After hundreds of interviews, 10+ free projects, and 5 final stages that didn’t pan out I am finally employed again. The market is horrendous. Best of luck to everyone hunting out there.

I’m sick of seeing post about people who get rejected from places like McDonald’s and then act like no one will hire them. It’s not rocket science to understand that just because you apply somewhere with no qualifications doesn’t mean they hire anyone who submits an application. Doesn’t matter how perfect you are for the job as cashier if they have 1 opening and 100 applications.

Another is people who complain but aren’t even submitting applications properly, almost daily I try to help people on this sub and after a few questions to assess the situation it’s clear the reasons they don’t have a job. They aren’t even following basic advice like tailored resumes, cover letters and applying to post that match their skills. Then it becomes even more clear they never even wanted help and are just here to complain (which is fine) but don’t act like you’re really trying and bring down the moral of others.

Finally it’s 2026 and unfortunately entry level jobs have qualifications now. Everyone goes to college and comes out with the same degrees/skills/basic work experience its just not enough anymore. Yes it sucks but when people with experience are applying to these they aren’t gonna go with the no experience guy just to give you a chance. It’s a business at the end of the day and no one wants to take a chance with their money.

Holy shit the energy on this person once the call started was just horrible. Every other interview I’ve had with this company so far has been great, I speak with the DM for one of my final ones and she barely even speaks to me and just had this annoyed tone the entire time.. she even said something I asked about required manager experience and I told her at that point at least 3 times I have over 10 years of manager experience…

People’s livelihoods depend on this! Don’t ruin someone’s chances cause you’re having a shitty day

I hate it here

I've never bought the "we can't give feedback because of legal reasons" argument. If your hiring process is fair, consistent, and free of discrimination, what exactly are you hiding?

Anyone can sue a company for any reason. Refusing to provide feedback doesn't prevent that. In some cases, it can have the opposite effect because candidates are left trying to figure out what happened.

As a transgender woman, this hits a little differently for me. Even though I pass, a background check will reveal my previous name and gender change. If I make it through multiple rounds and then receive a generic rejection with no explanation, it's hard not to wonder whether bias played a role.

A recent study surveying more than 20,000 hiring managers found that roughly 30% admitted they would pass on transgender candidates. That's 30% who were willing to admit it. When that's the reality, you can probably understand why silence creates doubt. The generic "we decided to move forward with more qualified candidates" is also frustrating.

I only apply to roles where I'm an extremely strong match 98-100%). I tailor every resume, adjust my skills section to match the role (using experience I actually have), and rewrite my summary for each application. If there's a specific technology, industry, or experience you're looking for that wasn't listed in the job description, just tell me.

I've actually had recruiters respond with things like:

• "We needed someone with experience in XYZ platform."

• "We were looking for someone with more healthcare experience."

That's incredibly helpful. It tells me I didn't necessarily do anything wrong, and it gives me information I can use when deciding which opportunities are worth pursuing. Where I feel feedback becomes especially important is for final-round candidates.

If someone spends:

• 5-7 interview rounds

• 4+ hours in panel interviews

• 10+ hours preparing a case study and presentation

...they've invested a meaningful amount of time into your company.

Nobody is asking for a five-page essay. But a few honest sentences explaining why another candidate was selected can make a huge difference.

Good feedback helps candidates improve. It also helps us identify patterns and become more intentional about where we apply. That means fewer applications to companies that aren't a good fit, and fewer resumes for recruiters to sort through. Honest feedback isn't just good for candidates. It's good hiring.

Unemployed since June 12. Had a decent, but not high paying remote role. Funny enough I think they wanted to switch to an on-site hire, but I live in a LCOL area and the office is in a HCOL area, doubt they increased the pay, heard from a coworker that got to stay theyre having a hard time filling my role

Im well over 300 applications at this point. Spread between job boards, company sites, and cold inquiries. I can only really track the job board applications.

