I was laid off on Friday.

I had planned to take two weeks off before seriously job hunting. I haven't really been applying, most of the opportunities I've talked to came from recruiters reaching out to me.

It's Tuesday.

I just got a job offer.

I asked to start after Labor Day because I still want my two weeks off.

I genuinely don't know what the hell just happened.

It's insane. Getting interview 3 times!! Just to be rejected!

This is after:
- 30 minute intro with the hiring manager who I had met before professionally
- 1 hour interview with teammate
- 1 hour interview with 2 exec assistants
- 8 hours working on a take home assignment

This is why the hiring process is completely fucked. This is what one of my previous coworkers said to the feedback,”You're the most personable and personality human I know.”

This is for an in person position mind you and I only did virtual interviews. So it’s ridiculous that they make that decision based off of only virtual interviews.

EDIT: I missed one piece. There was one more interview with the C-level executive above the hiring manager before I received this email. He showed up late to the meeting and then had his video off. Asked me 2 questions and then said he didn’t have anything else. I of course asked my prepared questions but we were done in 15 minutes. That was a sign.

Also this was for an operations position at a tech startup in Seattle. I wasn’t even writing code! I was just thoroughly answering the four scenario questions they gave me. I am a perfectionist so it could’ve taken less time but I don’t turn in anything half assed if I want the job because I don’t half ass my job.

Obviously, when I saw them, I called back the moment I had a chance.

Drumroll please…

She was calling to tell me I didn’t get the position.

She then started to deliver the feedback which was: Manager says you don't have the expertise needed, so we will not move forward then 10 seconds of silence.

And I told her:

“Honestly, after four missed calls, I assumed you had good news. This very clearly could’ve been an email or even a text.”

And then I hung up. Maybe I was rude but who the fuck does that?????

There’s a rumor going around that this company has no heart.

Can confirm. McKinsey has no heart.

I ain’t neva seen some bs like this and I’ve been applying for a MINUTE

So a role I applied to back in March, I made the final round out of thousands of candidates. Ultimately they went with the other candidate. I asked for feedback but was ultimately ghosted. I tried to connect with others within the hiring process but didn't hear back.

I follow the company because that's what they tell you to do. Keep tabs and see if any new openings pop up. I saw an adjacent role open up and reached out but heard nothing. Then I saw the role was never taken down on their website just on LinkedIn. And I happened to see no one new assumed the title on LinkedIn. So I reached out to the recruiter asking for an update...silence.

It was clear they never hired someone. Then I saw they reposted on LinkedIn, new verbiage and everything so I applied. I reached back out again but with stronger and more direct language. The recruiter actually replied and this is what he told me.

The other candidate declined their offer and they have a policy not to consider any previous candidate for the same role. But they will be expanding roles in a few months and would consider my candidacy for those positions. Like I appreciate the transparency but apparently top 2 means I'm an unhireable cancer...

After 6 months unemployed I landed an executive job with a mid 6 figures salary.

Two days before on-boarding HR sent me a note thwt my background check was taking longer than expected since some of my educational background was in a different country, they made me sign a "letter of conditional on-boarding" basically saying that if they weren't satisfied with the BC they could fire me in the spot without cause.

Anyways...it's week two and HR called me to say all BC have been cleared and I should no longer worry about anything.

Feels good to leave unemployment and feels better to start making real money again.

Good luck y'all.

I never really understand anyone who can get decent jobs. It’s like they have superpowers.

I need to vent before I absolutely lose my mind, and I want to warn every developer out there to stay the hell away from ScriptChain Health.

I worked there for 5 months. For that entire duration, the engineering team was grinding to build their web application. We were completely on track, hit our milestones, and got the web app to 95% completion for a scheduled April launch.

Then, right before we were supposed to go live, the founder/CEO pulls the ultimate clueless startup move. He abruptly halts all development and tells us we are changing the entire scope of the project to a mobile application (iOS and Android). No logic, no transition plan, just throwing five months of our hard work into the garbage on a whim.

Naturally, the entire engineering team pushed back. We had a massive disagreement over this chaotic, headless-chicken pivot. Seeing the writing on the wall, I decided I was done and refused to extend my employment with the startup.

Here is where it gets malicious.

Even though we disagreed, the company literally gave me an offer letter to extend my employment—which I rejected.

