/r/recruitinghell
Did a recruiter make you send them a resume and still fill out all the same information on their website? Did a candidate send a cover letter that just says "PLEASE LET ME WORK HERE"? Tell us those stories!
This subreddit is for all of those recruiters (and candidates!) who really don't... you know... get it. Post your horror stories and show us those "amazing" job offers!
Rules:
Only text posts, screenshots, relevant articles, or archive links allowed. Do not link directly to a recruiting website (e.g., LinkedIn) or job ad.
Articles are allowed, but must be relevant. Articles meant to sell a company/product ("addicles") are spam and will be treated as such.
Use link flair to tag your posts.
If your post is lengthy, try to highlight the most humorous areas.
Please try to have humorous areas. At least some dark humor or biting sarcasm.
Please be civil. Personal attacks against a person's skills, abilities, or anything else (recruiting-related or otherwise) will lead to disciplinary action. Basically, no namecalling, no insulting people.
As an addendum to that, opinions are totally fine, and it's acceptable to have an against the grain opinion. Our subreddit isn't about hate — it's about the annoying recruiting practices and the pain of getting a job. To that end, don't go out of your way to provoke arguments and start fights.
And as an addendum to that, note that using slurs (racist, homophobic, etc... I don't have to spell out every type of slur) or any sort of hate speech is a one-strike ban.
No posting of personal information. Please block out all identifying information including personal names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, social media handles, and pictures. Company names may be posted. This is a Reddit-wide rule, not just one for our sub.
Minor typos or errors are not allowed as the entire point of a post. (e.g., $10/year instead of $10/hour)
It SHOULD go without saying, but no spam. Spam is defined as any attempt to pitch a product, service, or seek people for jobs (yes, this happens a lot). Posting spam WILL get you immediately banned (ONE STRIKE), and a report will be sent to the Reddit Admins for possible account termination. If you want to advertise on Reddit, buy ads.
Be mindful of Reddiquette. (Not posting personal information is also part of Reddiquette)
Being a dick towards the volunteer mods will get you voluntold off this subreddit. We're just trying to keep the community peaceful, don't make our lives difficult. If your initial reaction to being informed of the rules and asked to tone it down is to turn your rulebreaking up to 11, don't expect to stay here too long. So please don't do that.
Please read our brief wiki if you are still wondering what types of content to post.
Partner Subreddits:
/r/recruitinghell
761,735 Subscribers
I swear this is the most useless notification you’ll ever get.
02:41 UTC
Employment Verification?
Supervisor at my seasonal job got a voicemail from Core Logic (not the company or industry im interviewing for) requesting an employment verification for who they think is me. I’m waiting to hear back on a few full time roles I’ve interviewed for so I’m wondering if this is for a pending offer? i didn’t consent to any background checks but maybe this is a work around? Maybe I’m just being optimistic and it has nothing to do with the companies I’m waiting on final updates from and my identity is actively being stolen?
01:05 UTC
Recruiters who opened up their own shops…please advise
What are a few things you wish you’d have known before going out on your own?
What are you paying monthly/annually for your LinkedIn Recruiter account and inmail credits/job post credits?
What industry and city are you operating from/in?
What was the most difficult part of your transition when deciding to take the leap?
What’s the worst part of owning your own recruiting business?
00:39 UTC
Partner interview at Big 4 - Is this common?
I had my final interview for an entry-level advisory role at a Big 4 firm, after being moved to a different field following the second interview. The conversation was much less formal than I expected. The partner spent the first 20 minutes introducing and selling the company - better growth opportunities (vs. the industry), real work (not just administrative tasks and "printing copies"), interesting projects, and how they're careful hiring (small team). He emphasized good communication skills (I'm a bit quiet).
He mentioned that they were initially conducting interviews just to gauge the market, but became afraid of missing out on a good opportunity with me. He only asked about salary expectations, availability, and my preference for consulting vs. client-side work. I didn’t get much chance to show enthusiasm or ask questions, as his persuasive approach and casual tone left me feeling a bit uncomfortable and I ended up speaking very little.
