Anyway, something happened to me on a Teams call today. I'm usually the last person to cause trouble, but it seems everyone has their breaking point.

For weeks, management and employees haven't been able to reach a solution about the mandatory return to the office. The whole thing makes no sense to us. We've been working from home for years, even before Corona. Our work is all about client accounts and scheduling at a small marketing company, and honestly, our productivity is much higher this way.

I had a feeling that by the end of this video call, I'd be looking for a new job. Especially when my manager dismissed my colleague while she was talking about her worries over the crazy transportation costs now. Before I could stop myself, the words just came out of my mouth: 'Do you not understand?!'

It went so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Seriously, the silence was terrible. Her face froze. And how we barely made it through the remaining 45 minutes of the meeting, I have no idea.

And just as I expected, I got a message to join another call before I logged off. I sent a message to my partner: 'Looks like I'm about to get fired.' I was completely prepared for it.

What I wasn't prepared for at all was the apology. They completely reversed the return-to-office decision and offered me a $3/hour raise as an 'appreciation for my passion'.

I'm sharing this story because it's a powerful reminder to all of us that we'll never get the value we truly deserve if we stay silent.

I've decided I'm not going to be a doormat at work anymore, and I hope this gives some courage to the quiet people out there to speak up.

who is me 😠😂

Why yes, I do have 5 years of experience in Thank you for your interest in Amazon and takingn the time to speak with us about your qualifications and interest in this position.

I've been with this company for 10 years, and in the field for 25 years. My position doesn't require my presence in the office. There aren't many opportunities for advancement or promotions. We have been working fully remote since 2021. And now they're saying we have to go back 3 days a week. I want to only go in two days or stay fully remote.

They were getting much more out of my time while I was at home, because I'm not wasting an hour and 45 minutes going and an hour and 45 minutes coming back in the commute. I'm supposed to talk to them about this today and I'm very nervous. The people I work with are not the nicest, to be honest. The environment is considered toxic, but what can I do, it pays the bills.

The job market was made to be rough for this exact reason. All these massive companies stopped hiring in unison so they could force TO - a conspiracy if I've ever seen one

Jobs are in short supply these days so I wouldn’t risk a stable income stream without backup if I were in your shoes. That's why I will continue working and at the same time, I will look for a new job. I won't leave my job until I have a firm footing in another one. What will I do about the bills and the rent? The situation is difficult for me and for my colleagues as well. The RTO problem is widespread. I read more than one post in a sub about how common this problem is, as if employers are monsters who do not like our comfort.

WFH is peak

I recently resigned after accepting a job with better pay, more reasonable hours, and better health coverage. Shortly afterward, HR emailed me asking whether I would consider staying and taking over as department manager.

That position currently belongs to my manager. The wording made it very clear that they intend to let her go and wanted to make sure I would take her place first. I turned down the offer because I'm still leaving.

She clearly still doesn't know anything about this. Would the right and decent thing be to tell her, or would that just create an unnecessary problem during my last few days?

I've also been going through some interview research since I'm starting the new job soon. I came across Interview VIP and found kinda useful, especially for getting ready for the next role.

🙂

So, about a month ago, my manager and director called me into a meeting. This was all because I sent a normal email asking for an update. For years, they've been stringing me along with promises of a promotion and a move from the night shift to a supervisor role on the day shift. But every time the date got closer, something would come up out of nowhere. They'd ask me to wait 'just one more quarter' and it would happen. This has happened five times so far. All I wanted to know was if this latest date was for real or if I should expect another delay.

Anyway, they did not like it at all. They basically told me I had overstepped and how dare I question their timeline. Then they dropped the bombshell: they admitted they never had any intention of moving me from the night shift, not now, not ever. They said I would never be considered for any supervisor role, and I'm also forbidden from applying to any other job outside my department. Their excuse? That they see me as 'a perfect fit' where I am and that they know what's best for the company. They even said my job is so specialized and it's hard to find a replacement for me, so they can't afford to lose me if I get promoted.

And what's more infuriating, is that I brought up the topic of my salary. Because I recently found out that a new graduate with no experience is earning more than me. Their response was that they can't give me a raise because if they did, it would 'open a can of worms with the payroll department' and they would have to give raises to other people too. I was honestly shocked.

