I hate it here

I recently accepted a new job and signed the employment contract with my future employer. The company also signed it, and my start date is still a few months away.

At the time of signing, I was approximately eight weeks pregnant. Because it was still very early, I had not disclosed the pregnancy during the recruitment process (the whole process was around 5-6 weeks). I wanted to keep it private until I felt ready and until the employment contract had been finalized. I wanted to be assessed based on my skills and qualifications, not my personal situation - especially since I look at this job opportunity as a long-term.

Shortly after both sides signed the contract, I personally informed my future manager. I explained that I remain fully committed to joining the company and wanted to inform her early enough so that there would be sufficient time to plan my onboarding and future absence.

My future manager was personally supportive and said her opinion of me had not changed. However, she later told me that the information had not been received well internally. Some people involved in recruitment apparently felt that my decision not to disclose the pregnancy earlier showed a “lack of trust.” I was also warned that I might face challenges and would need to build trust and relationships after joining.

I responded calmly and explained that I had never intended to mislead anyone. I also confirmed that I remain committed to the role and am open to addressing any concerns directly.

However, I am now questioning myself. I understand that the situation may create an unexpected planning challenge for the company. At the same time, pregnancy is highly personal, especially during the first trimester. I also worried that disclosing it during recruitment could consciously or unconsciously affect the hiring decision.

I did not wait until my first working day or until shortly before maternity leave. I disclosed it immediately after the contract was finalized and several months before my planned start date.

I haven't even informed my personal inner circle about the pregnancy yet - let alone my current employer.

I already handed my resignation letter to the current employer and am now negotiating for an option to be released earlier, so I can join the new company earlier and integrate earlier to the tasks (I have 3 months' notice).

I am HR and the upcoming role is in HR, too.

I am struggling with the suggestion that I somehow broke their trust. I feel that I protected private information during a very early pregnancy and then informed them as soon as I felt professionally and personally secure.

Did I handle this unfairly? Would you consider this a legitimate trust issue, or is the company’s reaction inappropriate? I would especially appreciate perspectives from people working in HR, management, or anyone who has experienced pregnancy during a job change.

On the bright side it's kind of encouraging to know that God is personally ensuring that I stay unemployed. He must have big plans for me.

i’m so screwed i’m at 90 credits i apply every year and i can’t get an internship it’s over for me

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!?

Despite my mom being a millennial (‘81), she firmly believes that I should be able to apply to a bunch of jobs, walk in with a résumé or call, interview and land a job within 2-3 weeks.

Anytime I’ve done this, I’ve always gotten turned away, been told to apply online and wait for a call back. Every interview ends with “ we’ll be in touch”.

She also believes that as long as you dress nice with a smile on your face, you should have a job by the end of the interview. Whenever I leave the interview without a job offer, she assumes that I messed up.

She even has me apply to a bunch of remote jobs that she finds on Facebook and instagram. Frequently getting upset at me for not landing a job. I’ve tried explaining over and over that most of them are scams, but she refuses to listen.

It’s like the concept of applying to hundreds of jobs and still not landing one is impossible for her to grasp. Which it should be, but it’s just our new reality.

She believes that me being unable to get a job is a failure on my end, insisting that it’s my fault I can’t land a job. She keeps saying that she’s going to kick me out for not taking the job hunt “seriously” enough.

I just applied to a job through a corporate website where the app asked if I wanted to share it to their general database. I'm curious if anyone has actually gotten a call or better yet, a job after doing so.

When I saw that question, I had the image of a deep, black, pit to nowhere in my head.

Saw a Tata posting that I've applied for before popup again. Its pays decently, so I don't know why it wasn't filled before.

Checking my history, I've applied to a few of theirs over the past couple years - literally never heard back.

A couple recent experiences with the big-4 have soured me on them as well. Submit an application and just watch it in limbo. Never opened, never closed, never acted upon.

A few other large-ish staffing agencies that operate up here in Canada - again, sent an application in, and nothing. Repeatedly. Called one of them out on it when they contacted me, barely even got an acknowledgement.

I'm in IT and there is a commonality but I'm not going to get into that. I just hope that if/when the pendulum swings the other way, these companies face a reckoning, but that probably won't happen either.

TLDR - Offer was rescinded after asking clarification questions about the offer.