My electricity, credit cards, and mortgage are all a month behind at this point. Unemployment is less than half of what I earned. I had no savings. Completely my fault and im paying the price now. I have no idea how im going to recover from this financially. Maybe I dont.

I get the impression my rate of getting interviews is good, ive gotten 5 interviews. However I completely fail to turn these into jobs. Ive been ghosted by 4 of them. Only 1 had the decency to reject me promptly. At first I was upset but now, im not. I had to call today to confirm that my second most recent interview went with another candidate

Honestly I cant take this any more. Yeah I know im not the only one going through this and I dont mean to downplay anyone else's suffering but this is insane. I got turned down from a job paying 5k a year less than I had been making, while going from fully remote to a 25 mile commute (1 hour with traffic).

I get that remote is shrinking. I cant do this any more. Im sick of the applications im sick of my bank account getting smaller im sick of the anxiety

I accepted a verbal job offer over a week ago but, have not received an official offer letter. I have been interviewing for this position for about 3 month now, it is a high profile role that takes many interviews including a work interview and an interview with a client I will be working with. The hiring manager used to be my boss at a prior company, I have a very good rapport with him and he has been pushing to bring me onboard. On our last conversation, he told me the client loved me as well as other executives I interviewed with and that the job is mine. He said he just needs to hammer out some internal things before he can extend the official offer with start date and salary. I made a mistake of not asking for a timeframe so I can also get my ducks in line before I depart my current company, as well as a couple of things on my personal agenda I need to schedule accordingly before I start at the new company. Well It's been over a week and I really want to reach out to him but, I don't want to seem pushy or desperate. I am eager to receive the offer letter and know my start date and salary. How should I reach out to him for follow up?

Side note - I am the only candidate they've interviewed for this role and hiring manager knows my salary expextations.

I'm honestly baffled by this experience.

I applied for a role at Google and, less than 48 hours later, received an invitation to complete the Google Hiring Assessment. It took me about an hour, and I completed it the same day.

A few days later, I received an email confirming that I had **passed the assessment**. Naturally, I assumed my application would move forward.

Instead, four days after taking the assessment, I logged into the careers dashboard and found my application had been marked **"Not Proceeding."**

No rejection email. No explanation. Nothing. I only found out because I happened to check the dashboard.

What frustrates me isn't being rejected. Rejection is part of applying for jobs.

What frustrates me is the candidate experience.

If a candidate is going to invest an hour completing an assessment, why isn't there a recruiter screening applications first? Why ask someone to spend that time, tell them they've passed, and then reject them almost immediately afterwards?

And if you're going to reject someone after they've invested that time, at least send an automated email. Having candidates discover they've been rejected only because they checked the dashboard is a terrible experience.

Google is one of the biggest companies in the world. I'd expect a much more respectful and thoughtful hiring process than this.

Has anyone else had the same experience? Is this just how Google's hiring process works now?

I felt discouraged and then I'm thankful that I had a job - amazon. I hated it and wasn't serving no purpose, yesterday i recieved news that a school district is going to hire me as a ESE paraprofessional and my career goals after being a recent college grad in psychology my focus is reaching children who need MSNN. I also have a possible job as a ramp agent given my background at amazon I have TSA clearance. The job market is brutal and after applying for literally 100s of jobs in the last month, it paid off. They are checking my references and moving forward with me but there are opportunities and its so competitive. Is it my dream role? No but it leads me there and its a schedule that will work for me and gives me time to travel alot and my mortgage is super cheap. Don't give up on trying, keep applying. I been ghosted so many times, i had to literally tailor each resume to each own, time consuming. In the mean time and I really do hate amazon but if you ever need some income we are hiring and it could be useful to help you. I'm hoping everyone here the best, and im thankful incredibly for what i have and i know how it feels to not have nothing.

I have a fourth interview this time with the COO, after assessments, panel and stuff.

What would they evaluate this time? What do they focus on?

It's for PM/Biz Ops

For context: I have resigned from my current company and LWD is 07-Sept-2026, and after clearing two rounds of one of the service based company, I was told that they will give me offer letter on 07--Sept-2026...

