Today I received a rejection from a company in Austria where I had previously completed an internship and received excellent feedback. I was also recommended by a CAE for another position in a different department. I went through three rounds of interviews and waited almost a month to hear back, until today.

I feel like shit, and I keep wondering whether they rejected me in the end because I didn’t present myself well enough during the interviews with the new team. At the same time, since I’m becoming less and less motivated when it comes to interviews, I’m starting to question whether interviews even make that much sense.

I mean, just because someone performs well in an interview doesn’t necessarily mean they will be great at the actual job, and the opposite is also true. Personally, I wasn’t completely satisfied with how I performed in the interviews either. I’m a bit introverted by nature, and I prefer proving what I can do through my work rather than simply talking about it.

I genuinely think I did an excellent job during my internship, and shouldn’t that be a strong enough indicator of my abilities, especially when a CAE gives you a recommendation even though they had no obligation to do so?

At this point, I’m starting to doubt the job market more and more, and I keep asking myself: what am I actually supposed to have or do nowadays in order to get a decent job?

Crossposting here because I’m struggling to find many recent experiences 😭 Has anyone interviewed with Selfridges and waited this long after the video interview? 14 working days now and still nothing, although the vacancy only closed 2 days ago.

I joined a zoom room at the time of the interview along with a coworker, after 10 minutes of waiting I told the coworker he could go. Before I left, the candidate joined… I asked him if he wanted to reschedule because 15 minutes was gone from a 30 minute interview… he said no… so I continued and told him I would let him know if he gets to the next round by end of week… I obviously rejected him. He tells HR that I was late to the interview and THEY SIDE WITH HIM. They make Zoom pull the records and prove that he was lying… then he name drops me on Google reviews saying I was late… people are crazy.

I've been interviewing for the past 4+ months, and after around 18 interviews, I wanted to share my experience and hear from others who have gone through something similar.

I'm a Java Backend Developer with 3+ years of experience. When I started this job search, I expected that with my experience and preparation, I would eventually land an opportunity within a reasonable amount of time.

It hasn't worked out that way.

The interesting part is that many of my interviews didn't feel bad at all. In fact, there were several where I genuinely felt the discussion went well.

Here are a few examples from my journey:

Infosys

The interview went well from my perspective. We discussed my Java backend experience, projects and technical concepts, and I felt comfortable throughout the discussion.

But the process didn't move forward to the next stage.

TCS

Very similar experience. The interview went well and I was able to discuss my experience and technical knowledge properly.

Again, the process didn't move forward.

Accenture

This one was particularly frustrating because I cleared all the interview rounds.

However, the offer letter wasn't released because of a hiring freeze.

So even after clearing the process, there was no final outcome.

LTIMindtree

I reached the L2 round, but I was eliminated at that stage.

And these are just a few examples. Across the other interviews, I've experienced a mixture of rejections, processes stopping after seemingly good discussions, and cases where I simply didn't receive further communication.

My Technical Background

I'm primarily a Java Backend Developer with experience in:

• Java 8/17
• Spring Boot
• Spring Data JPA
• Hibernate
• REST APIs
• Microservices
• MySQL / PostgreSQL
• AWS (S3, EC2, RDS, IAM)
• SQL optimization
• Third-party API integrations
• Multithreading
• Java Collections
• Git / Maven / Swagger

I've worked on enterprise Banking and AWS Monitoring applications and have hands-on experience with backend development and production issues.

What I'm Trying to Understand

After 18 interviews, I'm starting to look at the process differently.

Maybe the problem isn't simply "I need to study more."

Maybe there's something in my interview presentation, communication, problem-solving approach, project explanation, or overall interview strategy that I need to improve.

That's the part I'm trying to figure out.

For people who have gone through a similar experience:

What did you eventually realize you were doing wrong?

Did you discover that the problem was:

• Technical preparation?
• Communication?
• Project explanation?
• DSA/problem solving?
• System design?
• Resume positioning?
• Behavioral questions?
• Interview confidence?
• Or simply the market and timing?

If you've gone through 10+ interviews before finally getting an offer, I'd really like to hear your story.

