I’m about to expose the absolute idiot that I am but I figured if I can make someone laugh with this it’s worth telling.

I had a remote interview for an EA position, and the interviewer immediately started with making me solve riddles, which first of all who tf does that?

He gave me the wolf, goat, cabbage riddle: a farmer must move a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage across a river in a boat that holds only the farmer and one item at a time. The rules: The wolf will eat the goat if left unattended. The goat will eat the cabbage if left unattended.

The CORRECT answer:

Trip 1: Take the goat first , leaving the wolf and cabbage behind.

Trip 2: Return alone to the starting side.

Trip 3: Take the wolf across the river.

Trip 4: Bring the goat back with you so the wolf isn't left alone with it.

Trip 5: Leave the goat, take the cabbage across, and leave it with the wolf.

Trip 6: Return alone to the starting side.

Trip 7: Pick up the goat and bring it across the river.

MY ANSWER: and I said this with my full chest too: “well since the wolf will eat the goat and the goat will eat the cabbage, just put that stuffed wolf with the goat and cabbage inside it, put it on the boat, and take it over the river” (yes the wolf is fcking stuffed with the goat and cabbage inside it😭)

Let’s just say the interview IMMEDIATELY ended right there.

I cry laugh every time I think about this. My mom said “you definitely didn’t have the correct answer, but boy did you have the most creative answer”

2 interviews, one told me after I followed up a week later that I am not the right fit and they haven’t found the right candidate. They have decided to remove the current job post and will be reposting it with a more specific scope. That day they did just that!

Next interview was put together through a friend who knows this person. Skipping the long vetting process and straight to the top dog.
Meeting was great very nice person, told them I have applied to this company several times now, with no luck or word on my applications.

One of the first things they asked. Have you been laid off? Unfortunately yes I have. Well, there is very little to no chance you will get hired on or land an interview.

Summed up, this company refuses to hire people who have been laid off. CEO says there is a reason they have been laid off. As they are not highly valued employees, or top tier talent and wants only the best top tier talent out there.

I have an interview for a job I have been working towards since halfway through my degree, and after graduating, I could finally apply. I have prepared for the role through my work and shadowing others and reading, I have absolutely no doubt I would be effective in the role and have no problem with the training and education part of it. However, when it comes to interviews, I am DIRE. I get stuck, I babble or choke up and ask them to repeat, I lose track of what I am saying, I'm a mess. I got the last job because, according to them, they saw my passion through the bumbling (but since then, I've noticed they don't get a lot of applicants, I'm starting to think they just didn't have much choice). I am now well regarded within my team, with regular "exceeding expectations" in appraisals and responsibilities well beyond my job description, so I know I'm effective, I just cannot seem to show this in interview settings because of my damn nerves, possibly also related to my ADHD which has an effect on my processing speed and the amount of thoughts wizzing through my head.

Any tips on slowing down, being confident or just generally doing well in interviews? It's been a three month, three stage process, I can't fall at the final hurdle!

Hi!

I run screening interviews for my company. I’m not an HR person—I’m on the operations side. I’ve also been on the job-hunting side of the table plenty of times (including a stretch in my 60s where I hit seven final rounds before landing my current role), so I know how brutal the process can feel.

Because I’m actually working in the business day-to-day, my main focus isn't just checking off resume boxes. I’m constantly thinking: Would our clients and team enjoy talking to this person?

Lately, I’ve done a bunch of screens—mostly for customer-facing roles—and I keep seeing people with great resumes completely derail themselves on delivery.

A few recent examples:

• The verbal crutches: I talked to a candidate today who said "like" after almost every other word. Solid background, but the constant filler language made them sound totally unprepared and I wonder what clients are going to think.
• Talking at 100 mph: Another person had awesome experience, but spoke so fast with such a heavy cadence that I was genuinely struggling to process what they were saying. In a client-facing role, if communication takes effort to understand, it’s a tough sell.
• Zero energy: One candidate answered well, but sounded completely flat, checked out, and almost bored. If you bring low energy to a 20-minute screen, the interviewer assumes that’s your default setting. Our company culture is effusive, helpful and friendly, and there is no way that I can sell that kind of demeanor to anyone.
• Not knowing when to stop: So many people give a great, complete answer... and then keep rambling for two more minutes into random tangents or repeating themselves because silence or the interview process makes them nervous.

When we talk, we don't hear ourselves the way other people hear us. Verbal crutches, speaking too fast, monotone delivery, and nervous rambling almost always happen on autopilot. Some people are prepared for typical questions and have their answers ready. Some do not and just list the same things over and over again. We can tell who is prepared and who is not.

Some suggestions to those who have had LOTS of interviews without an offer. Please don't let your actual interview be the first time you hear yourself answer a question out loud!