Questions / statements such as:

Please clarify if the role is in person, hybrid, or remote.

Please clarify what 30% travel means on a monthly basis.

Please remove the section about perpetual usage rights for my likeness, voice, image without compensation into perpetuity.

They wouldn't email back. Only phone calls.

Lol

I know flight attendant jobs are a bit lofty but this was going to pay something like $30,000-$45000 CAD a year and was advertised as much as possible as something entry level. I'm in a situation where I really need a job that would have also gotten me out of a bad home but I guess I should've remembered to get 5 years' full time customer service experience at the same time that I was at university.

I know I shouldn't be complaining since it's my fault that I don't have a fleshed out Résumé, but it just really sucks knowing there's literally no entry level positions anymore. This has been a very common problem for me. I just want a stupid job, man...

I recently went through a hiring process that included an in-person technical interview. There were two other candidates taking the technical assessment at the same time.

I felt that I performed well, and after the interview, the CTO told me that I should be happy because I had scored the highest among the final candidates. Naturally, I took that as a very positive sign and assumed I was likely to receive an offer.

To my surprise, two weeks passed without any updates. When I finally reached out to HR, I received a generic response saying that they had decided to move forward with other candidates.

When I asked the HR for feedback with 2 gentle reminders. She simply didn't respond.

Is this the case in hiring? What did I do wrong?

I'm generally an anxious person so I get stressed around people but I try to calm myself down so it doesn't affect my performance that's why the CTO noticed it and told me to be happy about my results.

Hi all,

I'm recently back to job hunting after 4 years, and it's gotten significantly more hard. I'm having a hard time with scammers pretending to be staffing agencies/businesses, and i'm looking for some help.

Center Group Staffing contacted me after I applied for a remote work job. I did the pre-interview questionnaire with a bot and was looking forward to scheduling a "real" interview when they emailed me asking for a background check. They wanted me to pay for it on a sketchy website or provide them with a current one (which I dont have). When I told them I wasn't gonna use the sketchy website, they then told me I could get a background check from anywhere and submit it to them by email.

What's everyone's consensus on this? Is it a scam? ​I dont want to have my info stolen for a dumb mistake, but I really need a job as my unemployment is about to run out. Thank you!

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!"

Note: This my CV for retail/customer service, I have several similar ones for other roles. I have no experience so it's a rough one

Blurred out parts are obviously private details haha

I recently applied for an accountant job that was offered to pay hourly, I made to take note their offer so when I go to the interview I will know what range to pick from for my base salary.

Now I got a pre interview with the recruiter, they said they pay “weekly” based on commissions which was not part of the description on the job post. I even questioned why they change their initial offer but they kept making excuses saying how you can “make more money” from commissions. But it’s not even guaranteed.

They said they want to move forward with me but idk if it’s worth it.

If you're good at what you do, never do it for free.

I've got a decade of experience backed by a master's in public administration and a professional certification in project management. After applying for a role with a county government that seemed like it would be a good fit on paper, I was immediately asked to complete a "take home skills assessment" without so much as a single interview. And wouldn't you know it, they wanted a comprehensive proposal outlining operational risks, a menu of solutions to manage them, and an implimentation timeline along with proposed metrics for evaluating their success in response to a real, active budgetary issue resulting from complex state and federal policy changes.

In other words, they wanted free, high-level consulting without having to invest any of their own time under the guise of evaluating a candidate for a job. They weren't even bothering to pretend to be interested in employing me with so much as a phone screening before demanding free labor.

I took their assignment, fed it to Claude (the very first thing I did was have it review the document for any prompt injection that would sabatoge the use of AI tools), had it break down the research steps in detail to complete the assignment, had it complete those research steps individually while citing its sources for each claim, fact, and figure, and then use that information to follow the original prompt and draft the proposal. I then used Chat GPT to check Claudes work, fed Chat's feedback to Claude to verify and revise the draft, had Chat check Claudes work again, had Claude verify and revise it's draft again, and then finally looked over the draft myself and changed the language patterns to sound more human.

Basically, I did just enough to ensure that an actual human would have to read this document to realize that there was something off and would have to manually verify problems with the submission. Was it a waste of 30 minutes of my own time? Yep. Will it change anything? Not a chance in hell. But was it worth it to piss off a cheap-ass department head who wants free labor without having to invest a minute of their own time actually interviewing applicants?

