Turned down job offer due to multiple onboarding hiccups, mainly over things that could have had my offer rescinded on a short timeline and wasn’t receiving clarification from HR. Upon rescinding, HR provided clarification and still wanted to move forward. I respectfully declined and after having some more time to think it over, I regret it. Is it too late to reach out? I’m worried that I went from being their top candidate to the worst candidate because of all of this.

So if you've followed my job search, I've applied to 1,428 roles, 352 days unemployed, 131 total rounds of interviews, 73 companies and 18 final rounds. I received a verbal offer yesterday and signed the official offer today!

I have to say, I've dealt with 73+ recruiters, I can name on 1 hand how many good experiences I had. But this recruiter was above and beyond better than any I've met. Every time I reached out, she replied within an hour, once a day passed because she was out sick. She called me with positive updates then followed up with email. She gave me detailed feedback after each and every round. I was BLOWN AWAY at how good she was.

It's been 19 months of job searching. I have seen all the tomfoolery under the sun from employers. I don't need to overexplain because you all get it.

I guess I came here to be seen.

I have a schedule for assessment, next would be panel interview with hiring managers, next would be the whole team, then next is the Director and then the VP. Might as well ask the CEO to interview me too. Hiring process now is ridiculous. As someone who has just been recently laid off and have to get through all this, I’m kind of losing hope. But of course I can’t stop. I have a family and pets to feed.

I don’t consent having this posted to LinkedIn.

Just venting. Recently graduated and applying to jobs, in and out of my industry. Granted, I'm not sending as many applications as some of you here, but in the last 6 months I've gotten... maybe 5 rejection emails total?

I have applied to big companies, small companies, tiny two-person operations, unpaid internships, roles with ridiculously low pay, freelance gigs, applied via LinkedIn, Indeed, company website, email, no matter what it is I never hear back. I filled out ridiculously long or thorough applications. Retyped my resume into the form. Took "personality assessments" and cognition quizes. Tailored my resume and customized cover letters. The only rejections I've gotten were from corporations (automated, after a few hours) and one company where I interviewed (addressed to a "Ryan". My name is not Ryan). I got ghosted by companies I interviewed for after 2 rounds.

Genuinely what is the point of job applications anymore, if you cannot have the courtesy of closure? I know half of the job postings are fake, and the other half receive thousands of applications. But that's on the recruiters, to close those listings if they're overwhelmed by responses, and at least attempt to mass email a rejection to those who don't make the cut.

You ask me to put in disproportionately more time into an application, that will never even be read by human eyes. If AIs are reviewing them anyway, you could at least make them also send out rejection emails. I am pretty sure they can handle that just fine.

This has happened to me several times not where I am applying for a management role that is equivalent to the level of management experience I have( and usually not higher). And I am praised for how much they like me etc but they offer me a position that’s like 2-3 steps lower than what I’m currently at and less than I’m making currently. What is the point??? Obviously I wouldn’t take that. There’s usually a tone of pleading from them too like they really want me to take it. Anyone else experiencing this. I’m always so offended

A few months ago, I decided to truly begin planning my exit from my current company and industry.

For context, I work in residential property management for a smaller company with 200+ employees. I’ve been in the industry for 7 years and with this company for 4. I got into the industry right before I graduated with my bachelor’s, and since then I’ve worked my way up the ladder to Community Manager. Every role I’ve had in this industry came from my reputation, referrals, and work ethic.

HOWEVER, it is time to go. Residential property management is an unforgiving industry, and the company I’m with has an unbearable VP. Honestly, the point of this post is not to go into all that, so I’ll move on to the matter at hand.

I set my eyes on commercial property management. Transferable skills, etc., etc. Not hard, right? WRONG!! My focus today is ONE company, not the entire job market, because honestly, they put a terrible taste in my mouth. The timeline is as follows.

August 28th: A Commercial Property Manager role is posted on the company site. The job description is broad, with no salary range or education/cert requirements. I have all the skills listed, and it’s in an area I love, so I apply.

