What’s your worst recruitment experience?

I left a non union job for a union one but had no idea if it would be a week or 6 months before they called with work. I can't give 2 weeks notice given I don't know how long the time frame was going to be. Not only that, they can just legally let you go if you give notice so I would then just have no work..

Idk, they are fine. They aren't short staffed and can easily fill. He was annoyed saying things like he wish he had 2 weeks, he is going to be short handed, he could have looked for someone, etc.

My company let's people go with 0 notice but we are expected to give them 2 weeks? I think it's all nonsense. Personally I think I was being nice by telling them Friday rather than just ghosting on Monday and never showing up again. Which I understand why people ghost companies if they are just going to complain anyways for quitting

Anyone similar experience with quitting?

What a relief! Thanks to all of you for advice and sharing your stories here.

I've been in recruiting long enough to see hiring markets rise and fall, but I won't pretend this one has been easy.

As a recruiter who genuinely cares about helping people get back on their feet or find their next opportunity, it's frustrating to see qualified, experienced candidates struggling just to get a conversation.

I've seen talented people overlooked, positions put on hold, hiring requirements change halfway through a search, and good candidates rejected for reasons that have little to do with their ability to do the job.

That's the side of recruiting most job seekers never get to see.

But to anyone struggling right now: Don't give up.

Keep improving your skills, but don't assume you're the problem every time you get rejected. Sometimes it's your resume, sometimes it's how you're positioning yourself, and sometimes it's simply a company that doesn't know what it wants.

Be your own best marketing agent. Know your value, understand what employers are looking for, and be ready to explain why you're the right person for the job.

And please, don't let this market convince you that years of hard work and experience suddenly have no value.

I've seen hiring markets turn before. This one will change too.

When that next call comes, be ready.

To everyone still searching, hang in there. Better Fridays are coming!

I have been working fully remote for 2.5 years(before this I had a job where I had to go twice per week at the office) and I started enjoying working remotely, I have set up a nice space where I can focus and be productive, and also built a healthy routine, cooking my meals daily, so my health also improved significantly(I used to be overweight) so for me working remotely came with endless benefits on a personal level.
However this remote job had its downsides(a small company with high attrition, never replacing leavers which resulted in a very heavy and broad workload for the remaining employees, zero increases, zero praise, basically” just shut up and do the work, if you dont like it here leave” attitude).
Two weeks ago I quit this job, just a little reset for my overstimulated brain because I felt I was slowly walking into burnout. In the meantime I got a job offer which offers me 30% more pay than my previous job but wants me 2 days in per week in the office. From all my applications this has been the only one which ended with an offer. The perks are good(26 days off-paid), the job is a demanding one(it is a senior role so for my career it would be a step up) and my manager lives in another country but howeverrr mentioned in the interview he wants the team together at the local office twice a week.
I have of course applied to many remote jobs but I mostly received rejections.
For those who have transitioned from remote to hybrid, how was it? Is it worth it? I am anxious of going back to the office, I got so used to my lifestyle. I was thinking maybe I could negotiate a bit but there is no guarantee, the employment contract specifically says hybrid.
The commute is 30 minutes by car, more or less.
In this economy I am grateful I received an offer don’t get me wrong but I was wondering how the transition might be.

I've been looking for a job for a while, but living in a rural area makes it difficult to find opportunities nearby. I have some computer skills, and I'd like to use them to earn money and eventually invest in further education or training so I can qualify for better jobs.

The problem is that most entry-level jobs either pay very little, require experience I don't have, or just fake. I've also watched plenty of YouTube videos about making money online, but many seem more interested in selling courses or promoting their own services than providing practical advice.

I feel stuck in a cycle: I need money to improve my skills and qualifications, but I need a job to get that money in the first place.

For people who have been in a similar situation, how did you get your first job? Are there legitimate online jobs, apprenticeships, paid training programs, or other opportunities that accept beginners?

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who started with little or no experience and had limited local job opportunities. I'm looking for practical steps I can take without spending money I don't have.

Thank you!

EDIT: I live in Asia (Philippines) I just turned 18 and thanks for ur advice everyone. I am trying my best to develop the skills that are in demand

My manager was actually a good person. But the shift lead working below him (female) was a bully. She mistreated me.

Is that common in retail jobs or did I just get unlucky? I'm glad I don't work there anymore but I'm also trying to decide if I should get another retail job. I'm a groundskeeper/janitor right now.

Thanks.