The meeting ran 50 minutes, though it was scheduled for 30. He said I could reach out anytime and promised a response soon. It’s a great opportunity, and I didn’t expect to make it this far, but the whole vibe left me unsure. Is this a typical for a partner interview? I'm concerned that he may have perceived a lack of interest and curiosity on me.
00:23 UTC
Wow! 15 whole companies!
00:11 UTC
Got lucky
1 out of 4 ain’t bad
23:15 UTC
What do you mean I need to tell you why I'm passionate about the work you're hiring for? I'm on my 400th application. Passion is out of the question at this point.
title speaks for itself
22:51 UTC
22:34 UTC
Canadian Sales/SAAS roles candidate dropped
Recruiter here. Recruiting vent. I'm flabbergasted. How often do you have those moments where you question if you can keep recruiting? Cause I am questioning all life choices at the moment. First of all anyone have a good sales position for an experienced professional sales person out of Canada? I placed a proven Sales NBD guy for a company that is building out their sales team and continually telling me they want to do everything to support their sales people and that everyone can be apart of their direction, growth and success.
So I headhunted someone out of their existing sales role, three people actually, two started and one will start in a week and long story short with no heads up no awareness and without responding to my check in of how he's doing, he shows up and HR says they are letting him go for no reason. Right before the holidays and he's a new father. He's never been late they've never said anything, our contact has been out on emergency the last few weeks, they had the candidate filling out forms and doing returns, although he did get some meetings on the books, they let him go before he could attend them, he hasn't been working there long enough to collect and our client isn't getting back to us. Our client let him go within the guarantee period for 100% replacement...and it makes me feel like they are churning and burning. Also I work on 100%commission so this hurts in many ways.
I really want to help elevate people's lives, not blow Up their lives. Especially when a candidate is fully willing to hustle and crank out calls, do in person visits there needs to be a ramp up period for sales people. Yes, I know this happens in the recruiting world and I've been end to end recruiting 8yrs and when it's for a client that I know I can boast and be on the mark it's great, but when I blow up someone's life...it can be devastating. Makes me want to throw in the towel...but I'm also a single mom, so I can't do anything too rash. If I can place this guy somewhere great everything would be right in the world. He has sold SAAS and HR service software and sold into retail. He's a strong communicator, able to manage complex sales cycles and research new business opportunities. Thanks!!!
22:23 UTC
22:08 UTC
Has someone ever took an "Remote photoplethysmography" test for a job?
They're making me take some bullshit 2 hours test with a supposedly "AI lie detector" test
They describe it as "a non-contact video-based method that monitors the change in blood volume by capturing skin pixel intensity changes to measure pulse rate and pulse-derived variables"
21:49 UTC
Fancy rejection or actual waitlist?
Applied for an EMT position with Falck (international ambulance/emergency service provider) and received the following message 3 weeks later.
I would like to take this at face value, and my application is still active under their dashboard, but I just don't know if I can trust them holding their word. One of my coworkers did get a straight up rejection message from the same company so I guess that brings up my hopes a little?
If they end up not contacting me, how long should I wait to reapply?
Also on a side tangent, how in gods name is an ambulance company not hiring? Any guesses? End of the year hiring freeze is mine. I was just pretty surprised since the industry is practically begging for people.
20:59 UTC
It should be illegal to have a few employees overwork themselves cause corpo is too greedy to hire. Will Trump try to solve this and help us in Europe by way of Trendsetting as well , or nah?
The Simplest Explanation for this Hiring Freeze Phenomenon is simple Fleecing. Companies have seen that by not hiring, and firing a lot, they can intimidate the remaining employees into gradually doing work for more than one person, for the same wage. According to the u6 Stats, Effective unemployment is up to 7% in the US because of this. Thats 5% away from Depression Territory. I have no idea about US politics. But has Trump promised to adress this issue or will people just wait till its too late or something? The only reliable way to get a Job today, is by knowing a guy, who knows a guy, your skills be damned.