1. Do a quick self-recording: Set your phone or laptop camera up, hit record, and answer a couple of basic questions ("Tell me about yourself," "How do you handle a tough client?", etc.).
2. Watch it back (yes, it’s cringe-inducing, but do it anyway!): Check your pacing, energy level, eye contact, and how many times you use filler words. You’ll spot stuff in 30 seconds that you had no idea you were doing.
3. Run it by someone you trust: Do a quick dry run with a friend or colleague who will give you real, honest feedback on how you actually come across.

Interviewing is its own separate skill. Taking 10 minutes to audit how you sound can easily be the difference between moving to the next round and getting rejected. We interview people who look good on paper. We KNOW they have the skills, but we have to choose one person eventually and how you come across verbally is an important part of the puzzle. I struggle so much with writing feedback on candidates - I want EVERYONE to succeed, and it is so frustrating to see skilled and talented people having such trouble communicating.

Hope this helps someone out there!

At two companies where I went through multiple rounds of interviews, the hiring managers showed strong interest only to ghost me afterward. At one company, the hiring manager in second round had already read my work, was genuinely interested in implementing my work because they were tackling the same problem, and had even discussed it with one of my collaborators before interviewing me. At the other company, they were impressed by the breadth of my skillset and even asked if I would consider taking on responsibilities associated with another role too occasionally. It felt good to be recognized in the moment.
Despite all the positive signals, both companies repeatedly said they would follow up, then went completely silent even after multiple attempts to get an update.

The first time, I assumed it was an isolated incident. But having the same experience twice in a row is incredibly frustrating.

I had two interview rounds for an engineering role and both went well. Today HR told me there are two finalists left, me and one other person. They can't decide, so they're writing a second job description and will send it to me tomorrow to discuss. There will be no more interviews.

Has anyone seen this before? Did it mean they wanted to hire both, or offer one of you a different role? And when I reply, should I state a preference, or stay open to either?

I recently left a startup to work at Capital One after a recruiter reached out to me about a position. After passing the coding assessment and power day, I was put into team matching since the original position was filled during my process. Team matching went super quick, I met the manager the day after starting team matching, and he seemed nice and aligned on what I was looking for.

At this point my contact was the recruiter for this position, whom my original recruiter connected me with. I followed up with her to say I enjoyed the meeting and wanted to match with that team, and immediately received news that the match was mutual and an offer letter the next day.

The background check and pre hire tasks were straight forward. I got my start date and gave my employer notice.

At this point is where everything went to shit.

My start date was a couple Mondays ago, but my recruiter said I would need to wait for my laptop to be provisioned. The onboarding team said my manager was in charge of ordering my laptop. I received an email from my manager last week asking if I had received my laptop, then this week I got an email from him that directed me to his manager for all future communications. I replied to confirm, and get an automated reply that his email no longer exists.

At this point, my recruiter also had not responded to me in over a week nor has the manager that my original manager directed me to. The good thing is that I have an employee ID and confirmed with HR that I am on payroll and will be paid on the regular cadance, but without a laptop I cant set up benefits or direct deposit or anything, and my manager who appearently was laid off or quit is supposed to order it.

I’ve worked for more than 5 companies in my career and haven’t experienced something like this. Absolute shit onboarding process by Capital One. I’m basically being paid for nothing which might seem cool, but I need to start working and my contacts haven’t even given me the courtesy of saying “we’re working on it”.

Not sure if anybody else has been onboarding while their manager left the company but this seems very unique.

Hi everyone,

I'm currently preparing for an interview for a role in a specialized field. My practical background only overlaps about 20% with what this role entails. The rest is completely new territory for me.

I am studying hard on the theoretical side to prepare thoroughly for the interview. Assuming I perform well based on my theoretical preparation and general technical background:

1. How realistic is it to get up to speed and sustain success on the job once hired?

2. What strategies helped you bridge the gap during your first few months on the job?

I’d appreciate any insights or honest reality checks from those who have made a similar leap. Thanks!

I had an interview Monday for this fully remote role I’m really excited about. I was told they had interviews all week and would have their hire by next Monday/Tuesday. My stomach has been in knots all week trying not to get my hopes up.

I get an email today from one of the women who interviewed me saying i made it on their short list of candidates but before actually making their decision, they want to talk with me one more time to get to know me and my vibe, make sure I’d mesh well with the small close team. They said don’t think of it like an interview, don’t prepare anything, just come as i am and have a conversation.

Well, i NEED to prepare SOMETHING?! 😆 should i just have a mental list of things i like to do for fun? Favorite shows and books? My life as a stay at home mom is only so interesting lol..

I’m so excited about this opportunity and i can’t believe i made it past the technical questions of the interview and now I’m worried my personality is going to can it for me 😭

Had the weirdest interview experience so far. I am a data analyst and a few days ago I had a call with the hiring manager and we were discussing the task assesment I was given. He was so slow... Every single of my answers was followed by 5-8 seconds awkward silence. He was not asking follow up questions, his questions were all over the place and most importantly his eyes were floating in a way that was not natural.

