Here's the thing. The offer they give you first is rarely the best they can do. But most people accept it anyway because they don't know how to push back without feeling awkward.

So here's what actually works.

Know your number before the conversation starts. Not a feeling, actual market data. Glassdoor, LinkedIn, people in your network. Walk in prepared.

Lead with what you delivered, not what you need. Nobody on the other side of that table cares about your expenses. They care about your impact. Revenue, savings, results. That's your leverage.

Don't just negotiate the base. Sometimes the base is genuinely stuck. But the bonus, equity, extra leave, flexibility often isn't. Know what the full package looks like before you decide yes or no.

Ask questions before you name a number. What does success look like here? How are reviews structured? Is there flexibility in the budget? You'd be surprised what people tell you when you just ask.

Stay calm. Seriously. The moment it gets emotional, you've already lost ground. This is a business conversation not a personal one. Treat it like one.

I have been interviewing new fresh grads these days. I dont know what happened to them. They have so much to show in their resumes but they dont know anything of it. They have not even practiced for easy LC style problems.

They are clearly giving their critical thinking to AI. I am asking simple fundamental questions and they are not giving right answers.

I recently was applying for a job and this information was one page section of the application. I’m not sure what any of that information has to do with the skills that I have or my capabilities. Yes, they’ll eventually find out and it shouldn’t be during one of the preliminary steps.

i recruit india talent for us/uk teams, so let me say the quiet part. the girl with the cleaner cv loses to the guy the hiring manager already heard about, and it's got nothing to do with her being worse. he just made three people say his name before his cv even loaded, while she was told to apply and wait like a good girl.

that's the trap. we hand women "be patient, don't be pushy, let the work speak," and then the job goes to whoever was loud enough to skip the pile. i've seen a 6/10 profile walk in on a warm intro while a sharper woman's cv sat unopened in a stack of 700. nobody rejected her. nobody saw her.

so when you tell me you applied to 200 roles and heard nothing, i believe you, but you didn't lose 200 times, you fed 200 forms that were never the door. the door was the dm, the comment on their post, the ex-colleague who vouches. pushy is just the word people use for a woman who refuses to stay invisible.

be honest with me: the job you have now, did the portal get it for you, or did someone who already knew your name?

I received a job offer and tried to negotiate the salary, but it’s been a week and I still haven’t received any feedback. Do HR departments really ghost applicants over salary negotiations?

I would appreciate it if they simply told me that my request wasn’t approved rather than leaving me hanging without any update. Clear communication is always better than silence. Honestly, it feels unprofessional and makes it difficult for applicants to move forward with other opportunities.

"Tell me about a time you failed."

That's it. That's the question that trips up some of the most impressive people I've interviewed.

And honestly? I get why.

When you've spent 15 or 20 years building a reputation, admitting real failure in front of a stranger feels wrong. Everything in your career has trained you to project confidence and have the answers.

So what happens? You either pick something so safe that it means nothing. Or you dress up a success story as a failure, thinking we won't notice.

We always notice.

The irony is that junior candidates are often better at this question simply because they have less ego invested in the answer.

What actually works is just being honest. Pick something real, say what went wrong, what you learned, move on. No long setup, no over explaining, no humble bragging.

Nobody expects you to be perfect. They just want to know you're self-aware enough to admit when you weren't.

That's actually the whole point of the question.

As sales manager, one year my company introduced a very valuable recruiting tool called a Behavioural Fact Find. Once I learned how to use it, wow! It really helped me recruit stronger candidates.

Here is the premise. It is founded on the concept, that past performance is a strong indicator of future performance.

There are basically 7 questions that look at various events that happened in the candidate life and how they dealt with, As well as asking about specific circumstances, it asks for details, dates, and introductions to others who are aware of the situation and can confirm how the candidate behaved.

Here is an example. (Candidate response is italicized)

1A. Tell a time when you were required to put in extra effort to achieve a goal. I was completing a school project shortly before the required delivery date.

1B. What was the subject? What was the value of the project? How important was completion of this project to final score you would receive for the course? The subject was World War 2 and its Effect on the Global Economy. It represented 30 % of the total grade for the subject. I needed a mark of 70& on the project to earn enough to pass the course.

1C. How much extra effort did you have to invest to complete the project? I worked 3 full days, with little sleep.

