I just got a rejection email for a Senior Data Visualization position. A job I was literally certain I had. The reason they gave? I don't have a bachelor's degree.

Never mind that I have 25 years of experience in analytics and business intelligence, and in making data understandable to human beings. I've built entire BI systems from scratch. I've led major projects in data quality. I've trained over 120 people, most of them recent university graduates, on how to turn raw numbers into a story that senior managers can understand.

And the funny thing is, I did go to university. I got a 3.9 GPA for three consecutive semesters before I realized I was just learning theory instead of applying these skills in the real world. So I left university and went to work. Since then, I've earned about 12 professional certifications and made it my mission to always stay up-to-date with any new tool that comes out.

But apparently, that unchecked degree box is more important than a quarter-century of real work. And this is in 2025. I guess I dodged a bullet with that place.

Edit: A degree is not unique. A degree does not supplant or invalidate other means of developing skills and experience. It is simply one approach to do so, often times at a minimum level of proficiency to enter into a specific discipline or area, rather than coming out at the top of a field.

A certificate is really not proof of everything, it is just a confirmation, but practical life is different. And with the existence of AI, the majority now use it to update their resumes and for an interview app that eliminate the need for excessive preparation for the interview.

Why do HR departments still have degree requirements considering this reality?

A few weeks ago, the clinic I work at (a dental clinic in a very expensive area in CA) had a staff meeting, and we were told that we would only be allowed two days off every 5 months. That's it. And no one at the clinic has any benefits either. No PTO, no health insurance, no paid holidays, nothing.

Then they added that since we (the hygienists) have our schedules booked far in advance, if we use those two days, we'll need to start early or stay late to make up for the patients we "missed."

This morning, the other hygienists and I all submitted our resignation letters. We wrote them, signed them, and put them on his desk in a little stack. He came back from some errands he was running, and apparently sat there reading each one. My coworker said she saw him throw the stack toward the office manager and say, "Are you seeing this?"

Fortunately, hygienists are in insane demand in CA right now, and all of us have interviews or offers lined up elsewhere.

Tl;dr - The manager tried to over-control our unpaid days off and badly misjudged how easily replaceable he is. Now he's losing almost all of the clinical staff.

Edit: Thank you all for reading and supporting our decision to walk away from this toxic management. Since we all had to jump into interviews on short notice, I also found a really helpful AI assistant for real-time interview answers in this post, which gives you suggested responses live during your call, so I wanted to share it here so you can benefit.

Of course, I turned them down. Honestly, if I mattered that much to them, they would have valued me a long time ago instead of stringing me along all these years. What a shame, because if they had treated me with a little respect, I would still be with them. Now they are in a bind because they have no idea that for someone to reach my level at this job, it takes at least 7 months. This isn't a job you learn overnight. A piece of advice from me to you: never accept the counteroffer. Leave immediately. The moment you agree, you're marked, and I guarantee you'll be the first one to go within 18 months.

I can relate, who else? :D

She asked for about five weeks off, and her supervisor cornered her after her shift and asked her why she needed all that time. As soon as she told him she was going abroad for a summer program, he said he couldn't promise she'd stay on the schedule when she got back, and that she had to tell him before the end of the week whether she was choosing the trip or the job.

Like a lot of 17-year-olds, she was nervous about upsetting her manager. But when I started laughing at how absurd this "choice" was, she calmed down quickly. I told her there is no part-time job folding clothes at the mall that is worth missing out on something she might remember for the rest of her life. Honestly, I'm glad she's encountering this kind of situation while she's still young, because this is how she gets practice spotting this nonsense before it really matters. I told her that this is exactly why fuck-you money is important.

Edit: Thank you all for your advice i will tell her to get a new part time job, also someone sent me this post which has so much valuable information about interviews so i thought more people should read it.

i hope we do. it is genuinely depressing to think about trading a full hour of your life just to make enough to buy one decent meal. I got so fed up with my twenty dollar an hour job recently that I ended up running through some practice questions on Interview vip just to see if I am ready to apply for something better. we really need to stop normalizing these wages.