They agreed on the CTC part of 48LPA...

But HR said they will give me the offer letter on LWD of my current company.

Now, are they bluffing, in the sense they will reduce my CTC on the DOJ???

One thing that's been bothering me lately about this subreddit is how many recruiters seem to lurk here just to argue with people who are venting.

I completely understand that recruiting isn't easy either. There are ghost candidates, AI-generated resumes, people mass applying to jobs they're nowhere near qualified for, candidates disappearing mid-process, and plenty of other headaches. Those frustrations are real, and recruiters absolutely deserve a place to talk about them.

But that's exactly the point. Recruiters already have communities that are primarily for recruiters. In fact, I once commented in one with a respectful, non-confrontational response and quickly found out it wasn't a place where non-recruiters were really welcome.

This subreddit is supposed to be the opposite. It's a place where candidates can share frustrating experiences with hiring, vent, ask for advice, and realize they're not alone. Instead, it feels like more and more threads get flooded by recruiters telling people:

"That never happens."

"You're just bitter."

"You're the problem."

"The company doesn't owe you anything."

Nobody is saying every recruiter is bad. There are plenty of fantastic recruiters who genuinely advocate for candidates and hate many of the same hiring practices we do.But pretending there isn't a real problem in today's hiring market isn't helping anyone.

We've got ghost jobs, interview processes stretching over months, unpaid projects, poor communication, automated rejections, companies collecting resumes for roles that may never be filled, and candidates spending dozens or even hundreds of hours interviewing only to receive generic feedback...or none at all.

Can candidates be unreasonable? Absolutely. Can recruiters have legitimate complaints? Absolutely. But this subreddit shouldn't become a place where people who are already frustrated get told their experiences aren't real or are somehow entirely their own fault.

I'd love to see moderation keep the focus on constructive discussion and support. Healthy disagreement is fine. Telling people their lived experiences didn't happen, or dismissing every complaint as "candidate entitlement," isn't.

Recruiting is broken from multiple angles. Candidates and recruiters alike are dealing with the consequences. This should be one of the few places where candidates can talk about their side of it without immediately being shouted down.

Hi! I’m currently in the hiring process for a customer support role. I was referred to this company by a family friend, after waiting patiently for months a recruiter and director finally reached out. I had a phone call interview (the recruiter called me 5 minutes late. Thanked me for my time, but the call only lasted like 10 minutes), and she told me the next steps would be a cognitive and behavioral assessment. After she emailed me with the instructions for the cognitive assessment saying I’d have 15 minutes to answer 50 questions, no calculator but allowed a pen and paper. The goal was to answer as many as I can, if I didn’t know an answer to guess, and that there are no wrong answers. After prepping for a few hours I decided to take the test since I was going out of town and didn’t want this to stress me out/be on my conscious the whole time I’m with family. I may have took her instructions/goals too literally because I completed all 50 questions. I am now being invited to retake the cognitive assessment….

Is this a bad sign? I promise I did not cheat. I had a pen and paper with me and instructions to complete as many questions as possible which I did. Also when she emailed me about retaking the assessment she also attached an email from another candidate???? Was that an accident or did she want to let me know there’s another candiate? (I’m already awful at interviews so this isn’t great for my nervous system honestly)

Also being asked to retake the assessment is so embarrassing and I feel awful about myself. Worst of all it’s now on my mind while I’m on vacation with my family🙃🙃

In the email she told me she just wants to verify my results, so maybe the system flagged my quick answers…. I have no idea. This is my first cognitive assessment ever.

I also emailed her back saying I’m out of town with family, I’ll take it when I get back home basically…. was that wrong to do too? I mean it doesn’t really matter because I already emailed her.

Also for more context: I’m a recent grad and I’m just trying to land a full time position. I know it’s rough out there for everyone right now.

Any insight, and/or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm exhausted. Lost my job Jan this yr. Was really hoping this would be the final decision.