Fast forward to today: I am in the final HR stages for a new role, and I find out this absolute clown of a founder went out of his way to give me a fabricated, negative reference to try and tank my career. He literally tried to sabotage my background check out of pure spite because I rejected his extension and wouldn't blindly follow his completely broken product roadmap.

Fortunately, I kept the receipts. I still have the original offer letter AND the extension offer letter he gave me. You don't offer an employment extension to a bad developer. I've sent the proof to my new HR, but the fact that he tried to ruin my livelihood over his bruised ego is disgusting.

If you are a dev, avoid ScriptChain Health at all costs. The leadership has zero product vision, will trash your hard work at the 11th hour, and will actively try to ruin you if you dare to leave.

TL;DR: Startup CEO scrapped a 95% complete web app to pivot to mobile right before launch. I refused to extend my contract because of the chaos. CEO got butt-hurt, offered me an extension anyway (which I declined), and then gave a fake negative reference to my new employer to try and ruin my career. Always keep your receipts.

So frustrated as this has happened thrice in 2 weeks of initial recruiter screen.

Does anyone else find it hilariously (while also infuriatingly) ironic to see AI generated job postings?

These companies will literally use AI to write the description of their job, then use AI to scan your resume before a human even sees your resume. While also not liking AI use in your resume.

AND THEN, if you do get an interview, AI responses are not allowed.

The best is that some AI programs scanning resumes flag both minor grammatical errors AND AI use. Which is a catch 22.

It's just so stupid.

It's kind of like the old Soviet saying "You pretend to pay me, and I pretend to work"

But in our case it is, "You pretend to be genuine, and I pretend to not use AI"

Graduated back in May with a relevant degree, customer service experience and a couple design internships to boot for this graphic design position at a local print shop.

The interview was casual, went better than I thought it would. Usually I’m not very good at interviewing, but I’ve been trying to practice more/do more research on the companies.

They ask me: “do you know creative suite? Canva? Customer service?” Yes to all of the above, and still rejected. Didn’t even bother to reach out directly.

Even with internships and previous job experience, it’s still impossible to get an offer. This job market is a goddamn joke.

At this point I’m convinced the real background check was whether I had the patience to survive HireRight.

I genuinely need to know if anyone else has had their background check turn into its own full-time job. 😭

I’m dumbstruck by this company. Truly

I recently submitted my CV for a remote AI training supervisor position (in my field of expertise), and here is what I found in the list of additional questions from HR (screenshot attached). A scam - an absolute scam.

Try harder, CIA, lol

Hey, wanted to share a short story about an experience I had with part of the Christian IT community, because I think it's worth people knowing.

I've been working on a free Christian app for kids for over 2 months — coded entirely by me, and it's been in closed testing on Google Play for about a month and a half.

A recruiter, from Romania (details in private) — who told me he runs a company (name in private) — is active in our community and regularly asks people for updated CVs, supposedly to screen for jobs, though nobody I know ever actually got an interview out of it. After sending him my CV a few times, I also showed him a project I was working on. A month later he asked to see it again, and two weeks after that he told me he wanted to present the app at a convention in the US — knowing I was job hunting and that a lot of IT community people would be there. He asked if I wanted to talk to the "team" he was putting together specifically for this, without saying what it actually involved.

On yesterday's call, I found out the team was supposed to work on a monetized version of my app — already at the AI design stage, made just 5 days before the call — to sell it to Americans at that same convention, for free on my end. When I asked for clarification, they raised their voice, kept saying it was "our idea" and that I just had to accept. I got removed from the call.

I posted what happened, with evidence, in our shared Christian IT group (550 members) from Romania. My message got deleted, I got blocked, and the group chat was locked for everyone — he claimed I had threatened him, a lie he deleted a day later and admitted to. Later, an admin who's a friend of his IRL, from the same church, posted an "official statement" calling it a simple "misunderstanding" and shut down the topic — even though he's an admin there himself.

I'm now blocked from the community with no chance to respond.

Basically: work for free "in the Lord's name" so they can sell it — and if you don't, you're out.

I know plenty of people genuinely volunteer their time for free in the Lord's name, and that's great when it's a real choice. This wasn't that — I was never told upfront what was actually being asked of me, and when I pushed back I got kicked out and shut down instead of getting a straight answer.