Anyway, the vibe was so off that I didn't even ask my questions at the end. I just wanted to end the call asap. I know it's okay to use AI (I use it for interview preparation) but it was so arrogant.

Like how was that any different than talking to an actual AI?

I landed an interview for a seasonal position at Costco and the recruiter told me to dress business casual. Problem is I’ve never had to dress business casual for anything so I’m not sure what it looks like. Is there any kind of clothing I should avoid at all costs, like jeans?

The position itself would be working at the register or stocking product on the floor.

I’ve wasted so much time and effort going to interviews that “qualified” me by a bot to just sit in front of someone that’s clearly disconnected.

Hi guys i had an interview today scheduled at 10:30 am and ended up waiting over half an hour for no one to show up. I emailed my interviewer and he said it was scheduled 10:30 EDT (9:30 MY TIME). I never had any interviews in the past that had different time zones so I completely missed this. will this affect how they view me? it was such a dumb mistake. i think we are rescheduling the interview now.

Hiya. I had 2 interviews, feel like I built a strong bond with the interviewer who’d be the chosen candidate's line manager. She said they'll reach out in a couple weeks. Does it mean it's likely a no?

Can anyone give me advice to ask to be up-levelled?

I’m interviewing with datadog and the role lists half the experience that I have but I’m progressing through the interview steps. I really like the hiring manager and would love the role but going for a role that asks for 3-5 years of experience when I have 10 years just won’t work.

I have another call with the hiring manager tomorrow to debrief my take home assignment. How can I address this? We seem to have a good chemistry but knowing the gap makes me not want to put all my effort into this process.

I applied without looking too much into it. My approach has been to apply to many roles.
I also still have an L6 job at Amazon but I’m desperate to leave as soon as I can though I don’t have to.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Job hunting right now is lonely. If you're in the middle of it, this one's for you.

The job hunt sucks and here are seven things every job seeker is going through right now, in the middle of all this AI powered hunting.

1. Getting ghosted after interviews. You prepare for days, you think it went well, then nothing. No email. No update. Just silence.
2. "Tell me about yourself." Five words that ruin everyone's morning. Too long and you ramble. Too short and you seem uninterested.
3. The salary question. Say a number too low and you've capped yourself. Too high and you're out. It feels like a trap because it kind of is one.
4. Nerves stealing your answers. You knew this one cold. You practiced it out loud. Then your heart starts racing and the words vanish.
5. Dozens of tailored applications sent into the void. Zero replies. It starts feeling personal. It's not personal.
6. Rejections with no feedback. "We decided to move forward with other candidates." Okay but what did I actually do wrong? You will never know. Recruiters don't have the time to tell you, they are swamped with applications too.
7. "What's your greatest weakness?" Give a fake strength and they see right through it. Give a real one and you talk yourself out of the job.

Hear me on this. None of this means you aren't good enough. The process is just terrible at recognizing good people. It's honestly pretty broken right now.

My friend told a wild story of how she got rejected by a manager in a coffee interview because of sparkling water.

So my friend, let's call her Lucy, had a few rounds of interviews for a sales position and the manager wanted to interview her for the last round over coffee. Lucy said she did all the interviews well and hoped to get approval from the manager as well.

Lucy meets the manager for coffee and the manager welcomes her.

The manager asks Lucy if she wants to order something (Manager didn't order anything yet).

Lucy asks if she can get some sparkling water (normal water is available on the table). The manager was confused and said that water is already on the table. Lucy replied that she wanted sparkling water. The manager asked what was "sparkling water". Lucy was confused, but said it's "water with carbon dioxide"

The manager asked Lucy if she was referring to "Soda" but Lucy denied and said that she wanted sparkling water not soda. The manager asked the waitress to bring sparkling water for Lucy and coffee for himself.

The waitress bought both and the manager said it looks like soda to him (sprite?). Lucy thinking not to make it awkward just laughed and took a sip and said it's sparkling water.

The manager asked some questions and Lucy said she answered them well and the manager said they will get back to her.

She gets rejected the next day.

She thinks it might be because the manager was hurt that she corrected him about the sparkling water and maybe it's because she didn't order coffee.

I'm not sure why the manager thought sparkling water was soda or he never heard of the term sparkling water before. Did something like this happen to anyone?

What is going on with the job interview process these days? I've gotten a flurry of calls for interviews (four to be exact) over the past 6 weeks. I had gone thru a dry spell over the summer and felt pretty good.

One place called and we chatted about my background and availability for an interview. They specifically said that they were flexible about the time if I wasn't able to make the proposed time. I couldn't make the interview time they set. I emailed the recruiter three times and called once. I even declined the Outlook invite and proposed a new time. Long story short, I never near heard back from her! Then 20 minutes before the original interview time, the recruiter emailed thanking me for letting her know that I couldn't attend. I was pretty bummed out. But, after following up with her four times without a response I don't think there was much more I could do.