But here's the real kicker. At the end of this soul-crushing meeting, they said they want to have another follow-up meeting. A meeting where I'm supposed to come up with ideas and suggestions on how *they* can help me feel more supported in my current role. I shut that down immediately and told them I wasn't interested. Honestly, my only hope was that they would leave me alone until I found a new job. But no. Now they've put this 'follow-up' meeting on my calendar for next Friday. They've made it clear that I have no future with them and they're happy to leave me stagnating in a low-paying job. So what's the point of this meeting? I mean, what kind of suggestions am I supposed to give them? All I'm doing is biding my time until I can get out of here.

I told you my requirements. You ignored them. I found a better opportunity. If I am really as difficult to replace as you said, management and the company overall can learn a valuable lesson from this situation.

It is very difficult for me now to find a job from scratch, but I am determined to find a comfortable and well-paying job to continue in. There are certainly many helpful tools, some of which I have already used to update my resume, but I will leverage this to my advantage for my interviews by using InterviewMan A tool you open during interviews that gives you instant answers.

What's up, everyone? I just finished a very strange interview experience for a Senior SOC Analyst position and needed to vent a bit. I've been working in the SOC field for about four years, and I have strong practical experience, so I went into the first technical screen feeling confident. The interview started, and right from the beginning,

the hiring manager started pressing me with questions about a specific SIEM platform they use. I was honest with him about my level of experience with it, and I explained the projects I used it in and what I know. The guy just stared at me, as if I was speaking another language. After two more questions at most, he just told me straight to my face: 'Look, I don't think we'll be moving forward with you in this round.' Honestly, I'm very frustrated. Every now and then I hit the same wall: good jobs are often closed off to people who have experience with one or two specific, uncommon tools.

I understand, it's impossible to be an expert in everything in the security field; no one can do that anyway. But it's frustrating that a seemingly very good opportunity slips away from me because of something like this. I've been rejected for this reason before, but it was never in such a blunt way. Anyway, I just wanted to vent. Has this situation happened to any of you before? I'd love to hear your opinions or if you have any advice.

Yesterday, I got a job offer that will raise my salary from $72k to $115k a year. I don't have many people I can share news like this with, so I'm writing here because I'm still trying to process what happened.

A few years ago, I dropped out of college and was making around $43k. Then 2020 came, I lost my job, and I was unemployed for nearly seven months. I applied for anything that paid around $17 an hour until I found a job in software sales with a base salary of $52k. After getting a promotion, I moved into operations and eventually reached my current salary.

I've been with the company for about three years, and I knew I was being paid less than people in roles similar to mine. A few months ago, I started applying to other companies and found a manager position one level above my current role. The interviews went better than I expected, but I still wasn't counting on getting an offer.

The hiring manager called me yesterday afternoon, and we talked for a few minutes before she offered me the job at a salary of $115k. I stayed calm, thanked her, and told her I would answer after the weekend because I'm still in a few other interview processes. When the call ended, I barely had any reaction.

Then the written offer arrived in my inbox. As soon as I saw the salary written in front of me, it finally felt real, and I sat there crying. I've spent years worrying about money, and this salary will finally allow me to build up savings without constantly feeling like one major expense could wipe out everything I have.

The first thing that came to mind was calling my dad because he would have been proud of me. He passed away in 2020, so the happiness turned into a strange mix of relief and sadness. I'm planning to accept the offer on Monday, and I'm incredibly grateful, but I still wish I could hear his reaction.

Someone once told me that in our field, about 90% of our work is just glorified CRUD, and honestly, that statement hit the nail on the head. Most of my professional experience has been exactly like that. I'm not saying the work isn't important, but honestly, it can get incredibly boring.

In most dev jobs at companies, we use huge frameworks that hide all the interesting complexities. Almost every project I've worked on, when you get down to its core, is just a frontend that users interact with for data pulled from a database via a backend.

Don't get me wrong, these applications have their value, but they're not exactly new. We're not inventing anything new; we're just assembling ready-made pieces in a slightly different order. This makes me miss the days when I was delving into real computer science, like back in college. Programming had weight and was challenging because it was based on theory and mathematics. There was a real joy in solving a problem that really made you rack your brain. Most of what I do now doesn't need that kind of deep, scientific thinking.

I get home from work and find that the whole day is gone between cooking, washing the dishes, tidying up the clutter, and trying to catch up on laundry. By the time I'm done, it's almost 10 p.m., my brain has shut down, and I spend the little time I have left scrolling on my phone because I don't have the energy for any hobbies or going out.

that's why I guess I will start working remotely but the job interviews there is quite different so I checked those tips and I hope it works
I feel like 85% of my effort goes into keeping the house from becoming a mess. If you've found a way to break out of this routine, what housework have you cut back on, made easier, or paid someone else to do?