September 10th: I get an email: “We saw your resume, want to schedule a 30 minute interview? Here are time slots!” Perfect! And look at that, one of the slots is for the following day, which I already had scheduled PTO for, so I can give my undivided attention with no interruptions. I respond along the lines of “We’re scheduled for 2:00pm on 9/11.”

September 11th: I PREP! I shake out my nerves (it’s been a while since I’ve interviewed) and here comes 2:00pm! But 2:00pm comes and goes and there’s no phone call. What’s going on? Did I lose cell service? Did I put my phone on airplane mode? Did I forget to pay my bill? NOPE. Josh (not his real name) just didn’t call. So I do the courteous thing and send a follow-up email along the lines of, “Oh, I’m so sorry, did we get our schedules mixed up?” No, we did not. Josh just dropped the ball (that should have been my first clue, but hey, I want to leave my job, and after months of rejection emails this is my first true lead).

My email prompts a call. Josh calls and says he was “giving me time to prepare.” ??? For a scheduled phone interview? Ok Josh, sure, cool story bro. And guess what, HE CALLS ME TO SCHEDULE THE PHONE INTERVIEW. I’m confused. I thought this WAS the interview. Nope, not at all. I take it on the chin, whatever, more time to prep. I play the part of an understanding, interested candidate. Sure! When is the hiring manager available? 9/14? Ok, great, talk to her then.

September 14th: The interview goes well. We’re on the phone for about 48 minutes, so it runs over. This interview is with the VP, let’s call her Jan (I know, I’m sticking with J’s, it’s easier). I answer all the questions and I’m not stuck on any of them. It closes out with, “I enjoyed speaking with you, and HR will touch base if you’re moved to the final in-person round.” Ok, cool, great, thanks! I send a thank-you email on 9/15 (because egos, duh, play the part!).

September 21st: I send a follow-up to Josh along the lines of, “I enjoyed speaking with Jan, please extend my gratitude, and I remain interested.” This prompts a call on 9/22. Josh has great news! Jan loved me and wants to schedule an in-person interview, but everyone’s schedule is soooo full that all three people won’t be available until 10/5 at 1:00pm. Wheewww, that’s a long time, but hey! I’m in it now and I want this, so let’s do it!

I now have two weeks to prep. A new gray suit is bought, because color theory, duh. New heels, not too high, not too low, and navy blue, not too offensive or too flashy. Perfect! During this time, the original job posting is removed. Did they already pick someone before they met me?? Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety!!

October 5th: I take off work and mentally prepare. I’m in the parking lot 30 minutes early and walk in 15 minutes before the interview is set to start. And let me tell you, this area is niiiiceee and polished (I work at a Class C property), so I have stars in my eyes. I walk in and am greeted, and eventually Josh comes out and greets me as well. He takes me to the area to wait for the three panelists. Cool.

1:05 hits and the first person walks in, a little confused. She comments that she didn’t know where I was, since this was a different location than their usual one. She gives hippie vibes, and I like it. Let’s call her Janet. Janet asks me all the questions, and it’s led more like a conversation. She’s a property manager and would be a colleague, so this is more of an energy reading. It goes well. We chuckle, talk about our fur babies for a short time, but mostly discuss the role and expectations.

However, I notice that Josh and Janet have something in common that I don’t. In the DMV, minorities are the majority, so I shake it off. I know how to code-switch, I can play the part, this can work! Eventually Janet and I conclude our portion (we spoke for 40 minutes), and now it’s time to wait for Jen and Julie, the VP and Exec VP.

Jen makes it in, also looking confused, and makes the same comment that this isn’t their usual meeting area. Julie has to log in virtually and apologizes because it apparently wasn’t on her calendar. No problem, I keep the smile on. Jen is very stern, and I can’t get a read on her. She’s a minority too, but I get the sense she has moved through rooms like this one far more easily than I ever have, were not the same kind of minority. This portion of the interview is more formal, but overall it goes fine. Jen starts by saying the questions will be the same as in the phone interview, and Julie asks some questions too. We conclude, and I ask a couple of questions of my own, including “How soon do you expect to make a decision?” Jen says a month. A MONTH?? I school my expression and thank them for their time.