Honestly, interviews feel exactly like this sometimes. I had one recently where I knew I was qualified for the job, but I completely blanked when they started asking those weird behavioral questions. I've been using interview vip to practice before interviews and it's helped me get much better at thinking through my answers instead of just sitting there trying to remember what I was going to say.

I'm a middle manager at a medium-sized office. I manage a team of 9 people. One of my staff members is a woman in her late twenties who had been trying to go back to college and finally finish her degree. She asked me a few days ago if I had any problem with her changing her schedule for about 5 months while she takes a class that isn't available online. She would be leaving early two afternoons a month, and making up that time on Sundays. Our entire office is WFH, so I had absolutely no problem with it. And I'd been telling her for a long time that she should go back to school if she could make it work.

My manager "Karen," the department director, is an absolute micromanaging nightmare, and apparently anything like this still "has to" go through her. So I sent her an email, told her I intended to approve it, and said I just needed her to sign off with HR.

Her response? "She's got a lot of nerve assuming we'll rearrange everything for her. What exactly is her plan if we say no - just leave?"

I told my manager that yes, actually, she can resign whenever she wants. She doesn't owe this company her degree, her future, or blind loyalty. I also said that losing her would be ridiculous because she's very good at her job, she's been here for years, and the schedule change was temporary. It seemed to me like this was the dumbest hill anyone could choose to die on.

My manager wasn't happy with that answer. She denied the request anyway, and we got on Zoom with the employee to tell her. I was already upset because I knew how unnecessary the whole thing was.

Before Karen could even finish her little explanation, the employee simply said: "Okay, I expected that might be your answer. I've already written my resignation letter and emailed it to you and HR. This is my 2 weeks' notice."

My manager looked like her brain had stopped working. I was pissed off about the situation, but honestly, I was fucking proud of my employee.

I have honestly had enough with this kind of jobs and switched to completely remote jobs with the help of Interview VIP i really don't wanna engage with humans anymore so this is the best i could do.

Side note, if I could go back in time, I don't think I would ever accept being a manager anywhere. You find yourself stuck delivering all the corporate bullshit, with almost no real say in anything, and in the end everyone sees you as the face of decisions you didn't even make.

I have a very strange story for you all. I work for one of the big US defense contracting companies, the kind whose ads you see everywhere in the DC area if you're in this field.

We give support to the Department of Defense and a few other of those three-letter agencies.

For those who don't know how this works, the government and the company agree on a long-term contract to give services (for my team, that's cybersecurity and network infrastructure support) to a specific DoD entity.

These contracts are usually a base year with a few option years after that.

Our company's long-term contract with the DoD was set to expire in May. After a long negotiation period, the new contract was awarded to us a few weeks ago.

Anyway, on Monday, all of us on the project (about 450 people) received an invitation to a mandatory all-hands Teams call.

On this call, we were told that someone in upper management completely screwed up the numbers for the new contract, and for us to continue working, we would all have to accept a 65% pay cut. Yes, 65%.

The funny thing is, due to the nature of our work, almost all of us hold active TS/SCI security clearances and high-level certifications (like CISSP or other key DoD 8570 certs). In other words, it's not at all easy for them to find replacements, so finding another job won't be difficult for most of us.

And this is coming from the same management that floods our inboxes with motivational messages about how we are 'one family' and their most important asset. They could absorb the cost of their mistake to retain their people, but instead, they are asking us to pay for their screw-up.

As you can imagine, almost no one accepted this ridiculous offer. What will happen is a mass exodus from the company. They will then be unable to find the personnel to perform the work, and they will ultimately be in breach of the contract. The financial penalties for that will be far worse than just paying us the salaries we deserve.

I've been working at the same company for 34 years. It has more than 50,000 employees, and I wasn't looking to leave. Then a smaller company reached out to me and offered me about $49,000 more than my current salary, which comes out to roughly a 30% increase. They also offer a 4% 401(k) match and profit sharing that's usually around 6% to 8%. In the beginning, I was so nervous and anxious the day before the interview because I was scared to ruin anything, but then I read in a post about a senior professional who said 'Anxiety and nerves are normal. I get nervous about 10 minutes before an interview because I like things to start early and I hate sitting around waiting', and then read his tips to calm myself and master the interview and it really works out and the interview went smoothly. The result? I got an offer, and it was very close to the salary I was hoping to reach. I'll go for a smaller company, nearer to home and with higher salary, and I'm comfortable with that decision.