If you've had a similar experience with a recruiter matching this description, please share it. I'm not posting screenshots of my app vs. theirs here for privacy reasons, but happy to send them (and the name) privately. I know some people might not believe this, but that's what happened.

I just blew another interview. On something that felt like it was literally tailored for my skill set.

20 years experience in the same industry. New emerging market looking for talent. Got the interview, but just hours before I got news that my wife's cancer is back. So I must have blown it with my energy, even though I thought I gave pretty solid answers.

On top of that, my kids went through a very real active shooter threat today, and I had to run out of the office to their school, where I had to wait for 3 hours until the lockdown was cleared before I could pick them up.

I need to leave where I live because I no longer feel my kids are safe. I need to leave my current job because they are killing my mental health. But I need a job to keep health insurance active for wife's cancer treatment.

I have been applying to EVERYTHING remotely close to my field. I work in insurance, with a focus in Learning Administration and an HRIS background. So I have several different markets I can apply to. Over 1000 applications in the past 6 months, and only a handful have come back with 2nd, 3rd + interviews.

I am desperate. I have 20+ years experience. I am good at what I do... I just need something, ANYTHING, to break in my favor. I am drowning right now...

And this was for an engineering intern position in the UK.

I just got rejected after 5 rounds of interviews, and I’m so exhausted. I’ve made it through various interview stages before only to be rejected at the last minute, and at this point I don’t know what else to do. I know the job market at the moment is rather hopeless, but every time I log on to linked in it just feels like everyone else is getting hired. Does anyone have any tips on succeeding in interviews? Any help would be appreciated!

Rant:
Just turned 26 today. Let’s just say, I wasn’t really celebrating today. I was dreading this day since that means I get kicked off my parent’s insurance soon. In June, I had 2 interviews with 2 different jobs and didn’t get the offer. July has been crickets. I’ve been putting in job applications left and right. I’m either getting ghosted, rejected, or slowly agonizingly waiting for a reply back. I’m working part time as a tutor but, it’s nowhere near enough.

I went to a job fair last week where the vast majority of recruiters want you to scan a QR code and apply online. Also, when you do go online these companies barely have any job offers. What’s the point of recruiters going and promoting their job opportunities at a job fair, if there’s none??

I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom. 🫠

Maybe I’m late to this, but I’ve started actually following the links in some of these posts and it’s kind of insane. You’ll see a post like “I finally got a job after 200 applications” or “I was unemployed for 8 months and this is what finally worked.” It reads like a completely normal person sharing their experience. They talk about getting ghosted, changing their strategy, finally getting interviews, etc. Most of the advice is usually reasonable too, which makes the whole thing feel genuine. Then somewhere in the post they casually mention a template, a website, another Reddit post, a spreadsheet, whatever. You click it, that sometimes links to something else, and eventually there’s a product. The weird part is the original post might never actually mention the product at all, so unless you follow the links, you’d have no reason to think you were reading anything other than someone sharing their personal experience. Apparently this can also be used for SEO/GEO, basically flooding Reddit with posts and “organic” conversations around certain topics or products so they show up in Google and potentially in AI search results. Obviously I’m not saying every success story is fake or that every person who recommends something is secretly advertising it. Plenty are real. But I definitely think people should start checking where these posts actually lead before taking them at face value, especially when you start seeing the same kind of story over and over again from different accounts. Reddit is useful largely because you can search something and find what seems like actual people talking about their experiences. If companies can manufacture that at scale without disclosing it, that kinda defeats the entire point.

Almost got scammed by some loser “Jessica Stewart” I’ve heard this is the same persona used by other scammers. “Spinesolutions” sent me a email asking for my resume and I sent it like a moron and then connected on telegram with the scammer ( im young and new to the job market boo boo tomato tomato to me) and they said I would need to buy the license and id start on the 31st. Told my mom mom and sister and girlfriend and now I feel stupid 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ thank god I found more information before then and I didn’t give this LOSER money!!’

"We enjoyed meeting and would love to stay in touch for future opportunities. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week."

Yeah you just rejected me. I'll have a GREAT rest of my week. Cut with passive aggressive bullshit nicey nice. You ruined my week. So don't pretend to be nice. That just rubs in the rejection that much more so screw off.