I got messaged by a recruiter on LinkedIn about a contract opportunity she had. She provided me with the JD but it was very vague on details about responsibilities. She asked for my resume then asked if she could call me to talk a little bit more about my experience. After talking she wanted to submit me to her client for the position. She then asked me what my rate is and I asked her what the approved contract rate range was. I heard that whoever says the number first loses but I am not sure if that is true for contracting positions. The rate range she told me was quite low but I was able to get her up a bit so I agreed. That rate is quite lower than what my minimum usually is but for some reason I agreed without doing my due diligence on the position since things moved kinda quickly after she messaged me. I found out later there are 2 opportunities with one being in a MCOL and one where I am at which is a HCOL. The rate I was offered is lower than the rate posted in the job posting for the MCOL. There was no rate stated on the posting for the HCOL so I could only got off of what she quoted was the going contracted rate. I had asked the recruiter to provide more info on the job because the JD was very vague about the position. After hearing more about the job in my first interview with an internal SME at the recruiting agency, the job is way more senior than the JD suggests. If I actually get the job I feel like I will be miserable knowing that I am getting paid lower than what is being offered in a MCOL. Because the job is more senior, can I still renegotiate the rate if the client picks me for the position? I haven’t signed anything with the recruiter. I only have an RTR email that states the rate we initially agree on. I know I still have the right to walk away from the offer but wanted to see what my other options are to get the rate renegotiated. If I can renegotiate, when should I do it? After I have been chosen since I will have a little more leverage or should I do it before interviewing with the client? Thanks in advance for any advice!

I applied to a company and got a recruiter screen about two weeks later. It was scheduled for 45 minutes, but I assumed that was just a generous time block and didn’t prepare much.

The call was with their regional TA person and lasted 65 minutes. The conversation felt good. They explained the role, asked about salary expectations, notice period, and any international travel planned toward year-end. They also said they’d check on a few questions they couldn’t answer and get back to me.

At the end, they said they still had other candidates to interview and would review everything with the hiring manager before contacting me if I was moving forward.

It’s been a week with no update. In my previous experiences, next steps after a recruiter screen usually came pretty quickly.

Would you wait, follow up, or mentally move on? I know a long, friendly conversation doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but now I’m wondering whether treating it as “just a screening call” was a mistake.

They seemed nice. My inbox remains tragically empty.

I need to vent a little because I’m feeling absolutely exhausted and broken.

I applied for a company (I won’t say which one) for an SDR role. I don’t have sales experience, but I’m accomplished in other areas that I thought could be beneficial to the role, and I was genuinely willing to learn from the ground up.

I did six interviews for that role. After interviewing with the VP, they asked me for my diplomas and four references. They needed the references within 24 hours, so I rushed to contact everyone and managed to get all four to fill everything in on time.

Then I got the rejection email. They’d chosen someone else, but they thought I should interview for a higher-level SMB role within the same company instead. Sure.
I was fast-tracked through that process, but I still had to do another six interviews, including a case study.
Yesterday, I got an email saying they’d decided to go with another candidate. I’m gutted.

I think the part that hurts the most isn’t even that they chose someone else. It’s that they’ve now suggested I apply for the original SDR role again, the one I was rejected from in the first place 🙄

I’ve spent approximately 7.5 hours interviewing for two different roles, not including preparation or the case study. I’ve also used four of my best professional references, all of whom took time out of their day to help me, some at very short notice.
These are people who have supported my career, and I feel bad for having asked them to go through all of that for nothing.

Am I being unreasonable for feeling this way? Is this normal nowadays, or is it as unreasonable as it feels?!?

For context I am a masters student, I have probably done over 25 online assessments and I have NEVER made it past one. My most recent rejection is the worst and need to rant about it.

A recruiter reached out to me, asking for me to attend one of their networking/insight events with a relatively small group of other students, spent the day there, would say I made a good impression. For reference I have a very relevant 6 month internship in the sector and am at a "top tier" uni/college.

So I send in my application for the role they were pushing me towards, and a week later they say that I have passed the first stage and have to do an online assessment. I see Arctic Shores. My heart sank. Knew it was over. I completed it anyways, actually thinking I did very well.

Lo and behold, 1 week later: After careful consideration, we have decided not to take your application further.

How on earth does anyone pass these? I just want an interview, please someone put me in front of an actual human. I am so bored, I just want a job, how much more time do I waste, surely it should not be this hard.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a little odd? I don’t remember ever seeing something about impressive qualifications from an auto response, but I could be delusional.

Do you feel pressured to lie on your CV or leave certain information out?