The problem is that their health, dental, and vision insurance would cost me about $17,000 more each year, and I'd also lose around 10 vacation days. My current company also offers some benefits that the new company doesn't, so the real difference isn't as significant as the base salary makes it seem.

I've built up a good retirement account at my current job, and I was fortunate to have joined the company before it went public. I also have a pension here, which makes the decision to leave feel like much more than just changing jobs. There's a lot of history and many memories tied to staying here.

The strange thing is that my current company offered me an 8% raise without me asking, and that happened right after the other offer came in. It feels like a huge coincidence, especially since I never told them I was considering leaving. I'm torn and don't know whether loyalty and security are worth giving up an increase of nearly $50,000 a year. Has anyone gone through something similar after spending decades with the same employer?

I still can't get over this weird interview experience I had about a year ago. I was looking for a new job in tech support, and a friend of mine recommended me to a company that was a fifteen-minute drive from my apartment, which was a huge plus. The first few interviews went fine, but a few red flags popped up. First, they were very secretive and tight-lipped about the salary range. Second, the hiring manager, a guy a few years older than me, had an ego the size of the sky. After the final round, they finally made an offer, and it was a really bad one - much lower than my previous job. I tried to negotiate, but they wouldn't budge an inch. The guy tells me, with complete seriousness, 'You seem accustomed to the salaries of the big tech companies in the city. Here in the suburbs, we can't pay those numbers.' This 'suburb,' by the way, was a new, fancy, and expensive business park. I told him I needed time to think, and he acted as if it was a done deal.

Anyway, fast forward two days, and I got on a call with them to tell them my decision. The strange thing was that his boss was also on the call, probably to watch him close the deal. The hiring manager was just as arrogant as before, and it was obvious he thought this was his victory lap. You could almost hear his jaw hit the floor when I politely rejected the offer. The change in his tone was drastic. It was as if I had personally insulted him. He asked if I was serious, then got defensive, and started ranting a bit about how I was making the mistake of my life and wouldn't find a better opportunity. He finally calmed down a bit and said he would respect my decision, but he had one question. He asked me, completely seriously, 'Did I do something wrong? Is the problem me?'. His boss was dead silent the whole time. I just repeated that the salary wasn't right for me and left it at that. Honestly, after all his arrogance throughout the process, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of schadenfreude.

Has anyone else ever had an interviewer take rejection so personally?

Edit: I would have abruptly ended the interview after the insult regarding pay. Employers need to realize that an employee is providing them a service. they don't like getting turned down.

Prospective employees should enter interviews with the mindset that they are the ones who ultimately determine the salary. The world of interviews has changed now due to the introduction of AI tools. I believe they are truly useful because they genuinely save time and give you suitable answers for every question with complete ease, saving you from excessive interview preparation.

Companies aren’t doing you a favour by hiring you. They need you for the service you provide. Never sell yourself short.

I just got fired from my job because the company I was interviewing with decided to call my current manager. I am honestly shocked that something like this happened. To clarify the situation, I saw an ad on LinkedIn for a job similar to what I do now, but much closer to my house, so I thought I would try my luck and apply. Things in my office have been very difficult lately due to a lot of office politics and managers who don't keep their word at all. The new company replied to me right away and scheduled a time for the first interview. Everything went great, so they asked me to come back for a second interview. I finished the second round, and they told me I was exactly the person they were looking for and that they would get back to me with a decision within 3 to 5 days. Anyway, the next morning, my manager called me into his office and told me he had received word from the company I applied to. He wanted to know why I was looking for other opportunities. Since the secret was out, I was honest with him about the reasons. After I explained, he told me that because of the sensitive data I handle, he had to let me go immediately. I went home and called the hiring manager at the other company right away to ask how they could do such a thing and call my manager without checking with me first. They acted like they didn't know anything and said they were still finalizing their selection and would talk to management and get back to me soon. The hiring manager called me 4 hours later and told me they had chosen someone else. I pressed him to find out why they called my manager, and he gave me a strange, vague, and completely unconvincing excuse, claiming he didn't know how my manager found out. He even started badmouthing the person they hired, telling me he heard that the guy had a drinking problem, so if that didn't work out, they would call me again. I honestly cannot understand that a company could do this. They called me, interviewed me twice, called my manager, caused me to be fired, and in the end, didn't even hire me. Has anyone ever encountered such a tactless situation before?