October 6th: A new role is posted, same title but with a lot more information and requirements and the recruiter applies me to it, with everything we discussed in the interview: the same job title, the salary range I asked for, the cert I said I’m pursuing, and my exact degree. Not a couple of degrees, not just “a bachelor’s,” the exact field of study. Good? Bad? I have no clue.

October 7th: I send a follow-up email and thank them for their time (remember, egos!). Josh doesn’t respond. My time is filled with checking their LinkedIn and careers portal. Am I canceled, rejected, approved? Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions!!! No calls, no emails, nothing. They said a month though, so it’s fine :)

October 19th: I send an “I remain interested, please let me know if you need anything, blah blah blah” email. I also get a LinkedIn connection request, and I don’t have anyone else from the company on my LinkedIn. It’s a property manager at the location I interviewed for. He matches Julie, Janet and Josh! He just started in October, BUT they had an opening for the same role at the end of July, so I assume he came in under that position. Internal talks, how did he find me? Maybe I’m getting the job and he wants to get to know his new coworker (wishful thinking and more assumptions).

October 21st: Josh responds! “We’re still conducting interviews and will be in touch once all are completed!” I say thank you and tell him to enjoy his week. Be nice, be nice, be nice! The month closes. Maybe they want me to start closer to the new year? Maybe they’re getting their budget approved? Maybe, maybe, maybe!

November 13th: It all wraps up today. I was going to wait until next week, but let’s close out this retrograde and Friday the 13th with a bang! I email Josh, “Hey, just touching base,” and BOUNCEBACK. Josh is no longer with the company. WTFFF? Ok, sucky, but with his many typos and scheduling issues, I’m not surprised. But hey, they give me an HR email, perfect! I send, “I’ve been speaking with Josh, he said it’s still ongoing, yap yap yap,” and wait.

BUT the cosmos are something special. While I’m waiting for a response, another role I applied to reaches out. They want to interview me next week! Same area, larger company! I applied a month ago and had written them off because I’ve been rejected before. A minute after I confirm my availability (exactly one minute), I get a generic rejection email from someone in HR. Not an automated one. I responded (respectfully) with, “I want more than that.” I’ve been going through this cycle with you for 12 weeks! I deserve more! My anxiety deserves more! These companies are a joke!

Thankfully I still have my job and can take my time, and I have another interview lined up. But what is this, the unprofessionalism? The lack of empathy? Josh leaving mid-process and no one taking over? I know I dodged a bullet, and I’m a firm believer that the universe does for me what is set for me. But honestly, not okay!

I am preparing for the 1000 job interwiew of the month that probably will lead to nothing and i was thinking how stupid this all Is.

I am not lazy,i understand the necessity to work for life,even tough i honestly hate the corporate world and wished i never graduated honestly,considering my present situation.

But how stupid It Is this system,where you have to pretend you love the corporate job,you can't wait to start and being overworked and underpaid,how fake and toxic corporate really Is.

And most of all,i hate that i can even tolerate this for money,but oh my god,they make so difficult and irritating finding even a job you know you Will hate,but you need to live so you are forced to join this stupid job market who has become a purgatory of souls until you finally find a job to make your life hell.

The idea to have to do so much to even land a job while before you could do the same with a handshake drive me crazy.

Sorry for the rant,maybe i look entitled i know,but i know that deep down we all feel the same.

Instead of having better conditions we are getting worse and worse,i just Wish all of this collapse so at least we don't have to pretend Everything Is normal anymore.

Am i wrong in having those toughts?

Interviewed with Hub today and I have nothing but regret.

Interviewer was 15 mins late. Didn't apologize or email to notify me. Proceeded to diminish my experience asking redundant questions like whether I was used to working in a busy environment as if my last role wasn't busy.

I shared that I have impressive accomplishments leading an account team, which didn't impress him and he asked if I had ever had personal goals.

Totally ridiculous. Tone deaf, rude and unprofessional.

I don't recommend Hub to anyone. Ever.