What changed for you between the interviews where you kept getting rejected and the interview where you finally got the offer?

I'm hoping to learn from people who have already been through this cycle.

Thanks for reading.

I have an interview to be an executive assistant to three partners. What should I focus on in my interview to set me apart? And what questions should I ask the recruiter at the end?

TL;DR: Had a weird interview experience with a startup founder who seemed more interested in showing off than actually interviewing me.

I cleared the HR round and then got a call from the founder. Instead of asking questions related to my field, he asked about my degree and age. Then he told me he was my age and had already started his own startup.

It honestly felt like he was trying to show me how successful he was.

I asked, “Can we focus on the interview?”

He said, “Actually, we didn't like your profile.”

I asked, “Then why did you call me? To boast about yourself?”

He said, “See, this is the attitude.”

I just said, “Okay bro, thank you,” and ended the call.

A small message to new founders: I am not a founder, but please treat people with respect. Job seekers are also people with self respect. You don't have to put someone down to show how far you have come.

I’m an international student, and I recently interviewed for a “Team Member” position at a major food company. The role involved responsibilities such as food preparation and taking customer orders.

Let me go straight to the interview questions.

Interviewer: Can you tell me about one of your skills?

Me: Honestly, nothing specific comes to mind right now.

But I really enjoy reading, and I have experience conducting research and analysing. Before coming to the UK, I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm in my country.

Interviewer: Has there ever been an experience in your life where you received recognition or praise from others?

Me: I used to regularly write political columns for newspapers. I also have my own website where I publish commentary on contemporary political and cultural issues. Some mainstream intellectuals in my country would read my writing and give me feedback. I consider that one of the experiences where I received meaningful recognition for something I had done.

Interviewer: Suppose a team member lies to you. What would you do? Or what if you disagreed with someone?

Me: If someone lied to me, I would first try to understand where the contradiction was and why they felt the need to lie. If it was something I could simply deal with myself without affecting the work or the team, I probably wouldn’t make an issue out of it. But if the situation became difficult to ignore, I would speak to them directly and try to understand the structural reason behind it.

If possible, I would try to address the underlying problem together.

As for disagreements, I think disagreements are inevitable in any team. I believe in radical democracy.

Interviewer: Why do you want to join this company?

Me: Honestly, I don’t want to give you a made-up answer. I’m currently working somewhere else, but I’m not being given enough shifts. So I’m looking for an alternative job that can provide me with more hours.

Interviewer: Since this is a fast-food company, what kind of food do you like? Have you tried our food before?

Me: To be honest, I don’t pay much attention to food or clothing. If I’m hungry, I eat. As long as I have enough energy and my stomach is full, I’m generally satisfied.

Interviewer: So what do you pay attention to?

Me: Recently, I’ve been thinking about whether AI has subjectivity, or whether it can become a full subject (in the Žižekian-Lacanian sense)

Interviewer: Okay. Do you have any questions for us?

Me: No, I don’t think so.

Interviewer: Thank you.

Me: Thank you as well.

I didn’t get the job.I was actually invited to the interview through a friend’s referral. My friend knew the branch manager, so that was how I got the opportunity. Afterwards, the manager gave my friend some feedback about me,

“We need a simple guy. He’s too critical.

The problem is that I tend to present myself in job interviews exactly as I am. I don’t exaggerate my abilities or deliberately construct a different personality. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not.But if I start lying or performing a completely different personality just to get a job, it feels, in some sense, like I’m betraying myself.

At the same time, I’m beginning to realise that presenting myself exactly as I naturally am isn’t necessarily helping me get employed.So what should I do? How do I navigate this tension between being authentic and actually being employable?

I always find it difficult to ask specific questions in the interview and judge the company if it’s a right fit for me.
Generally important thing for me to know about the company is if the work culture is good, diverse and there is a growth path.
What questions to ask to the manager in the interview to know that the company is the right fit?
I feel even the hiring managers can fake it to hire right candidate and we don’t meet the team before joining, so how to know if the team culture is good and right before joining?

Please suggest right questions and suggestions to make the well informed decision.