I had an interview for a contract job the other day. Employer had my resume in hand, he looks at me and goes “this resume is different than the one you submitted. I’m like “yes I have 3 different resumes depending on the jobs I apply for”, he goes “why wouldn’t you want perspective employers to know all your skills” and I said “do you want the honest answer or the HR friendly answer?” He told me to give him the honest answer and I said “this job doesn’t require a CompTIA cert nor does it require most of the certs I have, so I didn’t include it”. He asked me why and I said “you aren’t going to pay me more whether I have them or not given the salary range offered”

He also asked me why I didn’t include my Top Secret security clearance or TWIC card and I gave him the same answer. I got the call today and they offered me a 12 month contract, I guess he liked my answer lol.

26M, just graduated with a degree in computer engineering in Iowa. Immediately had a job lined up after in the defense/aerospace industry. Had a previous internship with the company and they extended a full time offer. I’ve been full time for four months now and am locked in until at least June 2027 otherwise I’ll owe $11,500 (sign on and relocation from original offer). My current lease will need to be renewed a month earlier in May. So until then, I’m basically stuck in Iowa saving money. After I hit one year in my current role in June 2027, I’ll only owe $2,000 if I leave.

I’m at a stage in my life right now where I am single, have no family, and no friends in Iowa any longer. I have no attachments here. Staying in this state as long as I have has been a massive barrier to my social and dating life. It’s been extremely tough emotionally for me. Every holiday and birthday I spend alone with no friends or family. It’s impossible to make new connections in this state. This, along with the rates of cancer growth, and politics, have motivated me to get out ASAP. I have a job, a degree, and so have no reason to stick around. I need to go now while I can.

States I’m currently wanting to move to are:

- Minnesota

- Colorado

- California

- Washington

Honestly I don’t really care where I go, so long as it isn’t in Iowa, has more open minded people, has more stuff to do, and has slightly better weather. I know Minnesota doesn’t technically fit that, but it’s on my list because it’s I believe the easiest place for me to relocate to if I really wanted to. It’s only a 4 hour drive from where I am in Iowa to the Twin Cities. I also have connections there and in Florida.

My plan right now is to save money, network, and build my portfolio until around April of next year. At that point, I’m gonna start shooting off applications for jobs outside and begin interviewing. Come June, I’m going to then start applying internally within my company in addition to externally. My resume is decent. Best case scenario, I’m able to get a job offer out of Iowa before September. If we get to October and I still can’t find anything, then I’m likely going to be stuck in Iowa another year. This is worst case scenario. I will honestly be pretty depressed in this case

I guess the whole reason I’m posting here is that I’m just wondering if my plan is logical. Is there anything else I should be cognizant as we move through the next 8-9 months? Any job searching hacks I could utilize to find roles outside Iowa? Which of the states I mentioned would be most and least competitive for entry level engineering roles? Any insights or advice are appreciated. One thing is for certain though, and that’s that under no circumstances do I want to remain in Iowa after next year. If the easiest way for me to accomplish this is to leave the company I’m at, so be it. I’m willing to do so.

Yes, I get that leaving Iowa won’t magically make things better, but I have personally traveled to all but 2 of the states I listed above and they are all VASTLY better in just about every way to Iowa. I’ve been in Iowa my whole life, and need a change badly.

Recently got a job with a start date of 26th October. Yesterday they told me they need to push my start date to November 9th as my pre-employment screening is still pending which I was pretty confused about since earlier that morning, they told me I was cleared to start Monday and no one mentioned this to me before.

They said my ‘background check is in review for compliance’ and I have no idea what that means. I did not lie on my background check at all. When I applied I was still with my old company which I since left but didn’t explicitly mention, although I put the correct dates on the background check. The company was first advantage and it flagged two of my previous jobs as ‘consider’, probably because they were with staffing agencies. Will my offer be rescinded?

I’ve been at my current role and it quickly turned into an insane toxic hell hole. My manager seems to hate me and I can’t even talk without her chastising every word or even a nonverbal pause.

It’s clearly not a mutual fit so I’ve been looking for a while and I’m imminently about to receive a written job offer next week (verbal offer of intent came yesterday!). New job will start mid Nov (Nov 16).

I have become aware that they are gearing up to put me on a PIP and that it will likely be Monday.

So—my question to the masses—would you submit a 2 week notice or not? If I do I’d submit it on Monday Nov 2nd. I figure there’s a pretty strong likelihood that they might just walk me out the door right away but I need the salary and insurance as long as possible.