20:58 UTC
13,000 applicants
I have a senior analytics job but I like browsing every now and then to see what’s out there. It’s tough.
It’s a position at CAVA. I like their braised lamb.
20:50 UTC
We're going dark...
20:46 UTC
Recruiter made me apply to workday before rejecting me
Short rant but I applied to an internship through my college career website and got an on-campus interview. I did 2 rounds of interviews over 2 months and I was told they would definitely be contacting me. 2 weeks went by and I got an email from the same recruiter telling me they have their final decision, but I would have to apply on their workday for me to get a result. I applied and got ghosted for another 2 weeks before getting an automated rejection. Like I understand the internship market is rough right now but this is comically bad
20:33 UTC
Over 1 Year unemployed And Thousands Of Job Applications, Only 2 Interviews
I have been unemployed for over a year now, the job market as a whole is so bad, not just tech jobs. I have had a grand total of TWO interviews in the past 11 months of non stop applying to these jobs almost every day that I very well qualify for, resume modified curated for each job posts, cover letters specifically made for the job if the job application allows it, at least 2,000 jobs applied (according to Indeed, not including LinkedIn, applications on company websites, etc) and nearly all of them are ghosted or outright rejected. The 2 interviews I got were for JCPenney and Home Depot who ended up leaving me on read after the interview...
And no, I'm not applying to doctor jobs or whatever stuff I'm clearly not qualified for, I'm applying to retail jobs like TJMaxx, Nordstrom, Target, Walmart, minimum wage jobs that claim to be "urgently hiring", Tim Hortons, coffee shops, factory jobs, IT/software tech jobs (which is my main goal to get into), entry level jobs. None of these jobs have the intentions of actually hiring.
There was a factory in my area called Lacks Enterprise that had a giant hiring sign on the road saying "Walk In Hiring", so I walked into the factory and asked this lady if you're still hiring, she straight up said they haven't hired anyone in the last 2 months, "we forgot to take down the sign".
These tech jobs that I'm trying to ultimately get are not hiring entry level people it seems like, or it's so competitive it's basically useless to even attempt to get one when they all just end up ghosting or rejecting you. The job market for tech jobs is extremely terrible, it's like a senior only market. They want you to have 5 years of "relevant work experience" to even get an interview FOR ENTRY LEVEL JOBS, but will not give you that experience to get that. These companies will use all kinds of mind games on you like claiming "we posted this job as entry level since it's entry into our company" and other circus show explanations. And not just any kind of experience, because self-employment and freelancing isn't considered "real work" experience by a vast majority of these companies, it has to be a job that TheWorkNumber or something Equifax has a data on to verify employment...
These companies want to hire people with 10+ years of experience for near minimum wage and they know they can get away with this. I have seen so many job posts on Linkedin and Indeed from big companies saying you must have 10 years of experience with something like Next.js to qualify for even an OA, when Nextjs didn't even exist 10 years ago. Complete bullshit. How are entry level people suppose to start their life like this?
Don't get me started on these retail jobs. They're all automating their "interviews" by doing these one way video call of you speaking to yourself on camera which is bullshit because that's such an easy way for them to discriminate you, they can see how you speak, if you have an accent, your race, how old you are, how young you are, before you even get to speak to a human. Fuck Target and everyone else who does this racist bullshit. Have you ever wondered why places like Target only hire white teenage girls, I have never seen any asian boys like me working there? This isn't Microsoft, it's just another minimum wage retail job that acts like they're all fancy and stuff
Even Mcdonalds didn't give me an actual interview. I did their 64 question "Psychometric Test" which is just another word for IQ test and still got ghosted.