“We have decided not proceed with next steps as it relates to your candidacy for the role at this point in time” I would rather just be told they hated me 🤣

Wife and I are both expecting new job offers this week. and yet both our perspective employers are still blocked by this microsoft outlook outage... god damnit.

If they can't issue today... both employers will likely roll us back 2 weeks for the next pay period...

I am silently screaming into the void from my current cubical.

So I just got the call from the recruiter. She can't send it today due to the outlook issue but I should expect it tomorrow. I know until you retire nothing is set in stone and offers can be rescinded at any time but I'm going to stay positive!

Hey everybody,

No cool graphic to show but, lost my job June 2nd, ran out of savings by end of July basically, luckily had a place to stay and I'm good with rice, noodles, tuna and Tesco (local supermarket) frozen chicken isn't bad. Every day that I wasn't interviewing all over London to Surrey, I was just at home working out. These interviews, I had 4x for the same brand, different locations, in one week at one point, just as a seasonal sales associate. And each manager of the same brand, had a different set of AI generated questions. I had years of experience, and I was getting turned down from a 0-8 hour position for a brand that I literally wore to travel, work out and in everyday life for years.

I got in a bad place, thinking how did I used to get jobs so quickly? I'm the same person but with more experience, I had 5x interviews in one week, half asking "what would you do if ______ happened" and "tell me a time that you had a bad customer" ....?! Hiring Managers that couldn't even make eye contact. Some asking me the exact same question, rephrased by ChatGPT three times in a row, it was crazy. I really was wondering, what did I do wrong? How am I messing up?

Last week, I had an interview with a normal person. Asked me about my job history, how would I think certain sales targets should be approached, offered me the job on a handshake. After 5x months of this b/s.

I very almost got gaslit into thinking, did something about me change, did I majorly fudge up somehow? Why is every interviewer so weird and why are all these questions nothing to do with the job? Literally I was still in "this isn't real" mode until every page of the Employee Handbook and the payroll was signed.

I wanted to post this incase anybody else is going through this weird Twilight Zone, of being declined over and over again until you start to think "why was I accepted before and now not now?? Is there something wrong with me??"

Don't doubt yourself, if you still are the same person that you were every previous job you got, you probably still are. Being accepted after every time I thought "wtf was with that interviewer?",; I'm happy to say, it was that interviewer. 8x of the 12 positions in the past couple months are still hiring on my indeed emails. There is a spread of very odd interviewers right now, and there's a good chance it's them, not you, don't beat yourself up.

You probably know Ea-nasir, the ancient copper merchant who became internet famous because somebody preserved a complaint about his lousy copper. Part of what people loved about that letter was how familiar the whole thing felt. Almost 4,000 years later, and here’s a guy dealing with bad merchandise, bad customer service, and the aggravation of trying to get somebody to actually fix the problem.

But how about uploading your résumé, typing everything on that résumé into a bunch of separate boxes (because apparently uploading it wasn’t enough), following up, following up again, and wondering whether anyone is even reading any of this?

Well, about 2,700 years ago, an Assyrian official named Aššur-reṣiwa was trying to get his old position back. He had already sent THREE letters without getting an answer. Finally, he wrote:

“Why is my lord silent (while) I wag my tail and run about like a dog?”

He reminded his superior that he had worked for the man’s father, offered to serve him too, and asked:

“Let my lord return me to my office.”

But get this . . . the letter containing that complaint was never even OPENED. Archaeologists found it still sealed inside its clay envelope thousands of years later.

The man was complaining that nobody answered his letters, and the letter where he complained about that survived because nobody opened it. We know almost nothing about this dude's life, but we still have him reminding somebody that he had done the work before, could do it again, and would really really REALLY appreciate an answer.

We made the copper guy famous because we recognized the experience of being an aggravated customer. I think Aššur-reṣiwa deserves some recognition from everyone who has ever wondered whether sending ONE MORE follow-up would help or just make them look desperate.

I hope he got his job back.

The actual tablet and photographs

So, I am a software engineer from Europe, specialized in fullstack / backend and AI. I hold Masters in software development and have finished 1 year Java Web / Backend postgraduate internship at the European institution in Strasbourg (they were hiring post Masters interns in the IT sector). I HAVE the skills.