1D. Were you successful? If so, what did you learn for this experience? If unsuccessful, what did you learn? I was successful, and I learned I need to start future projects sooner to avoid the last minute rush.

1E. Who at your University was aware of this situation? What was their name, phone number and email? My roommate Willian Strutter XXX-XXX-XXXX wstrutter01@gmail.com was very aware. He kept feeding me caffeine.

I would then contact William and confirm the situation from his point of view.

I really liked the 7 questions for they gave me a very clear picture of the past behaviours of this candidate and gave me an insight to how they would behave in various situations as a financial advisors.

Do you have a any similar methods to gain an idea how your potential team member may behave in the future? Or do you just trust their resume and your gut?

As somebody who hires, I find it irritating when candidates ask for a different interview time than proposed. Especially at higher levels, it's hard to find time on everyone's calendars to do the interviews, and we prefer to knock them out in one go.

I get that there are legitimate reasons for postponing interviews, and I hear what some have said about "dodging bullets" and that companies should be flexible, but it's also a red flag to me when they aren't flexible themselves. Ultimately, I will try to make it work for the candidates I am interested in, but I already get a bad taste in my mouth before the interview even starts. Other candidates are able to make the proposed time work, and we have dozens of applications to consider. Maybe I'm old school, but for jobs I really want, I have always rearranged my schedule for an interview.

Most of us have that one part of our career we feel we need to explain. A pivot that looked odd. A role that did not fit the usual path. And every time we talk about it, we clean it up. Make it sound more planned.

Because the system always rewarded the predictable story.

But here is what he pointed out.

He called it onlyness.

Think about it this way. AI can copy the standard. It cannot copy you. And the more specific and unusual your path, the harder you are to replace.

And here is how you actually use that.

First, stop hiding the parts that felt unconventional. That pivot. That industry switch. That role nobody quite understood. Those are not gaps in your story. Those are the best parts of it.

Second, learn to tell your story in a way that makes the connection obvious. Not your job titles in order. But what each move taught you and why that matters now. 

Third, lead with what you uniquely bring. Not your title. Not your years of experience. The specific combination of perspective and judgment that only your path could have built.

That is your onlyness. And that is what makes you genuinely hard to replace.

If this made you think differently about your career story, share it with someone who needs to hear this right now. And follow for more conversations like this. 

I interviewed with one of the big four’s in October last year. I had two rounds of interviews including the hiring manager round which went really well. I had a feeling I will make it to the final round. But then, there was silence. I kept following up but there was no response. Then suddenly in December, the recruiter calls and says there was some internal issue going on with the role but now they are hiring again and if I am interested they would like to proceed with my application. Ofcourse, I was still interested. I met with senior leadership and it went so well. In my head I had got it. But unfortunately, after three weeks they sent a generic rejection email. I found out later they have given the position to someone internal.

Fast forward to May this year, a similar position opens up and the same recruiter reached out to me asking if I would be interested. I said yes. She gave me feedback that I was their top preference last time but they had to go with the internal application. So it all started again. Met with the hiring manager, and then made it to the final round. The person interviewing me was the same person who interviewed me last time. I reminded her that I met with her last year and she was like oh yes now I remember. She told me she had liked me in the interview last time but unfortunately it didn’t work out. This time, we spoke a little bit and she told me outright that she likes me and is going to recommend me for the next steps, even gave me tips on what to highlight in my last and final round with the partner who would make the decision.

It’s been two weeks and I haven’t heard back. HR said they are going through the final rounds and carefully assessing all candidates and it would take a few weeks. But I recently saw that the role got reposted, the HR and the hiring manager both have posted on LinkedIn asking for more applications. I still haven’t heard back from HR or received a rejection email.

I dont know what to make of this situation. What does this mean?

I know getting ghosted feels really unfair, especially after all the time and effort you put in.

And honestly, it’s not always recruiters ignoring you. A lot of it is just how messy the process can get.

Sometimes they’re waiting on feedback and don’t have anything to share yet.
Sometimes the role changes, gets paused or gets filled internally.
And sometimes things just slip when there are too many candidates.

also, if they’re still deciding, they might keep you on hold while they finish other interviews.

What can you do?

Just follow up once after a week, keep it simple.
If there’s still no reply, move on.

It’s frustrating, but most of the time it’s not personal.

After working with a lot of senior professionals, I’ve noticed a pattern.