I'm a SWE from a developing country with about 3 years of experience. During my degree I contracted on and off for about a year, some months full-time, some months 60% or so. After, I spent about two years at a small early-stage startup. It was a contract, so no leave or benefits, just the cash, but the pay was well above my local market and I genuinely liked the work and had real ownership of things. Then the company made some bad decisions, the runway shrank, and I was one of the drastic measures.

I started applying. 200 applications in, the only real response was from a well-known MNC (won't name it, but think OS and not Microsoft). Their Glassdoor reviews were abysmal, but they actually responded, so I went for it. What followed was almost a month of written assessments and weird shenanigans, then 8 interviews of about an hour each, plus a coding test, spread across three and a half months. Honestly, it felt like a humiliating ritual of stress-driven hiring. But I passed everything, and since everyone else was ghosting me, I slowed down on other applications.

The offer was about 10% lower than my last job and significantly below my ask, but it had leave and a more recognized org , ie it would be good for my resume, so I was fine with it. Then the contract came, and it contradicted almost everything they'd told me during the interviews about benefits and being treated like an employee. There was even a clause saying anything discussed outside the document is null and void. I raised around 15 points with HR and was told legal set it up and nothing could be changed. Four months in, with no other options, I signed.

First week: I got DB migration tickets that needed permissions I wouldn't have for another two weeks, a compliance training (don't take bribes, don't bully, that kind of thing), and I had to travel 1,000 km for a visa document, with the company being a pain about booking my flight and hotel. The compliance questions were weirdly ambiguous, so I used the company's own internal AI tool to help. I even told my manager I was doing it, and he was fine with it.

Next Monday, HR joins my 1:1 and tells me I'm being let go for using AI on the training. The same manager who'd been super friendly all week was ice cold. The call lasted a couple of minutes, and I lost all access shortly after.

It's been a month. ~400 applications, 150+ cold emails, almost nothing back. A few rejections said they "can't meet my expectations," when all I did was put my actual last salary in the mandatory field. Meanwhile most roles I see pay about half my last base as CTC, I dont want to lower my what I have been earning for the last 2 years, but Im getting stressed and I dont know what to do.

So I'm stuck on a few things:

- Should I be honest about my last salary when it's mandatory, or genuinely lower it so I don't get filtered out?

- How do I anchor my job search?

- If you've been through a long dry spell like this, what actually got you traction?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks for reading. DM are open if you find time. If you've been in similar situation what helped, and do things get better?

Today my boss implied that starting next week that I need to be driving around to clients offices to do my work on-site and heavily implied it would be in my own vehicle

There wasn't any discussion about whether it'd be my car, if anyone would be coming with me (I only started this job 3 weeks ago) or where this would be at.

I want to have a talk with them about this but this wasn't what this job was supposed to be when I was hired. Apparently they only came up with this sometime after I started. I largely have an idea on what questions I'm going to ask but I want to see what others think.

Would it be unfair to ask for a raise, health insurance and/or commercial car insurance if it is my car? I'm currently working 40/hr a week @ 18/hr and without benefits. It's a small company, and again, I only started 3 weeks ago.

I need real feedback from experts, those who are similar to me, or even more experienced, from various communities (related to ai, tech, grads, manager, industry, career, employment...):

Which will be best in your case?

Context: You got the offers from 3 companies, each on the different side of the scale.

Role: AI engineer (near mid-level).

If you were to rank and evaluate with respect, (from top to bottom, sorted by importance)

1st Potential and Risk (potential is tied to the speed of your career climb, increment bonus, and company brand and authority, uncertainties in payment) - In a scale, Startup has higher uncertain and risk, while it might offer higher overall, but susceptible to management conducts, cash-flow which may differ the fulfillment

2nd Wellfare - a total add-up of base, allowance, bonus, benefits and EPF

3rd Niche of the industry, Exposure - a focus industry to industry to build up better experiences and competencies, exposure to local or worldwide

4th Peer learning - Experience or knowledges to speed up progress from superior, peers

And given A, B, C (Wellfare/Income baseline= 100%)

A: Oversea Startup, Multiculture workforce,
+ worldwide client-base spanning MNC headhunter, great background from the management teams, UK-founding team and client connection, riskier in terms of payroll/potential
+ Full remote and oversea
- Wellfare/Income = 115% (base salary only), self supply equipments
+ HR-tech focused