Any minimum wage jobs that use fucking Workday like Nordstrom, Five Below, Walmart, etc there's a 99% chance you're wasting your time because they'll just ghost you. Why the fuck do I need to make a brand new account for each job posts that use Workday when I KNOW I'll be ghosted either way?
And before you suggest this, no I do not add my bachelors degree on these minimum wage job applications (in some cases you can't either way if they have their own internal job application, you just submit your own contact info like phone number and email) since apparently everyone says these minimum wage jobs don't want to hire people with degrees because "it makes you look like you'll leave in 3 months when you find better opportunities", which is total bolony because there are no better opportunities in this era, this job would be the best thing I ever have. I would be at this job long term, I would have no incentives to find something better because there isn't any in this day and age
I'm doing everything I can to try to reduce ways for these people to discriminate against me, including adding an "American sounding" first name like Sam, since my government first name is a Thai name... If you ever seen Thai names, you know what I'm talking about
By the way, I live in the US, Michigan. No I do not require a sponsorship, I'm a US citizen thank you very much. The only indicator of why I'm being ghosted is because of my ethnic name which sounds Indian if you ever seen Thai names, which might make some of these employers have a bias but I don't even know at this point..
I don't care if these places pay me peanuts, I just want any job without being left on read so I can have them on my resume and maybe work my way up at that same place to where I want to be at the same company. Is it that hard to ask? I'm willing to sell my soul to these corporations if it means being paid salt and sugar as money at this point
Is anyone else in the same situation?
19:51 UTC
Declined the interview. Why is this so hard?
Interviews go both ways. Just wanted to remind people that - I know we all need jobs but remember that your time is valuable too. I still don’t have any other roles lined up, but the following made me realize, I did the right thing. What do you think?
There was still uncertainty about salary alignment with the expectations for this role, still comments like I need to check with this person, etc.
I had made repeated requests for benefits information that went unanswered, making it difficult to fully evaluate the opportunity.
They introduced an unpaid case study, which was not initially outlined in the process, coupled with a tight timeline during a week of national holidays.
A lack of communication over a 1.5-week period, followed by a rush to complete next steps.
request for five references, which felt excessive and beyond what is typically necessary, all before I was the final candidate.
19:47 UTC
Tell me you’re not leadership material without telling me you’re not leadership material
What kind of a bizarro warning is this?
19:38 UTC
Numbers heading into Holiday Season
Just looking to share so people know there are others in the same boat.
19:03 UTC
I thought the job was mine but then they mentioned there's more candidates. Am I out of the run?
I contacted this company in September, got a phone call soon after where they explained everything about the job position, and "suggested" that if I happen to be near them, we should meet. I'm looking to relocate where this company is located cause currently I'm not living there, which they knew, and at the end we agreed on meeting in November (the job offer is to start in February). The company is a small family business also in my country (from Europe). Fast forward to this week, I met with one of the owners, and after the 2 hours meeting he told me to get in touch with the other one (they're a married couple and the wife is on sick leave). After doing so, she mentioned that they will be going on with hiring me in a month. I happily went back to my hometown, only to find out the very next morning a message where she apologized for rushing with the decision, as apparently her husband still has some more candidates to interview. They both did mention separately that they felt nice about me, and frankly I thought so too hence the 2h meeting, but this move really threw me off and blew my confidence. Anyone out there with similar experiences with smaller businesses? How did it go for you?
18:40 UTC
Hiring Freeze
Maybe it only applies to certain industries but have you noticed there's a hiring freeze the last few months/prob till the end if the year?
17:53 UTC
If you have extensive experience, degree, certification etc why do companies still do extensive interviewing plus testing? You have already proven you can do the job. Why not just interview for basic fit? companies now can have such high turnover anyway it seems a huge waste of time.
17:52 UTC
Apply on what now??
