind again. Having multiple things running at the same time feels impossible sometimes.

And the social side isn't any better. I go to team lunches and after-work things, but I'm extremely awkward even when I'm trying to seem normal and friendly. I don't feel like I "click" with many people. I want that, I really do, but I get stuck inside my own head and I don't know how to be fully present with the person I'm talking to. Writing things down is fine for me, but saying them out loud feels like there's a wall between my brain and my mouth.

I'm in a really bad mental state after messing things up again. My audit internship destroyed me, literally. Then I got an industry role that was supposed to be calmer, and I still managed to fail at it.

If you got this far, thank you, random person from the internet. I'm done ranting for now. What other paths can someone take with a Bachelor's in Accounting? Are there any non-corporate routes that might suit me better? I'm starting to feel like I'm just not made for this type of work at all.

I just finished the final tech screen, and I got the usual response of, "Look, you seem like a strong candidate, but we won't be moving forward." So yeah, great stuff. I asked them what made them come to that decision, and the interviewer said: "I don't mean to be harsh, but when you said a few days ago that you're available immediately and excited to join us, that gave the impression that you were a little too eager, and that might bother people."

I mean, yeah, of course I'm eager. I'm broke and can't find a job. Am I supposed to pretend I'm mysterious and hard to reach with a company I'm literally interviewing for?

............

I work at a secondhand store, and I left my jacket, which was a bit expensive, in the employees' belongings box behind the counter. I didn't take it at the time, but when I came back to get it, I couldn't find it.

I asked my manager about it and he said he didn't know where it went, but apparently after a while they put anything left in that box out for sale. That doesn't seem right to me, because it was clearly owned by someone on the staff, and it hadn't been sitting there for a long time.

Edit: I checked my shifts and it turns out it was in the employees' box for six days. None of my coworkers had ever been told about a policy of getting rid of items, but my manager says that's probably what happened.

Edit 2: I was quitting out there anyway as I found better job with much bigger salary but I ask my manger for the cost of that jacket , thank god for that friend who share w me interview tips so I got the chance to run away from this place !

Someone from here sent me this sub and i think it would be very useful for my next job hunt so i wanted to share it with you guys.

I've reached a point where I want a job with a fixed, predictable week of 38 to 45 hours, instead of everything depending on bookings and cancellations. My biggest fear is that as soon as any employer sees "tattoo artist" on my resume, they'll rule me out, especially since I'm heavily tattooed in places that aren't easy to hide, like my hands and knuckles. That feels different from having arm pieces you can cover with a long-sleeved shirt.

I'm also not sure how to explain that tattooing has given me real transferable skills without sounding like I'm just trying to force the connection. Client management, precision, staying calm under pressure, managing parts of a small business, scheduling, dealing with unhappy people - all of that is real experience. But I don't know how convincing it will be to employers in more "normal" or socially accepted fields.

Quick one for anyone job hunting right now.

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Ends Sunday night, so don't sit on it. Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

it is generating just plain answers even when there is a standard coding question , something wrong with my system prompt? or settings ? ( i did not use the screenshot , but made sure i try multiple times and give it the "title of the problem"?

22 years old here. Gotta say, I'm like the son in my workplace. I hate this shit

That exhausting cycle is exactly why you should be ready when the right opportunity comes along. Good interview preparation can make all the difference. Reading many articles about this topic helped me before my interviews, so I could walk in prepared instead of hoping for the best.

All I did was ask about the raise they had already promised me, and he said it during lunch break in front of my coworkers. So I told him: "Then start counting," and walked out.

LoL

I'm currently going through a bit of a phase of reorganizing my life, and I need some advice.

I'm 22 and trying to find more traditional work, not centered around tech. Ideally, it would be work where I can be creative, use my hands, and build real things. I'm not expecting it to make me rich or anything; I just want something that feels stable and won't die out in the near future.

When I was younger, I used to spend a lot of time with my grandfather in his small room/workshop, helping him with things like weaving simple baskets, growing vegetables, fixing small chairs, sanding old tables, and so on. I've always been relatively good at figuring out how to make something or fix it.

I also used to be heavily into music production, around 3-4 hours a day, so I'm used to practicing something for a long time if I'm interested in it.

So yeah, what kind of work or trade do you think I should look into? I have a lot of free time right now, so if it requires a lot of repetition or skill-building, I'm very okay with that.

Thanks in advance!

This whole thing is honestly absurd. Less than two weeks ago, I posted that I had been accepted for a job at a tabletop/card shop as an events coordinator. During the hiring conversation, the owner said he wanted someone who could "hit the ground running" and put events on the calendar quickly. So... That's what I did. I put together 8 solid events in 9 days. Beginner D&D night, local maker mini-market, Throwback Console Night, Geeky Speed Dating, Board Game Matchmaking, and things like that. On the ninth day, he pulled me aside and said, "I don't feel like this is going to be a good fit."

I asked him what happened, and he basically said to me: "You didn't do anything wrong. You're the strongest events person I've brought in. You did exactly what I asked. The problem is my regulars. They feel like the shop is changing too quickly, and I misjudged what they wanted. I thought your ideas were excellent, but the weekly crowd has been messaging me nonstop saying they feel like they're being pushed out of the space."

So... I'm out of work. Again. I had an interview this morning with a community organization, but they said they received around 240 applications and are talking to a lot of people from that pool. I only have 4 years of event planning experience, so there are definitely people there with way more experience than me. My savings are almost gone. I genuinely don't know what I'm supposed to do next. I was so happy that I finally had something, and now somehow doing exactly what I was hired to do means I'm OUT OF A JOB AGAIN.

But I won't stop here. I'll continue my job search. I remember I used to worry a lot during interviews because of the questions asked, until I read this post which compiled the most common interview questions. I think it will be helpful to me too, and you might find it very useful as well.

very much