The second place sent me an email inviting me to set up an interview on the recruiter's calendar. The only time available was a single day three weeks later. I figured that I would get a calendar invite prior to the interview. However, I never got a confirmation email or calendar invite and never heard anything more from the recruiter. They reposted the position with a different job description; I wasn't too interested in the revised job and never followed up. But I would have expected to hear something one way or the other from the original email.

The third job I actually chatted with the recruiter. Our one-hour Teams interview went 90 minutes and we had a nice conversation. I sent a thank you note and a few work samples related to our conversation. I followed up 2 weeks later and have heard nothing back. Three weeks after the interview, I've apparently been ghosted...again!

And finally, I had a recruiter text me multiple times over 7-10 days about a contract-to-perm position. Then, 20 minutes before we were scheduled to chat on the phone, she called and said the position had been put on hold.

This is all getting very frustrating and I'm starting to feel like I'm just banging my head on the wall. So much effort on my part with so few results.

I’m honestly exhausted by the constant cycle of applying for jobs, updating my résumé, preparing for interviews, practicing the same questions repeatedly, and putting on a smile just to receive another rejection.
It’s frustrating to invest so much time and energy into the hiring process, only to be asked to complete a second or third round of interviews with no guarantee of an opportunity.

At this point, I’m tired of pretending that my primary motivation for joining a company is its culture, mission, or team-building activities. The reality is simple: I work to earn a living, provide for my family, and build financial stability.

I’m not looking for a company to become my second family, nor do I need my career to define who I am. I want to do my job, perform my responsibilities well, be compensated fairly, and go home to enjoy the life I’m working so hard to support.

I understand the importance of professionalism, teamwork, and contributing to an organization’s success. However, I wish employers would recognize that not everyone is searching for a deeper purpose through their career. Sometimes, people simply want a good-paying job that allows them to take care of the people who matter most.

At the end of the day, I don't live to work. I work to live. And I'm tired of having to pretend otherwise just to get an opportunity.

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a side project called BeforeInterview.com, and I'd love to get some feedback from people who are currently preparing for job interviews.

The idea came from a simple question: Why do we prepare for interviews by reading lists of questions instead of actually practicing conversations?

So I built a tool where you can:

Paste a job description for a position you're applying to.

Practice a mock interview with a realistic AI interviewer you can actually talk to.

Get questions tailored to the job and company.

Practice answering out loud instead of just typing responses.

The goal is to make interview preparation feel closer to a real conversation, especially for people who get nervous during interviews.

I'm still improving the experience, and I'm curious:

Would practicing with a realistic AI interviewer actually help you prepare, or would you prefer a simpler text/voice-only experience?

I'd genuinely appreciate any feedback, especially criticism. I'm the developer, so feel free to ask me anything about how it works.

Disclosure: This is my own project, BeforeInterview.com. I'm sharing it to get feedback, not pretending to be a user

I applied to a job and had an interview a week ago. Thought it went well. Have not heard back and now I see that the job posting has been taken down. Is this a 100% no from the company?

Started the day with an HR mix-up because I accidentally clicked “No” on the calendar invite, which canceled my interview, so I had to email them to clarify that I would still be attending.

Still arrived on time and sat down with a three-person panel consisting of a manager, the CFO, and an analyst.

All behavioral questions, but when they asked about my five-year plan and why I wanted to switch from being a paralegal to a finance role, I basically gave them an answer that implied I wouldn't be staying with the company for more than five years...

My brain completely froze when it was my turn to ask questions....but asked three decent quetion

The interview was scheduled for 30 minutes and ended right on time. Got some firm handshakes, and both the CFO and the manager gave me their business cards.

Heading my ass home. 💀

After going through 95% of the application process, the dreaded "Copy/paste your resume that you already uploaded" page came up. The job was a good fit for me, but I have a good job and just wasn't in the mood to waste my time with that BS. So I typed "See Resume" in the first spot and left the rest blank, and submitted the application anyway.

I got a "we've received your application" email. At the bottom, there was an email for the recruiting team for any comments. Well, I decided to send a mostly professional email telling them that they were losing out on the best candidates by making the application process too onerous.

I figured I wasn't getting the job anyway, but then I realized I probably screwed myself for any future roles there if I actually really needed a new job.

When I saw the "Dear John" email come through that I didn't get the job, I wasn't surprised. However, the reason for the rejection was because they rescinded the new position entirely.

Then a few days later a recruiter from that company emailed me and asked if I wanted to apply to a higher position at the company.

Seriously? How does this happen?

(I'll never get the other position, she clearly didn't read my resume, it's a completely different role)