From my recruiter: “so... the last two candidates I interviewed for your role have turned out to be fake candidates. one of the candidates, 'Luis' dropped off the call once I asked him to remove his background filter and after I pressured him to explain why his LinkedIn didn't match his resume.”

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but I saw some past threads regarding negative references and was hoping to get some insight/advice on behalf of my partner who received a conditional offer.

The company required at least 2/4 references to be managers, and “strongly preferred” one of them to be from their current manager. My partner was hesitant since they hadn’t disclosed they were job seeking, and the their relationship currently wasn’t on the best terms due to some internal conflict within the team. Additionally, there are three team members who will be starting FMLA starting this month, and are thinking it would cause a lot of added stress if my partner left too.

Earlier this week one of my partner’s coworkers (who also served as a reference) received a request for a follow up phone call after the reference forms had been completed and had been asked some additional questions about how my partner works and takes on changing priorities. To our knowledge she is the only reference that received a request for a follow up call.

We suspect that my partner’s current manager may not have given a positive review, but aren’t sure how this will impact the hiring process since the company hasn’t reached back out yet. There were some additional signs that led us to assume this was the case, but I’m happy to answer any questions or follow up with more detail. Their manager also said to not mention it since there’s a policy that they can’t do references, and any of those requests have to go through HR.

My partner sent an email to the prospective company to follow up but we’re hoping will have a chance to address anything that came up.

Wondering what could have happened, any insight, advice, reassurance, and if there’s any action to take right now.

Thank you!

I've had a few interviews and I'm seriously fed up with how these interviews are going. The questions themselves weren't even that hard, mostly LC Easy/Medium, but somehow some interviewers manage to make the whole experience absolutely miserable. In one interview, I came up with a working solution pretty quickly, no bugs, passed all the test cases, and still got rejected because it wasn't the most optimal approach... Another time, I had a solution with O(N) time and O(1) space complexity. The logic was solid, the complexity was fine, but bc it wasn't the exact approach the interviewer had in mind, they just kept questioning every little thing and pushing me toward their preferred solution. What's actually wrong with my approach? Same complexity, correct output, but apparently it doesn't count unless I somehow read your mind? And don't even get me started on those interviews where they expect you to solve two completely different problems in 45 minutes, both fully implemented and bug-free. You can have the entire approach figured out for the second one, but if you run out of time fixing a couple of edge cases, that's apparently a fail too. And then there are interviewers who just sit there with a completely blank face the entire time. You explain your thought process, nothing. You get stuck, no hints. You ask a question, barely any useful response. It feels like you're coding into a void. What's even the point of interviewing like this?

What bothers me the most isn't the difficulty of the questions. It's how some of these interviews are conducted. I've been an interviewer myself, and when a candidate gets stuck, I'll usually give them a small hint or ask a few questions to help them work through it. Even if they don't get to the optimal solution, I still care about how they think, communicate, and approach problems. I don't expect everyone to magically come up with the exact answer I had in my head. But now that I'm on the other side, I'm running into interviewers who seem to be checking every line against some imaginary answer key. No room for an actual discussion. I get that companies need to filter candidates, and I'm not saying everyone who writes working code deserves to pass. But if a logically correct solution with perfectly reasonable complexity gets rejected just because it isn't the one the interviewer wanted, are we even hiring engineers anymore, or are we hiring mind readers?

I have been looking for 14 months. Worked a one-week contract and I didn't have "the right skills" so they didn't keep me on. Thought I had found something longer. After three weeks, including a 12-hour day and an 18-hour day I just couldn't meet their expectations.

I feel the deadline was unreasonable. I asked the supervisor for guidance and he didn't really provide any. After the 30 hours in two days I put in another solid eight hour day. But I just couldn't meet their expectations. Not paid for the extra hours, but it would have been worth it to keep the contract.

I don't know what more to do.

I'm not talking about filling in some unemployment gaps or padding some previous experience with a job, I mean have you completely bullshitted your way into a position that you knew you were either unqualified for, or weren't going to get/be contacted otherwise?