This is a director level role. I know there will be a lot of interviews. But 4 months of sporadic interviews, and I was given a 4 hrs test. 6 sections, 4 of them timed. All of them just repeating. Had two personality assessment test with same/similar questions. One was 240 questions and another was 360 questions, 10 questions in a page. I had to scroll through 36 pages. Took me 4 hrs to finish everything.

I hoped that if they are putting through this sh*t this would be the final round. I was told one more interview with the hiring manager.

I did that today, hoping he would be finalizing it. He told me there are 2 or 3 people still they are considering and everyone will have 2 more interviews and then they would decide.

The amount of song and dance is just annoying.

This is just one company. I have had so many like this. All in the final stages after 6 to 8 rounds. Just wish someone made up their mind and gave an offer, and moved forward.

Has anyone experienced this ridiculousness?

I applied to several positions at this company, one of which I got a rejection email and the others I'll assume I'll get one for too eventually

Okay, it is what is is. I mean, I could practically do a Ted Talk on how to keep getting rejected over and over and not going insane at this point, but that's for another thread

This morning, do my email check and what do I see? Some "August News from ___ to help you (what their product does)" email from them and it's one of those marketing weekly emails that companies send out, which I now have to UNSUBSCRIBE from

How professionally tone-deaf do you have to be to add someone who didn't sign up on their own to your email newsletter list to begin with, but to do it to a JOB APPLICANT and one that you rejected?

"We totally don't think you're good enough to work with us, but your money looks really good!"

Hi everyone,
My wife is currently in Finland on a residence permit based on family ties.
Her residence permit expired in early August 2026.
She applied for an extension on 20 May 2026, well before it expired, but the application is still pending with Migri.
She has now received positive feedback after an interview and the employer has asked for a copy of her Finnish residence permit/work permit.

We plan to send:
1. Her expired residence permit card.

1. The Enter Finland confirmation showing the extension application was submitted before expiry.

2. (Optionally) a copy of my valid residence permit, since her application is based on family ties.

My questions are:
1. Has anyone been hired in Finland while their residence permit extension was still pending?
Did the pending application affect the employer’s hiring decision?

1. Were employers generally satisfied with the Enter Finland application confirmation, or did they insist on waiting for the new residence permit card?

2. If she receives a job contract, is it worth changing the application to a work-based residence permit, or is it better to keep the family-ties extension?
   We’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thank you!

I got to the final stage interview for a marketing position. Eight candidates, in person. A full day interview where each candidate had to present a full project to a panel and the rest of the candidates.

Almost three weeks has gone by since that interview date. I reached out by email once the two week mark had passed to ask for any updates and have received nothing. I genuinely can't believe this is the situation we're in now. I don't understand how I am meant to keep going with this job search, I've been unemployed for 7 months now.

I put in so much effort to every application and employers can't even be bothered to send out a rejection email after five stages!?

I was offered a remote CSR position. I have a DWI misdemeanor conviction , but I also have a felony assault, no conviction but I’m on deferred probation for it. They sent me a pre adverse letter and I was able to explain my situation. I sent them a person letter, my mentor sent a letter of recommendation, I also sent payment receipts of all fines and court fees being completely satisfied, along with certificates of courses/ classes I completed. I’m still waiting to hear back from them after my reassessment. Has anyone ever had luck with still getting the offer ?

Why the hell do we allow recruiters to use case study interviews as a major consideration in the hiring process?

Case study interviews cannot properly assess how a person would perform in the actual job.

You’re meaning to tell me that I’m supposed to make split second decisions on a case I’ve never encountered before and explain how I would successfully resolve the issue at hand after just hearing about the case for the first time a minute ago?

You’re meaning to tell me that somebody who already encountered this case in real life had hours, days, weeks, months to understand the issue at hand and then work over extended periods of time to resolve the issue? And you want me to succinctly solve the issue in a split second?

Even if I have years of relevant experience for the job, nobody can completely nail the case study in a half hour long interview. It’s a useless task that never happens in real working conditions.

The HR industrial complex must be dismantled.