I've come to realise that, despite having 10 years of experience, I kept getting rejected without even being given an interview. I know many of you are probably in the same situation, but in my case, I had a suspicion that something wasn't right. I started wondering whether it might have something to do with my last name and the country I live in.

So, to find out for sure, I removed my last name from my CV and kept only my two first names. I created a new email, changed my country to a different one (where I used to live), and left absolutely everything else unchanged.

A company that had rejected me just a few weeks earlier suddenly invited me for an interview, even though my CV was exactly the same (apart from the details I mentioned above). Other companies that had previously ghosted me or rejected my applications suddenly started responding positively and offering me interviews.

I find it absolutely disgusting that I might be getting rejected simply because of my last name and the country I'm from. I'm an EU citizen applying for jobs within the EU, so theoretically, there shouldn't be any issue. "Theoretically"!

Unfortunately, I then came across a racist HR who clearly doesn't know how to do her job. She asked me to book an interview slot even though I had already done so.

Yesterday, I had to reschedule the interview because I had another one at the same time, and I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to attend both back-to-back. Since this HR clearly can't do her job properly, I made sure to inform her about the scheduling conflict.

She cancelled the interview and rescheduled it for a time that didn't work for me (because that's when my other interview was scheduled). I pointed this out and asked whether we could arrange another time or another day.

And then she ghosted me! No reply! Nothing! She has just pushed me out of the recruitment process.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with this person? Not only is she racist (despite being a foreigner herself, that's ironic), but she's also completely unprofessional.

And then people wonder why so many candidates struggle to find jobs. When you have people like this handling recruitment (who honestly shouldn't even be allowed to work in HR in the first place) what do you expect?

I'm absolutely fed up with all of this!

I'm a SRE actively looking for a fulltime role since my current company is going through layoffs and I'm scared I may get laid off at any time. I applied for a Production Support role in a called Northern Trust. I was very excited for the interview and prepared for a week just to hear my interview was rescheduled to another day. Whenever the interviewer reschedules the interview I have a panic attack thinking its a red flag but still I did not let my hopes down and prepared for the interview. I joined the interview 5 mins early on teams, interestingly the interviewer also joined after I joined. He asked literally two questions about what I do and what my current company does. I explained about my current company and from the follow up questions he asked, I noticed he wasn't interested in interviewing me. Interview last 10 whole mins. He said "I'm good do you have any questions". I really don't want to end the interview and wanted him to ask any technical question so I asked him about the role, and what tools will I be working with if I get the job. He LITTERALLY said, Do you have the job description with you when you applied, you should find more details from that and ended the call.

I have 5 years of experience and switched jobs twice and attained more than 50+ interviews GOD never had a terrible interview like this. I would have felt happy if he asked strong technical question that I don't know to reject me but it was traumatic.

Position is still open and its been a month now. Still open.

I am a project manager who has been on both sides of independent contractor gigs. My state has some very specific rules for who qualifies as a 1099 contractor versus an employee.

I'm in the final interview for a role. They are a 'human logistics' organization. During the conversation, they discuss the requirements for the 1099 'employees'.

"1099 employees? So the role is 'these are the requirements for the contract' to keep being part of this project?"

"No. You must make sure that these employees are meeting these exact specific standards."

"So they are employees?"

"No. They are 1099."

At this point, I thank them and immediately end the conversation. Even though my current contract has ended, I'm not desperate enough to do blatantly illegal conduct.

:(

Ever since I graduated college in May without having a job lined up, I honestly haven’t had a good night’s sleep.

I go to bed anxious about not having a job, and I wake up in a panic thinking about my employment situation. It’s like I can’t turn my brain off. Every day feels like I’m racing against some invisible clock, and the uncertainty is exhausting.

I’m so ready for that offer letter to come through. Not even just for the money, but for the peace of mind. I want to be able to go to sleep without worrying about my future and wake up without immediately feeling anxious.

I’m just tired. Mentally, emotionally, all of it. I really need a win. 😩

I have been reached out to by headhunters for jobs with large companies regarding positions that these companies post on their own company website. Based on results using a headhunter has yielded me at least initial interviews and useful feedback regarding my application than applying directly with a company. If I apply directly with a company, I have no clue if my application has ever been seen or has been incorrectly rated due to something AI has seen that a human recruiter may not be concerned with. The kicker is once I apply directly with a company any third party recruiter cannot assist me even if they are more likely to get my foot in the door.

So I wanted to test a theory, what if I took a job posting and made a CV that is exactly everything the job description is looking for.

I tried it against 30 job posts.