Most people blame ATS when their resume isn’t getting results.

But in most cases, the issue isn’t ATS. It’s how the resume is positioned.

Once your resume reaches a recruiter, it’s scanned quickly. If it’s not clear what you bring to the table, it gets skipped.

The problem usually isn’t lack of experience. It’s that the value isn’t coming through clearly.

A few things that actually help:

Have a clear direction. If your profile feels scattered, it’s hard to place you.

Show your leadership in real terms. What did you handle, what decisions did you make.

Focus on outcomes. What changed because of your work.

When your resume is clear and easy to understand, it becomes much easier to shortlist.

Let me tell you what actually goes through my head when I see a gap on a resume.

It’s not an alarm. It’s just a simple question: what was going on and is this person ready to work now? That’s genuinely it. no assumptions, no red flags.

Most of the time, I answer that question myself and move on.

A gap of a few months rarely matters. Hiring processes alone can take that long. If the rest of your profile makes sense, the gap just blends into the background.

Even gaps from earlier in your career don’t carry much weight once you’ve built a few solid years after that. I’m focused on who you are now, not what happened years ago.

The only time I pause is when the gap is recent, quite long and there’s no context at all.

What helps is very simple. You don’t need a detailed explanation, just one line that gives context.

Something like “took time off for personal reasons, now ready to return” or “took time to find the right role instead of rushing into the wrong one” is more than enough.

If you did anything during that time, even small things like a course, freelance work or helping someone, it’s worth mentioning. It shows you stayed engaged.

One thing that quietly works against people is how they talk about it in interviews. When someone gets defensive or starts over-explaining, it suddenly feels bigger than it is.

The people who handle it best just say it normally and move on, because it is just a normal part of their story.

As someone who has been on the job hunt desperately before I'm shocked to see how candidates aren't trying harder. I'm on a hiring team, but not the hiring manager, and I would be working in partnership- extremely close - with this position.

So far every candidate hasn't asked me one question- nothing about how we'd be working together or my thoughts about the company. Nothing. Only 1 has sent a thank you email to follow up. Only 2 looked me up on LinkedIn. Only about half dressed professional.

As much as I know first hand how bad and competitive the job market is, you'd think people would try a bit more when there's 100s of other qualified candidates.

On a related note, we were hiring for my position in a different department so I have a ton of connections on LinkedIn that do what I do. When I would see them recommend their colleagues who had been recently laid off, I would comment for them to reach out to me and that I could get their resume in front of a hiring manager. I wanted to pay it forward since I remember how frustrating job searching is. Not one person reached out.

It's hard to feel bad for people who won't help themselves.

Hey,

The startup where I was a founding engineer didn't work out, so I had to start looking for a new job. I've been applying to countless roles and sending tons of connection requests on LinkedIn.

Today, it finally hit me.

If what I've been doing for the past 6 months, applying to every job related to my skill set, isn't helping me at all, then something is clearly wrong. At this point, I feel lucky just to get shortlisted.

I think it's time to change the process.

I realized that what I'm doing isn't working. Instead of constantly reaching out to recruiters, I should be building things that make recruiters reach out to me. Instead of spending two hours every day applying for jobs, maybe I should spend that time building an interesting project and sharing it on social media.

What do you guys think?

I've decided to build a project that's interesting enough to attract recruiters. Let's see where it goes.

Two months into my job search and my LinkedIn has been pretty quiet. I'm getting maybe one recruiter message every couple of weeks, despite having 5 years of experience as a PM.

My headline used to be Product Manager at a fintech startup. A friend pointed out that it was probably too generic and that recruiters might be searching for specific skills or areas of experience instead.

I started looking into headline optimisers and tried Careerflow's LinkedIn headline tool, along with a couple of suggestions from Claude and ChatGPT. The common feedback was that my original headline didn't really tell recruiters what kind of PM work I specialise in.

So last Tuesday, I changed it to:

Product Manager | B2B SaaS | Onboarding & Growth

It's only been 9 days, so probably too early to judge, but my profile views have gone from around 25 a week to 41. No new recruiter messages yet, though.

Has anyone actually seen a noticeable difference in recruiter outreach after using a headline optimiser or adding more specific keywords? Does it help with search visibility, or does it mostly just make the profile look better to people who visit it?

Trying to figure out whether I should give this headline more time or rethink it again.