17:04 UTC
I will apply to job applications on your behalf with custom resumes and cover letters, so you can focus on networking and interview preparations. $20
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16:58 UTC
They mean well, but my husband and MIL are going to drive me crazy
I'm in month 5, coming up on month 6 of my job search, looking for a position in my degree field (I have an associate's in business). I've sent out hundreds of resumes, I've written dozens of cover letters, I've spoken to 6 staffing agencies, and I've had 7 interviews beyond the recruiting agency calls.
I am struggling. It's been really hard to keep positive. I've been ghosted after a couple of those interviews, and one that I felt really good about kept me waiting for 5 weeks before finally telling me I'm not selected to go to round 2. I keep hearing the same phrase over and over again, "We're really hoping to get a candidate with some experience". I'm ashamed but I cried on a phone interview after hearing that twice in one week.
I'm so frustrated. I'm working full time right now so the staffing agencies don't want to put me in temp positions, and I don't want to drop my salary requirement by $5+ an hour to get a job that might have lower expectations. How am I supposed to get experience if no one will take a chance? Meanwhile I'm completely undervalued at my current job, paid the least thanks to seniority while doing 45% of the workload on a team of 6.
Then I have my husband tell me it's a numbers game and I just need to stick with it and if I just keep applying it will happen. There's no guarantee of that! I'm always going to be competing with other people and as long as that's the case there's always the possibility I'm not chosen. I've even seen jobs I've applied for go back on the job boards. I'm not promised by some divine intervention a new job just because I've applied to a magic number of them or spent long enough going for it.
Then comes my MIL who is in the same field as me but has a couple decades of experience. She's also been job searching recently but found a new position in a month, and was not in full time work when she was looking. She's made suggestions for what type of roles to look for (I have been looking at pretty much every subgenre of my field that exists). She's suggested going back to school (as if getting my BS isn't going to take 2+ years while I'm in a job that's taking an active toll on my mental health and still doesn't get me the magical experience most of these positions ask for). She even suggested getting certified as a bookkeeper and starting my own business, as if that doesn't cost hundreds, take months, and is still NO GUARANTEE of finding work! I had an ex do a bookkeeping cert and start an LLC and he only ever got one client who handed him two trash bags full of receipts (that my ex never actually did anything with).
I'm out here fighting for jobs that don't exist that were written by robots and getting filtered out and rejected by robots and I'm being told to just keep at it. It's an exercise in futility. In any other endeavor doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity. Why is this any different?
16:44 UTC
How do you remain so resilient?
Hi there,
I am based in Europe, was laid off for the 1st time in my life and am unemployed since September. In the meantime, I had a couple of interview, in 2 cases I made it to the last round (one was 5 rounds, and another one - 3), however, according to them, they rather took no one than taking me (considering that my skills are not niche, I cannot believe they had no other suitable candidates, but were probably rather looking for a unicorn). Still, it feels terrible and really had an impact on my self-esteem and well-being.
On the other hand, on this sub I often read posts like: 7 rounds of interviews, take-home task and presentation, no offer, let's move on. My impression is that these are mostly posted by US-based folks.
Hence my question: how do you manage to stay resilient and separate your own worth from i.e. the fact that they chose no one instead of making an offer to you? I am wondering whether it is due to US being more in the mindset of "well, it's just business, let's move on", whereas where I am based it is still somewhat about "commitment" (tons of companies laying off now, so this will change with time).
I would just be interested to hear what helps you, or how to potentially adapt a more commercial mindset and not let those experiences be so destroying on an emotional level, massively impacting my relationships and private life overall. Thanks!
16:34 UTC
has anyone had to deal with this company?
the above company are based in the UK. i applied for a role at the end of october and a “head hunter” recruiter messaged me after applying. i followed up immediately and told him my availability. he since ghosted myself and others.
just over two weeks ago, they posted a celebratory post about their “successes” and myself and others commented under it saying we haven’t gotten a reply. guess what? they turned the comments off. shitty recruitment team. don’t apply for any roles with them.
16:24 UTC
What are your numbers?
Here’s a typical funnel for job seeking these days. Curious to learn your numbers
15:56 UTC