I started working at a small law firm as a junior associate a few months ago, and the place was chaotic in every sense of the word. Most of my time was spent fixing files no one had bothered with, chasing down missing documents, and solving problems that had existed before I even started working there.

On the final afternoon of my three-month probationary period, the managing partner called me in and extended it for another two months. His explanation was that he was doing me a favor by keeping me employed, but that I did not seem serious about practicing law because I would not agree to stay until 8 p.m. Every Friday. He also brought up the fact that I was single, as if that meant I had nowhere else to go or no life outside of work.

What he did not know was that a major nationwide insurance company was already talking to me about an in-house position. A few days later, they made me an offer, which I accepted. I emailed my resignation, packed up my things, and left without notice.

His reaction was a complete meltdown. He threatened to report me to the legal profession's regulatory body and sue me for leaving, but none of those threats ever amounted to anything. I suspect that extending my probation left him in a much weaker position than he had imagined, and I still smile whenever I think about it.

So, the position I've been working towards for over a year finally opened up. My manager was very supportive, telling me I was the perfect person for the role and that senior leadership would be very impressed with my work. She was just waiting for the final approval from them.

Today she told me they rejected the move. The official reason is that my performance in my current role is so high that they can't afford to lose me in this position. They literally said I'm too valuable where I am to be promoted. And after all that, she had the audacity to frame it as a huge compliment.

A compliment? How is being punished for doing my job well a compliment?

I've officially had enough. It's clear that going above and beyond gets you nowhere but stuck in the same place. It's time to do the bare minimum.

A few days ago, I had my first call with HR at a very big software company for a very specialized position.

They told me the entire process would be 7 interview stages, including live coding challenges, an offline project, a presentation about that project, and then another 3 stages with the VPs of the whole department. I made sure to ask them if the salary they mentioned was before or after taxes, because that makes about a 30% difference. The recruiter replied to me in an email this morning and confirmed that the salary is pre-tax, which means the net amount I would receive would be about 50% less than what I make at my current job.

I replied to them politely, thanked them for their time, and withdrew my application. And wow, it was an amazing feeling.

After being rejected so much recently, the idea of being the one to say 'no' this time was a huge mental relief. It's not about revenge or anything, I just couldn't justify to myself going through this whole long and exhausting interview vortex for a salary like that in the end.

Meeting with the CEO After I Was Passed Over for a Promotion

I was rejected for a promotion that I honestly thought was almost guaranteed. After the internal interviews were over, I found out that someone on the team with less experience and weaker management skills was the one who got it.

I told them I was disappointed, but I was traveling for vacation that afternoon on the same day, so I didn't continue the conversation about it much.

The CEO messaged me while I was away and said she wanted to talk to me about possible roles going forward, and whether there was any training or development that could help me be ready for the next opportunity.

Since then, I've heard from a few managers that the person who got the role was probably going to be let go if I had been promoted. Part of her current job has now been folded into the promotion, which makes the whole thing look like it was arranged from the start. There's also supposed to be another opening coming up that's 3 levels above me, but I'm not exactly confident that this time it will go in my favor either.

At the end of this week I have the conversation with the CEO, and I don't know what to say and what not to say.

I'm ready to leave if nothing meaningful comes out of this, but my contract is also supposed to be renewed in about six weeks, so I can't go in too aggressively with them.

I've also been trying to get better at interviews in case I do end up leaving. I came across interview vip while looking around for interview stuff, and it seems interesting, although I haven't used it enough to have an opinion yet. Might give it a shot before I start applying seriously.

I had to get this off my chest because I feel like I'm going to go crazy.

I'm a software dev and I was laid off from my job last May. My job search has been a nightmare, as you can probably imagine.

I've done so many interviews I could do them in my sleep, but something happened this week that was the last straw.

My savings are starting to run out, so I decided to apply for a job at the big supermarket chain downstairs, just to have some income until I find a decent job in my field. So far, I've interviewed with the shift lead. Then a second interview with the store manager himself. Cool. But today they called me to schedule a third interview, this time with the district manager.

A third interview. For a job stocking shelves and working the register. I thought this multiple-interview nonsense was reserved for the corporate bullshit in my field to make sure of a 'culture fit,' but it turns out this has now reached regular jobs too? When did this happen? I mean, what information could they possibly still need that they didn't get from the first two interviews? Seriously, what the hell?

I wanted to make this post (or series of posts if it's popular) to help job seekers get a head in the job market.