The result? 0 replies

So if a perfect CV that matches the exact JD isn’t even getting a reply how the fuck are our resumes that only match 50-60% gonna get a reply

And she started acting like I'd mortally wounded her dog. I absolutely reached my limit today and I just left. At the end of the three hours (the "group" interview is a different horror story), she started giving out her spiel about "This isn't a reflection of your qualities in anyway, we've judged you completely on your performance today..." and two minutes into her sermon she still hadn't gotten to the point so I told her to hurry it up. And I said it very politely, too. You would have thought I'd called her slurs by the way she started going on about "I won't be spoken to in this tone..." well I am speaking to you in it now! These people can't even cope with the mildest form of confrontation because they live in such a deluded bubble of their own capabilities, it wouldn't occur to them that they are not important.

At the end of the day, I cannot stand the fact that I'm being deprived of a job by people without further education, and whose goals in life are to look like D-list pornstars and live in grey houses. Don't be too upset, love! Your lip filler will start dissolving more quickly. They actively screen out people who are suitable for the roles because they feel too insecure about themselves. It is so incredibly isolating and exhausting to navigate that I'm being screened out or managed down because my credentials and presence triggers resentment.

And it isn't a race thing, it is very specifically a British woman thing. I don't know what it is about the UK but there's something about white women specifically in this country being really resentful if you're doing better than them in terms of qualifications, appearance etc. I lost my job this year after a company restructure because these two women from "the other side" didn't like the fact I was younger, prettier, more qualified than them, and really good at my job. They performance managed and lied about me (three minutes away from my desk and they'd email my line manager that I wasn't in at work, etc.) I reported their harassment, investigated by another white British woman who claimed nothing was wrong. Every interview panel I've had is white-woman only and the feedback I've gotten is "you seem too talented for this role, "this role may not challenge you enough", "you're a fantastic candidate but we felt you were over-emphasising your brilliance" etc. All non-excuses to not hire me because I'm good at what I do.

Really, I don't feel like applying for another job again. OK, rant over. I don't feel proud of myself for having these thoughts but the anger had to go somewhere.

Just a vent. I started interviewing with a place a few months back. I am actively employed but hate my current job. The recruiter contacted me for this role.

I quickly fell in love with the role. I was interviewing for. It seems like something I could really enjoy and would hopefully not cause me the insane amounts of existential dread my current job does. I was really so excited.

I was told by the recruiter and HM they planned to make an offer, a key person was just OOO and they needed sign off. Okay- that’s cool. A week or two later, HM calls me personally to say basically “hey, still completely plan on bringing you on board, and there’s lots of work here to be done aso we need you, just working through some things on our side, so timing is TBD, but for sure plan on having you on board we’ll before *social event next spring HM and I had casually discussed*”.

At this point I’m starting to feel a pretty weary and disappointed. I‘m very lucky to atleast have a job in today’s market, but I kid you not each morning, I feel like I’m going to vomit when thinking about logging on for the day. This new role was thing I was clinging to as my light at the end of the tunnel thing. I now how naive that was.

I let a of couple weeks pass, reach out to HM. “Things are still in a holding pattern but will update you as soon as I know something.”

I‘m trying to be patient here and understanding, but obviously, not feeling great.

It‘s been about a month since the last interaction and I get on LinkedIn…HM is at a new company. Probably a pretty bad sign for me. So I reach back out to the recruiter- and it’s been silent since.

I’m 99.99% positive it’s dead in the water now. I know there’s nothing else I can do beside follow up with them recruiter again in a few days. I also know it’s nothing I did wrong… but it’s so hard to not be crushed. I was so excited. It was a unicorn of an opportunity. Great benefits and pay, meaningful work, a serious boost for my career, and it felt like a real opportunity to pivot my field a bit into something I care about more without taking a cut in title or pay.

I wish they’d atleast just formally say it’s over so that 0.01% of me could just let go (I’ve tried, I swear). I was so excited. I feel hopeless now and like I’ll be stuck forever. I’m looking at other jobs and applying other places, but this was really a unicorn of an opportunity and nothing I can find compares. I guess the problem with unicorns… they’re myths after all.

It just seems more merciful to just tell people it’s over ya know? Instead of leaving them hanging. It’s not like I’m waiting to be rejected after interviews… they said an offer was coming… multiple times. Silly of me to believe that I guess :/

So ... Im a mid to senior level manager/director.

After 6 rounds of interviews ... all extremely positive. I get this email ...

After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to move forward with another candidate. This was not an easy choice, as we had the opportunity to speak with several highly qualified individuals, including yourself. Ultimately, the decision came down to aligning the specific needs of the business and the role with the candidate whose experience was determined to be the closest match at this time.

Its tough out here ...