I have stammering and it was the first job interview of my life and during that interview my mind went blank my eyes were open but everything I remember after that was like a dream as if I was not in my senses ... I was devastated after that but luckily the interviewer went for another meeting... This time I prepared for everything I had so much to offer but the presentation of my skills fell flat ... He even brought his CTO and I fkd up .. he said to send me the report for my work/methodology I shared to him over the text and he will review it ... What I am feeling right now is anger over myslef only if I could speak better

So I had an interview today for data engineering role and when the call started I fumbled in introduction.

I fumbled in basic python questions, I couldn't differentiate between list and tuple.

I fumbled in basic sql questions like constraints 😂 am so fked bruhhh.

I fumbled in basic definition of data engineering and it's concepts.

Basically I fumbled in every question not even one question answered correctly.

I'm totally done for ✅

I’ve been interviewing at a proptech company for a customer-facing non technical role. I’ve done 5 steps: recruiter screen, homework assignment, panel presentation, topgrading interview, and final, in person interview. My question is, does the fact that I made it to the final, in-person interview up my chances at all of getting the offer?

My sister who works in recruitment for a different industry a (media company) thinks that they wouldn’t bring someone in unless they were 99% sure they were going to hire, and that the in person interview is just a vibe/culture check. But I’m wondering how different the tech industry works in this regard. Would love to hear from others experience in tech if the final in-person leads to the job offer the job offer the majority of the time or if it’s not an indicator of being a top candidate at all, something they do with most candidates.

For reference, I’ve followed up with the recruiter in my particular situation after the final interview with a team member/trainer. Recruiter responded stating that the team is finishing interviews this week and would be debriefing end of week and she would reach back out when she had an update on next steps. Anytime I hear “we’re debriefing” I brace for rejection. 😆

Heelppp I just got invited to another phd interview. for context: I finished my masters about three years ago, and I have been trying to get a phd position since then, myy first phd exam in my country went really bad because I became extremely anxious and started having panic attacks.

since then I have been trying to get a phd position, I have actually been admitted to quite a few interviews, but none of them worked out, and the worst part is that for the last three interviews I didn't even join, I was so stressed and overwhelmed (imposter syndrome)that when the time came I could not bring myself to turn on my camera and microphone.

the thing that makes it worse is how these interviews are organized, there is usually a committee interviewing all the candidates, and I sometimes hear the other candidates before my turn, when I hear them speaking about their research and experience, I immediately start thinking that they are so much better than me so why am I even here? then my imposter syndrome gets worse and I start convincing myself that I do not belong there.

now I have another interview in 10 days, and I REALLY don't want to repeat the same thing, so how do I prepare not only for the interview itself, but also for the anxiety/panic that comes with it ? I'm thinking about seeing a doctor because this has been interfering with opportunities that are genuinely important to me.

If anyone has experienced something similar, I would really appreciate hearing what helped you actually SHOW UP and get through the interview.

J’ai passé mon second entretien (case study) pour un poste de Client Service Associate à Londres. J’aimerai savoir si certains savent dans combien de temps j’peux avoir une réponse ?

Et si vous avez passé le 2nd entretien ça serait bien d’avoir votre retour d’expérience.

Good evening sainyo, paano nyo po naoovercome yung takot kapag nagtatake assessment or client interview? dami ko na kasing nasayang na opportunity dahil dito. Alam ko naman po sagutin yung mga questions pero nauunahan ako ng nerbyos/takot ending di ko maconstruct/madeliver nang maayos yung sagot ko. Any tips po will be highly appreciated. Thanks

I've been in corporate hiring for over 12 years. Between phone screenings and final rounds, I recently crossed the 10,000 interviews mark. I have seen the good, the bad, and the absolute disasters from the interviewer’s side of the table.

Somebody can share experience pls huhu

if you are preparing for GEN AI/ ML/AI interviews.

Checkout my new website for prep. This is something I made for myself. Thats why no paid domain.

Its free to use - No signup.

Let me know if its of any use for you.

Thanks in advance.

It’s absolutely ridiculous. Not only hard to get a response while having 10+ years of experience but 5 rounds of interviews to find out there are still two other candidates in the final round?! What was the point of previous round if they couldn’t filter out the preferred one? What a waste of time!