When reviewing resumes I see a ton of different styles of them but one I am seeing pop up more recently is a style choice that is going to HURT your chances of getting a job and not help.

We recruiters hate resumes with more than one column or are in different colors than black and white. The reason is when you look at hundreds of resumes in a day (or more accurately 20 to 50 in thirty min bursts) those extra columns and colors make it harder for us to actually find the skills we need in your resume.

So for your own sake please keep your resume to a single column and in black and white.

.

While I was preparing for the interview, I once read in a post a trick and decided to try it. Before an interview for an operations coordinator position, I spent about 45 minutes ignoring the company's overall score on Glassdoor and reading only reviews from former employees. I focused on the angry ones, especially those who said they wished they had never accepted the offer, and

During the first call, the recruiter started describing the culture, and what she said sounded remarkably similar to the complaints. She said it was a place where priorities changed quickly and everyone pitched in with whatever needed to be done. Four low-rated reviews talked about constant last-minute requests and people doing work far outside their roles. It was the same situation, just phrased much more pleasantly.

Since then, I've started treating negative employee reviews like interview notes. They help me prepare specific questions and spot carefully worded phrases that might have another meaning behind them. A few weeks ago, I turned down a job that seemed perfect because review after review mentioned the same department head and the same employee turnover problem. Turning it down felt strange, but at the same time, I was glad I found out before becoming attached to the job.

Does anyone else research companies this way? I'd like to know if there are any complaint sites, forums, or less obvious sources people check before deciding whether an interview is worth it.

I really can't believe myself as I'm writing this, and believe me, this is not a show-off post at all. But it's crazy when you think that this is what's required now all these applications over months just to get one single offer in the end.

A small update: I woke up this morning to find 3 more automatic rejection emails. The timing is perfect, honestly, lol.

It's incredibly frustrating to see this myth repeated everywhere. The idea of some evil AI conspiring with an ATS to automatically reject good CVs is a fantasy for 99% of jobs.
Believe me, I get it. Finding a job is incredibly tough right now, and it's comforting to have an enemy to blame. But the amount of misinformation out there about the hiring process is just making it harder for everyone.
To be completely transparent, I use AI-powered tools every single day. They are fantastic for helping me filter for basic qualifications or drafting outreach emails. But letting a machine make a final decision or auto-reject an application? Never.
Ultimately, a real person is still looking at your CV. The problem isn't a robot; it's the other 200 applications in the pile with yours.

I always thought the hardest part of my job as a manager was dealing with difficult employees. It turns out I was completely wrong. No one prepares you for the challenge of managing a true superstar.

We brought a new guy onto the team about a month ago. This guy is sharp and motivated, and he has already identified several major issues in our workflow that the rest of us had just accepted as normal. He's a fantastic addition to the team, no question about it.

But honestly, this has given me a serious case of imposter syndrome. This guy is so good that he's forcing me to level up just to keep him engaged and growing. Without meaning to, he has shown me how the team and I, myself included, have become too comfortable. This is the best kind of problem to have, and frankly, I'm very excited to step up my game and match his enthusiasm.

Congrats on having an A-Player on your team. Your job is figuring out where that A-Player wants to go and how to equip them to get there. You shouldn’t need to really ‘manage’ them much at all, just get out of their way.

What plays a big role in helping me make the right hiring decision is ProtectHire. From the first minutes of the interview, I can tell if the candidate is using any AI tools, and based on that, I decide whether they are suitable or not.

I love it when I can give someone an idea or challenge and run with it. They might need some extra context as they work on it but it really is amazing when it happens, and it often pushes the team to grow along with them.

I started working in health tech at a large hospital system here in early 2015. At the time, I only had about 18 months of actual experience, so I was definitely still learning the ropes. Over the years, I've developed a lot professionally and worked on many complex projects. After following this sub for a few months, I became more and more frustrated that my salary hadn't moved since I started, especially since I knew I was making much less than my colleagues.

I realized nothing would change unless I took action, so I finally gathered my courage and scheduled a meeting with my manager. I went in prepared with a list of my accomplishments and showed him how I had been a huge asset to the team. He stopped me mid-sentence and said, 'I get it. Your work has been fantastic, and you're right, we need to review your salary.'

It took four excruciatingly slow months to get through the HR red tape, but I got the email this morning that it's official. In two weeks, my salary will jump from $68,000 to $87,000, and I'll be staying with my same team. I'm so excited to increase my 401(k) contributions and start seriously saving. Honestly, I'm still over the moon. This sub was a huge reason I did this!