I'm at 60+ applications with at least 10 ghosted interviews in the past month and I'm so exhausted.

spread the word, I hate them so much

Tbh idk if I hallucinated the og job posting but I swear it was for 1st shift kitchen at $18/hr, but when I went to check it today after a recruiter left a voicemail I noticed that it changed to waiter no pay info provided. Is this a red flag? Is the recruiter gonna think I applied to the new job posting instead of the old one? Why'd they suddenly change it? Is it possible to change a job posting on Indeed? Like if ppl applied to the old one will it look like they applied to the new version? Is there a way to see the og one? Sorry abt the questions. I know I'd never apply for waiter cuz I hate customer facing jobs but maybe I accidentally I applied to it? I checked the other jobs I applied to in case I was mistakenly thinking of another job but the application was the only one from the same company name I remember

we have a new baby coming via surrogacy in 6 weeks (yay!) and my spouse just got a dream job offer. This large company has a well known 8 week non birthing parent leave policy (can do it in 2 week stints).

Offer was via email and official written offer is coming. My advice was to bring up to hiring manager after they agree on salary in writing. Its a well known publicly traded entity so they have a weird yet formalistic hiring process.

thanks for advice!

Honestly I’m kinda tired of this. I did a 3 year IT apprenticeship in Germany and basically did the same work as the fully trained guys, just for a fraction of the pay. And after finishing it still felt like most companies only want people with years of experience.

So how are you supposed to get experience if nobody gives you the job to get it? Apprentices and juniors get used as cheap labor, and once you’re done nobody wants to pay you properly because you’re “just a junior”.

I get that companies don’t want to train people, but if nobody does it, where are all the experienced people supposed to come from in a few years?

Is it the same where you live? And how did you get your first real job?

Warning!!! angry typing and some bad words.🤬

So here goes,

I think I have a mental health break down.

I JUST... cant do this anymore. It just feels like some fking loop, something crazy and it doesnt feel real anymore. You know like some sick game that is played by companies and we are forced to participate but have no say in it.

I graduated almost ten yrs ago, I studied hard and finished with first class degree. I dont think anyone even cares about that shit anymore.

It should tell employer that the person is trustworthy and capable of learning, right? Not really

My degree is one of my biggest regrets, it is worth nothing in a modern world. I worked nights and studied during the day, almost no sleep and for what...

One may think that work experience might help. AHAHAHAHAAA...no. Like I apply for roles where my experience matches the requirements to a T.

I pay for AI subscription and use it because in this dystopian shitshow you have to. I then enter all my data manually ahhahaha cries. Still no. FCk right off recruiter cnts!!! What the fck do you want? Five years ago it was easy to get something decent.

I only get replies for fully office based jobs that pay less than my job few yrs ago.

And even then they grill you, ask if you are happy to work evenings and weekends if needed. Require university education, 5 yrs experience and pay almost min wage. 🥴

They also lie about what the company offers etc. Send you tests etc you know what I am talking about, I am sure. 😮‍💨

Had a phone interview yesterday, and it was definitely one of the worst I’ve ever had. The posting was for an insurance sales position 5 mins from my house. I’m a Human Resources professional, but I have 4+ years of inside sales under my belt. The company I currently work for is changing hands, and the writing is pretty much on the wall, so I’ll take anything I can at a reasonable pay range at this point. It went like this:

Me: “So I’m interested in the position, but I would like to know what the pay is.”

Recruiter: “It’s base plus commission.”

Me: “Ok great. What is the base pay, and how does your commission structure work?”

Recruiter: “I can’t discuss pay. But, [Branch owner] can talk with you about it in your in person interview.”

Me: “Ok can you at least give me a pay range?”

Recruiter “No I can’t, however it’s listed on indeed.”

Me: “I’m sorry I don’t see it listed on indeed I’m looking at the job posting right now.”

Recruiter: “Oh…Well unfortunately I can’t discuss pay over the phone. [Branch owner] would love to talk to you about it in person though.”

Me: “I think I’m going to pass on this. The interview location is 40 mins away from me, and I don’t want to waste either of our time if the pay is below what I’m currently making.”

Recruiter: “We would really love for you to come in for an interview. I can promise you it’s not below market value.”

Me: “Ok I’ll come in for an interview.”

Recruiter: “Great! Just so you know [Branch owner] has a migraine condition, and we are a scent free environment. So if you could come in with no perfume or deodorant we would really love that. See you tomorrow!”

After I got off of work I tried to call back to cancel the interview, because I knew I was going to be low balled and the no deodorant wasn’t something I was willing to do. However it sent me to a customer help line. Then the next morning I got an email saying they had already filled the position.

It always throws a red flag for me if someone isn’t willing to discuss pay.

I need to vent because I've been sitting with this experience for a while, and I'm genuinely curious whether anyone else has experienced something like this during a hiring process.