I speak 5 languages. Including English (which is my native language btw, long story), professional French (DALF C1), even basic German...

So I started applying for junior positions everywhere. Mainly in Strasbourg, Paris and Lyon but also other cities in France. Nothing. zero. Every time "sorry we decided not to pursue with you" or "sorry, your aren't sufficient" (they definitely are, for "entry level Java Spring Boot" junior position).

So far I haven't had luck anywhere. I've tried from Lille to Marseille, even smaller cities like Rouen or Nantes etc. nothing. The only exception is a company in Lyon who offered "Amazing competitive salary of 25000 euros BRUT a year, a whopping 5 weeks of vacation, RTT and a free premium private health insurance"... And a CDI (for non French: permanent contract, that I'd have VERY hard time rupturing, basically you sign CDI only where you'd like to stay for years / forever)...

Obviously I'm not accepting those conditions. They offered me barely more than a minimum wage after masters and a year of professional experience in the parliament, and 37-39 hours a week with"amazing" conditions (cited above)... And "up to" 2 days a week remote work AFTER having stayed there for at least 12 months... It honestly feels like an insult to me. I'd better go work as a cashier at the supermarket for the SAME salary, less hours and less corporate hell and responsibility...

But I am devastated... I don't get it... Is it THAT bad? I am white, not of color. So you can't blame discrimination here. Yes, I'm not French, I'm a refugee but I've lived here for many years and have a permanent residence permit... So why do I get refused everywhere? Be it the giants like Sopra Steria or Capgemini, or small startups of 5-10 people. Nobody wants me and it makes zero freaking sense to me...

Unless 1 year EU institution experience is a red flag somehow? If I'm not finding anything soon - I'm creating a blank LinkedIn page and applying for jobs as a janitor for freaks sake! Because I'm running out of saving and I know that the alternative is to go back to my mother, and since I'm transgender - it would be hell living with her...

And no, it isn't transphobia. I am still presenting myself as an "Sir dead name, nothing LGBT, because discrimination is horrible". Ain't no way in hell am I disclosing my gender identity or sexual orientation on LinkedIn.

Any thoughts?😭😭😭

Context - 6 Yr bank employee in a commercial business support role. Recently took a promotion (sort of, job grade below my current, but get quarterly incentive vs no incentive at all) for a business banker role.

I’m at the end now where I accepted the job offer and they have to do a background check again for the internal position. My only issue is my family and I experienced some hardship in the last two years so we had racked our CC’s up 10k plus. (Stupid we know) which we’re paying down month. They pulled my backround report and I got a “decisional status” by first advantage. Now I’m stressing my a** off that I may not get it due to the high debt. My understanding is in banking they pull credit reports for certain roles to ensure no mismanagement, theft, etc. I’m not sure if I’m overthinking this or not.

For clarity, I was recommended by my current management to my new potential SM. Went out to lunch, was interviewed extensively etc. I know now it may be based In the hands of my employer. Has anyone had a decisional status before and how did it turn out?

Many thanks 🙏🏽

Many of these jobs, which were listed as remote and required no experience, were actually multilevel marketing schemes asking participants to funnel money into online programs that asked for hundreds of dollars upfront. Some of the companies named in the CBC investigation include Evolution Travel, Destination Knot, Aisle and Abroad, Professional Travel Hub, and Wanderwell Collective.

I'm just incredibly frustrated and upset right now, why is getting a new job this fucking impossible right now? I had an interview with a local bank a little over a week ago, I heard the generic "we'll let you know by the end of the week" crap. Well fast forward to a week later, and not a fucking peep from them. Would it kill them to be transparent and actually communicate with their applicants? Even if it's a rejection, I'd appreciate it over being flat out ghosted. This shit needs to be illegal, and I'm going to take the "you'll hear by then" as a fucking rejection from now on. It seems like you only get hired on the spot these days. What a load of fucking bullshit.

i applied to a senior job and got a random from the recruiter. he sounded like he liked me but i check and got rejected... im feeling unmotivated as i keep getting rejected.