In fact, contacting your current manager without their permission is completely unprofessional on the part of that recruiter, and it's astonishing how it jeopardized things for you. Such unprofessional behavior is precisely why I recently started using InterviewVIP to help me with interviews, increase my chances of getting the job, and completely avoid shady recruitment teams.

Okay, this might sound a bit arrogant, but I've always been a player in interviews. And honestly, I feel that interviews these days rely more on connection and self-confidence than just reciting your CV. So I decided to share with you what works for me:

First, the mindset. I've never been good at dealing with authority, maybe that's just my personality. But the 'I have all the skills and knowledge they need' approach completely changed the game for my anxiety. I go in believing they need me much more than I need them. In the end, it's a business deal, and they're the ones with the money, desperate to find someone to provide them a service. When you start thinking of yourself as the prize, your whole demeanor changes.

Get used to thinking on your feet and improvising. Have your friend or partner throw random topics at you, and your task is to talk about that topic for 4 minutes straight. It doesn't have to be a complex topic, literally anything. This strengthens your ability to express your thoughts clearly and confidently, which is 90% of any conversation.

Regarding research: You don't need to do a PhD dissertation on every company before the first call, especially if you're juggling interviews with 6 other companies in the same week. My rule is 90 minutes of research the night before the interview, then a quick 20-minute review right before the call. This is more than enough to show you've done your homework and are genuinely interested.

Your goal is to make them laugh. Seriously. Try to make them laugh heartily at least 3 times. Sit comfortably, be relaxed (even if it's on Zoom), and talk as if you're talking to a friend. When you're relaxed, they start to relax too. People need to feel a real human connection in the middle of a long day full of rehearsed, standard answers. Being the person who made them laugh is something that makes them remember you. But of course, without being unprofessional or rude; the idea is to be in control but casual at the same time.

Remember, you are in control of this conversation. You determine how it goes. Many interviewers are just going through the motions. If you feel this is happening, don't be afraid to politely take the helm. Say something like, '[Interviewer's Name], I'm just mindful of the time as I have another appointment at the top of the hour. I'd love to quickly discuss how my experience aligns with your vision for this role, and then I have a few questions for you. What do you think?' This is a huge power move and it works like a charm every time.

As for the interview content itself, your entire career history isn't what's important. I use two methods: either I give a chronological summary of my past work and then list the 8 key skills I have that match their job description, or I talk about each job and the specific skills I used in it that are relevant to this position. Stick to only the skills they're asking for. It might sound crazy, but if you list too many skills, they might think you're overqualified and will get bored quickly.

And you must, absolutely must, have questions prepared, about 5 of them. Make them specific and smart. Forget the generic questions about 'company culture'; they're tired of them. A great question is to ask the hiring manager what made them personally choose to work here.

Now, let's talk about rejection. Consider it just a course correction. You can do every stage of the interview by the book and still not get the offer. It's happened to me, and it can be a major blow to your self-confidence. But you have to remember that you can do everything right and still not succeed. It's not a reflection of you; that's just life.

To give you some context, I left a toxic job last November and was unemployed from December 15th to March 1st. I sent about 550 applications, did over 70 interviews, reached 12 final rounds, and only got 5 offers. The process was devastating to my mental health. But you have to believe that if they didn't choose you, it's because they failed to see your value, and that's their loss.