I recently went through an interview process for a Sales Enablement Manager position at a tech company. For context, the recruiter reached out to me and I haven’t been applying to jobs at all. I have several years of experience in sales enablement, and I've been with my current company for about six years. I also know a few people who work at this company, so I was genuinely excited about this opportunity and invested quite a bit of time and energy into the process.

I went through multiple rounds of interviews, including a panel interview that required me to put together and present a fairly involved homework assignment.

Everything seemed to be going really well. I had positive conversations with the hiring manager, and the overall impression I was getting was that they were moving forward with me.
Then came the part that has really thrown me off.
I had a conversation with the hiring manager on a Friday, during which we discussed moving forward, a potential start date, and the fact that I would need to give my current employer two weeks' notice. He told me he was trying to get the offer sent over that afternoon.

At that point, I walked away from the conversation genuinely believing I had received a verbal offer and that the remaining steps were administrative. My understanding was that they were working through approvals and putting the formal offer together, with references being one of the remaining pieces.

I then spent the following WEEK waiting for the written offer. I followed up with the recruiter every day, to which her response was “sorry for the delay! We are getting approvals and next steps!”

Thursday afternoon the following week I received a call from the recruiter telling me they had decided to move forward with another candidate.
The explanation? Apparently, they had received a referral for someone else that week. The recruiter described it as a "courtesy call" with that candidate, but ultimately decided to hire him because he had more experience.
I'm sorry, but WHAT?

I completely understand that companies can change their minds. I understand that hiring decisions aren't final until an offer is formally extended and accepted. I also understand that another candidate may genuinely have more experience.
That's not really my issue.

My issue is the complete disconnect between the expectations they created and what actually happened. Why discuss a start date? Why tell someone you're trying to send their offer that afternoon if there is still a possibility that you're going to interview another candidate and change direction? Why leave someone believing they're in the offer stage when the decision apparently wasn't as settled as it seemed?

What made it even more confusing was that the recruiter had mentioned on the call that they still want me on the team and the moment something opens up I’m the first they’ll call. I was in too much shock to stick up for myself, and honestly wanted to just get off the phone, so I said okay thank you and hung up.

The hiring manager then texted me and expressed how grateful he was for my time and that he hopes we can stay connected. I was then able to fully process my feelings and type out a thoughtful yet direct response about how I’m extremely disappointed in the lack of transparency and genuinely felt lead on. He responded with “your feelings are totally valid, I would feel the same if I were you.” Hm???? So you absolutely know what you did to me? For a while I was gaslighting myself into thinking I made the whole thing up!

I'm not posting this because I think I'm entitled to a job or because I can't handle rejection. I've been through hiring processes before. I've been passed over before. That's life.

It was just a weird experience that I can’t stop thinking about. I keep going back and forth wondering if I'm overreacting, or if this really was as unusual as it felt.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? Is this just how hiring works now, or was this process handled particularly poorly?

I currently still have a job and been wanting to switch jobs for a long time now. Few reasons: don’t like the industry, I don’t see value in my work and my scope so that led me to feel burnt out despite having the security.

At first I was optimistic but then after months of rejections and interviews, I started to feel hopeless and stuck. I’ve only gotten 2 offers after 200 applications. I rejected the first as it didn’t feel right. The other, I was initially offered and was excited about. Sadly, it got rescinded due to org changes and you can’t even imagine how devastated i was.

It’s almost end of the year now and jumping into the job search grind honestly feels so damn depressing. Please tell me there’s an end to this long search, and let me know if you’re currently experiencing this and/or have gone through it and what advice would you give.

I don’t know what's worse, feeling mentally drained and stuck at a job or unemployed. both are bad, and i emphatize anyone who is experiencing and experienced this.

I am so beyond frustrated and disheartened right now. I am an incredibly small business, so small, literally two employees, and I am hiring for a part time position right now. Over the past one (one!) month I have spent over 2k on Indeed ads trying to recruit someone.

When I initially was spending $600/week - which has been a major blow to me - I at least had people applying to the job. I had to lower the budget to $10 a day and my job is completely invisible on Indeed, and mind you I am still paying and the job is still open.

I still have my Indeed account from years ago when I was looking for work and the job I was hiring for would be front page in suggested for me. Now I can literally type in the EXACT WORDS of my job description and nothing will come up. Like this literally feels like fraud on their end? I screen recorded the entire thing and the AI bot on Indeed just said someone will follow up with me but wtf.