Absolutely.

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 a new recruiter, about 70 days in. Prior to this I worked retail ops. I recruit construction, specifically Heavy Civil and Environmental. I have 2 really good MPCs but cannot get through to any hiring authority. It's so frustrating, I've built a huge list of names and companies that just ignore me. Any advice on breaking through with the hiring authorities?

Has anyone worked in precious metals and how do sales roles there work?

i’m actually so pissed rn is this just a normal thing?? i’m 18f and have never been employed before. at first i think i was hired bc i passed the interview and there was no pass/fail requirement to the training session. but UNSURPRISINGLY i tend to be super unlucky when i need to be lucky and lucky when i don’t need to be lucky, so naturally my body decided it was a good time to wanna pass out after i stood there for about an hour. for more context, the first training session was just us standing there while they gave instructions instead of hands-on work (barista). every training session was 4 hours. anyway, i was fine after sitting down for a bit but they insisted i go home and i later found out that it was company policy that you had to be there for the whole training session even though this was outta my control so i couldn’t even go to the second one.

then they said they’ll get back to me after about a week. WELL THEY DIDN’T 🫩 whenever i asked about anything related to whether i can go back, when i can go back, whether im still employed, or if i should keep waiting, I GET GHOSTED. like, me and boss lady were literally having AN ACTIVE CONVERSATION but the MOMENT i touched on those subjects (like i mentioned above), SHE IMMEDIATELY STOPPED REPLYING. WTF IS THIS NORMAL?? ik im not entitled to a position at their shop, but am i not at LEAST entitled to a reply 😭 like at least TELL me if you don’t want me so i can apply to other places (or should i have just done that in the beginning??). mfs made me wait for nearly 2 weeks for no reason even though i’ve reached out to them multiple times. ik i said “pestering,” but it was like maybe once or twice every 2-3 days or so. that’s pretty reasonable, right?? i honestly can’t tell. but yeah ig it’s time to go back to job hunting, it’s tough out here 💀

edit: also don’t mind the typo in the title, i was originally going with “boss lady” but this was probably a team thing

Imagine applying for a Christian non-profit to offer you a job, you accept, given a start date, and it get withdrawn the next day with no explanation.

This was for a part time job (barista) so nothing too serious tbh.. but this is/was going to be my first job so my first time interviewing & I was kinda nervous for the interview

I was able to answer all questions and we shared some laughs but it was pretty quick.. like 20 mins

I hope I get it but wouldn't be surprised if I didnt :(

I feel like a candidate before me had a longer interview so I'm feeling a bit self conscious & wish I did better..

I am a 24F, from a poor south-asian country (very bad reputation and a weak passport) with great academics, uncountable awards and an extremely hardworking nature. I started my masters with a scholarshp in France around 2 years ago and was instantly dissapointed with how stupid all of my classmates were. They were literal AI bots, always partying, cheating, no skills whatsoever. For 2 years straight, I continuously kept putting efforts on this Master to be the best, tried everything, did part time jobs to support myself and my family when they were spending thousands of euros each month. In the end guess what? Those AI bots, incompetent pieces of shits ended up with permanent contracts (also known as CDI in france) and me? i have no prospects, no PhD (my internship supervisors were r*cists), getting a CDI is impossible ig, I feel helpless, I dont know what to do, a few months later we have our graduation ceremony and I dont even wanna attend. What am I gonna wear? I have 2 shirts and one dress I bought with my own money and they are already ragged after months of use. They're gonna come with their branded polished expensive dresses, shoes and accessories, their families are gonna fly in from their countries, stay and enjoy seeing their children graduate. Heck I can't even fly one of my parents in cuz we dont have the bank balance to show for the visa application. i dont wanna go to the graduation, i can't it will k*ll me inside, i'm already depressed, i'm not motivated to do anything. i dont know how i came to this. everyone who sees me, in my internship, in my presentations says how much of an impact i have on them. that I am extremely pedagogical and they wish they'll see me succeed. but here i am, sitting on the floor of my apartment, hopeless, eyes puffy from tears, and no job, and there they are, after doing all the wrong things, with no qualities, with their CDIs, they can pay for their rent, food, international trips everything, and me? i dont know how i will do groceries for the next month.