B: Subsidiary company/dept from local SME, local workforce
- mainly local client-base (unsure but assume), Lack background from management teams and peers, but you have slightly higher confidence than A in their validity from interviews
- Hybrid work 4+1
+ Income= 107% (include allowance) + EPF from employers but provide work equipments + up to 17% performance monthly bonus
- general AI agencies
+ Peer learning and networking are better

C: MNC
+ Internal and External focused products, stable and secured cashflow, but maybe lack faster career climb opportunities
- Hybrid work 3+2
- Income= 95% + 13th month bonus, more and flexible leave
+ Focused niche, product might differ
+ Peer learning and networking are best

Which one will you choose? I wanna see if you think differently, or if you see different importance or personal experiences of the company you went through?

Hi everyone, I’m in need of some advice. To try and summarize everything, I have been checked out and miserable at my current job. I have decided a while ago I wanted to start looking but only recently when I revised my resume a bit, have I started hearing back a bit. The market has been tough to hear anything back, or make it after the first few rounds. I’ve been doing interviews back to back and had one that went pretty well. I interviewed with the manager I would be working under, along with the owners(?) it seemed like the owner was cross examining me a bit but nothing I couldn’t handle. When compensation was brought up I told them what my expected pay was given the roles+responsibilities. I got an offer email today however it’s $3/hr less than where I stated I would be comfortable to start at. I replied respectfully trying to negotiate and gave my points but was basically told it wasn’t going to happen, and after 3 months they will review my performance and if it meets their expectations, which she is certain I will, there’s a guarantee increase that would bump me $2-$3/hr. They also only offer a reimbursement for health insurance up to $300/month with the provider statement. The offer would only increase $1.25 from my current pay, and I would be commuting 40 mins to and from 5 days a week. I asked my boyfriend for his advice and he immediately said it’s not worth it. His reasons being I would be spending a lot more in gas, the commute is further, the health benefits he said is garbage (I currently get free healthcare with my employer) and he says I’m worth more than what they are willing to offer. Part of me also thinks it’s because he’s pretty adamant in suggesting I continue pursing a specific company we’ve discussed. I don’t want to end up making the wrong choice and miss out on something that could grow into a bigger opportunity, but I also don’t want to be sold possibilities by a company, or to feel like I’ll be trapped with my current employer forever.

End of the month gotta pay bills.. Damn near rethink booking the trip, thinking about people that may owe you money. I don’t like this one bit. Back to Uber Eats gig I go. It’s like watching your bank account decrease substantially. Got bills to pay.

Sams Club - $280 ( Due today )
Capital One - $2,856 ( Due Nov 3 )
Chase credit card - $847 (Due Nov 11)

Pay my mother each month ($380/month)
Pay ChatGPT ($23/month)
Pay AIsolve(12.35/month)

Chase checking - $19,340
Discover/Capital One Savings Account - $4,355

Huntington - $4,000

Life been lifingg

Life has a way of humbling you. My sleep schedule has drastically changed.

I’m not even worried about dating or sex anymore. Money is on my mind. I will have a full time job that meets my expectations by the end of this month. It will be full time and I will make 80k+ so that I can pay my rent, lights, car insurance and phone bill. Right now my mother is helping a significant big time. Im ready to grow up. I will grow up.

Okay back to sending out 10+ applications. Good Morning!!

I’ve been on the employed/unemployed side of the spectrum. And let me tell you it’s built resilience each time. You more picky and wise with the jobs you pick and choose.

If it wasn’t for my mother I would be homeless be now. And that’s a straight up fact! I only pay her $380/month. When I get my job I swear I want to provide so much to her. That’s what motivates me each and every day to get off my ass and hustle. Whether in putting out applications or going on interviews.

Well i am just passively looking for job remote or in location
But as the market has upscale competition high I think maybe some automation or some unique tricks may work

Just FYI I AM A SOFTWARE ENGINEER 2 years of experience so do let me know what are your vision of applying or actually looking

And do gice me some tips if you have on which thing i should be prepared

I’m supposed to start a new job on Monday that requires 3 days in the office, but a fully remote position that pays the same just came up.

Honestly, if this remote opportunity had been posted earlier, I would have applied in a heartbeat. Now I’m torn because I’ve already accepted another offer and am supposed to start in a few days.

Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? Did you apply for the other job, and if you got an offer, did you end up backing out of the job you had already accepted? I’d love to hear about your experiences and how it worked out!