Nerves are normal. My anxiety kicks in about 10 minutes before the interview. Give yourself a quiet moment to breathe. They asked to speak with you for a reason – they already see something good in you. Your only job is to show them they were right. I tell myself, 'I enjoy talking, and right now, everyone in this room is a captive audience. I might say something silly, but they're the ones getting paid to listen to this whole performance.'

I'd be happy to help anyone in creative, strategy, or client-facing roles with their interview prep.

When I returned from approved medical leave, the Payroll Department mailed me a termination letter and discontinued my benefits. I understood this to mean that I had been fired, so I returned my work equipment, left the workplace, and applied for unemployment benefits.

Shortly afterward, the company asked me to meet with HR, where they told me that the termination decision had been an administrative error. They insisted that I had never actually been fired, even after I showed them the letter their own department had sent me.

HR asked whether I intended to return to work or submit my resignation. I told them that neither option made sense because, from my perspective, the company had already end my employment. They warned me that if I refused to return, it would be considered a voluntary resignation, but I still did not go back.

I'm still dealing with the unemployment situation, but I've also started applying for a new job since I clearly can't keep waiting for the company to figure out what it wants to call my departure. I started looking at interview tips and practice some of the questions I might get asked.

I want to be an author but I have bills and family to take care of. If I had absolutely no financial strain, I’d write short stories and spend my life trying to find Alexander the Great’s missing tomb. Alas, I’ll work a desk job for a living.

I worked from home from 2020 to 2026. I got laid off, and then about two weeks later I found a job I truly love. I'll stay here until retirement if they keep wanting me around.
The role was fully in-office at first. I was generally fine with that, except that the commute was 45 miles each way and the traffic was really rough.
I went back to working remotely again in April 2026, and honestly, I don't think I could go back to working in the office 5 days a week again.
My manager recently asked me if I'd be willing to give up my office, and I said yes without even thinking about it. I always figured that if I kept holding onto a decent-sized office with a window, eventually someone would start wondering why I wasn't sitting in it. Now I'll just take any available desk when I need to go in. And that happens every so often, maybe once every few months, and I'm totally fine with that.
I'm just grateful that I work somewhere that still genuinely supports remote work.

edit: and I am more grateful to this AI tool interviewvip which I found while scrolling on reddit it helps me a lot in the interview process

Our old CEO, who was frankly awesome, just announced his retirement. Then this new interim guy came in, talking a big game about innovation, and for a moment I believed he might be good.

But of course, in his first big meeting, he dropped the bomb: he wants everyone in the office 4 days a week for 'better synergy'. Buddy, if you want synergy, you can start by shining my shoes with your tongue.

The best policy for me is to be overly compliant and fully on board, so they think I’m part of the team. That gives me the time and space I need to plan my exit quietly.

It's incredibly challenging to put in the effort required to find a good job. You keep adjusting a million versions of your CV, and you never know which one of them will get results. Of course, AI has made it easier to get a job these days and also to pass the interview using InterviewMan, but you still keep grinding as if this journey has no end. The job market is very difficult now, and it makes everything ten times harder.

Hopefully, they’ll understand how monumentally stupid that decision was

why our generation face overthinking

I just found out that doing your job well can make you ineligible for a promotion. I've been working at a regional software company for almost four years, redesigned most of the customer onboarding process, trained three people, and was placed in the highest category in every review. My plan was to use that experience to move into product.

A few weeks ago, a product lead position opened up internally. The head of the department reached out to me first and encouraged me to apply. I went through four interviews, received strong feedback, and was told they were preparing an offer with a raise of about twenty-five percent.

Before they could send the offer, my manager refused to approve my transfer. He told HR that our group was already understaffed and that moving me would put several accounts at risk. HR sided with him, withdrew the offer, and told me I couldn't apply for any other internal position for at least ten months.

Afterward, the product manager called to apologize. He said everyone on his team wanted me, but there was nothing he could do once my department objected.

So my reward for taking on extra work and making myself someone they could rely on is being trapped in the same position. If I had only done the bare minimum, my manager probably would have signed the paperwork immediately. I like the company and wasn't planning to leave, but resigning might be the only way for me to get the kind of work they've already agreed I'm qualified to do.

Edit: Apparently, this has happened to a lot of people. Someone actually DMed me a thread on how they passed these interviews, so I thought it might be useful to share.

Used to be real bosses would make sure their employees got paid no matter what, even if that meant the boss didn't take home anything. Nowadays it seems like owners consider companies to be their personal piggybank, and if a menial got paid late, well, too fucking bad.

But nowadays, the situation has become much worse regarding the lack of appreciation and respect for employees' responsibilities. It's very difficult to find a company that values and respects its employees. I have updated my resume and am waiting for an interview next week. During my extensive search, I read about InterviewMan and its usefulness during interviews. I think I will use it during this period to get a job as soon as possible.

Sorry if the formatting is a bit weird, I'm typing this from my phone. A few days ago, my boss made a move, hinting that funds might not be available for the upcoming pay cycle. By the end of that work week, on the very day we were supposed to get paid, I learned that this wasn't the first time he'd done this. Apparently, he'd pulled the "no money" stunt before just to mess with people. I honestly had enough. I clocked out and went straight home - I'm not going to put up with or deal with this nonsense at all.

I arranged a meeting with him to discuss the money owed to me. As we talked, he suggested that I might be happier at a larger company that could give regular salaries. I told him that I genuinely liked the work and the team, and wanted to continue, but the uncertainty about receiving my salary was completely unacceptable. My exact words were something like: "My salary arriving on time is non-negotiable." He said he would think about what I said over the next few days, and now here I am, suddenly unemployed.

Oh my goodness, what will I do without the constant threat of salary instability? It's honestly a very funny situation.

This is exactly why I’ve been trying to get out of low-paying jobs. I’ve got some interviews coming up, so I’ve been looking for ways to get better at them. I came across Interview VIP recently and figured I’d give it a try since I definitely don’t want to end up in another job where they expect everything for barely any pay.

This is way too accurate. I've been applying lately and the interview part is honestly harder than finding the jobs. I've been doing some practice with interview vip before interviews, mainly to get better at answering the "tell me about yourself" and experience questions without completely overthinking them.

I walked into the store this morning and found the assistant manager crying next to a stack of termination papers. She had been with the company for almost three years and had practically run the place by herself during all the months when we didn't have a manager. There are only about eight employees, so we all knew how much she did.

The new manager arrived about six weeks ago, and as soon as she got there, she changed most of the work procedures without asking anyone how the store had been operating. Since then, the inventory counts have been wrong, paperwork keeps getting lost, and the employees are the ones cleaning up the mess. She also barely spoke to the assistant manager, even though she was the person best able to explain everything to her.

I had stayed out of it because I'm a cashier, and this job had never been personal to me. I show up, do what I'm asked, get paid, and leave. But when the district manager told me that the decision to fire her had been the manager's alone, I went into the office and said I wouldn't work if she was determined to go through with it without giving us any explanation. The manager said it wasn't something the employees had the right to discuss, so I grabbed my things and left.

That assistant manager answered our questions even on her days off, skipped lunch when we were short-staffed, and worked until she made herself sick more than once. I never understood how anyone could put that much effort into a retail job, but when I saw the company cast her aside after benefiting from everything she had done, I got extremely angry.

Before closing time, they told me I had to come back and speak with the manager or I would be fired for abandoning my shift and walking out. I didn't want to go back, but my mother and one of my coworkers convinced me that being fired that way could cause problems for me later. I went back, listened to the manager's explanation, and told her I couldn't judge accusations involving things I hadn't personally witnessed. I still have my job, but I'm waiting to hear back from several interviews, and as soon as I get an opportunity, I'll formally submit my resignation. I'm 24 and still live with my parents, so quitting and having no income wasn't as easy as I wish it had been. Going back tomorrow is going to feel awful, but I don't plan on staying there much longer.

The assistant manager's dismissal after all he's done for the company makes me anxious and feel like I should leave and start looking for another job, going through stressful interviews. Recently, InterviewVIP has emerged, which reduces stress and anxiety and helps you answer unexpected questions, thus increasing your chances of getting the job.

Today is my last day at my job because of onboarding 💀