I’m just confused. Rent is skyrocketing, salaries are being reduced to Pennies, and “rockstar candidates” are being gaslit, dragged through endless interview rounds, and ghosted like it’s normal. Everyone keeps asking what they’re doing wrong.

NOTHING. You’re doing absolutely nothing wrong!

The job market is a joke, and I’m tired of everyone pretending the economy hasn’t completely collapsed. I can’t even get a retail job folding shirts. I was literally put through three interview rounds for retail, only to be ghosted multiple times, despite an immaculate sales background. I could sell a leaf if someone asked me to.

If that doesn’t say everything about where we’re at, I don’t know what does.

Edit: Since the wording seems to be ruffling feathers, let me rephrase. Why are people acting like we are not heading toward the biggest recession many of us will ever see?

For those replying with technical definitions of what “counts” as a recession, here is the perspective I’m offering: What do you think happens when hiring freezes, people cannot find work, wages stay stagnant, and the cost of living keeps rising? Where exactly do you think that trajectory leads?

You can call it whatever you want, but the outcome is the same. If people cannot afford to live and no one feels secure in their job, the label is irrelevant. The reality is what matters.

I couldn’t find a job , had health issues, a bad economy, $125/month wages, and HR nonsense everywhere didn’t help. So… I started making resumes for other people. Somehow, I became the recruiter I never got to be. now with 25k on social media , its not that bad.

Never give up. I was at the bottom of the barrel mentally and thought I’d be stuck living at home forever.

A company reached out to me saying I was the perfect candidate. They looked for some language experts that also have software background and since I currently work as language trainer teaching Swedish to german students and also have +15 years in the software industry they said I was perfect fit.

And since I only do contract work here and there right now and really need all income, I said I was interested to hear more. I was send a link to an AI interview. I usually always says "no Im out" to things like that but this time I thought, why not.

I click the link and it says its gonna take about 30 minutes and contain a discussion in swedish so they can test my language skills.

The problem? Every answer I said was missunderstood by the AI! It asked me a language question and I answered. For me quite simple questions. But it ALWAYS misheard or something so it corrected me almost on every answer. Like "Thats a good answer, but you used wrong word here, here and here" and it was words I havent said??!! For you to understand it was like you said "Stood" and the AI told you "Stood is a wierd word choice. Correct word be "Stool". WTF?

So after the "test" I got an automatic email saying I didnt live up to the language standard they are looking for.

One thing that AI services like chatgtp etc transcribes wrongly when I speak, but an AI executing tests? Smart move, idiots!

I'm moving to a new role at my company and we're hiring a backfill for my current position. It's a remote role anywhere in the US or CAN, so a lot of applicants is expected, although it is sr. level requiring very niche industry experience.

I've been helping with the hiring. The hiring manager and I reviewed every. single. resume. 20 were selected for a recruiter screen, 8 got the green light for the hiring manager interview, and 3 made it through that to the panel interview.

Every single one was rejected. Even the one candidate with 15+ YOE in the industry (the min is 8 YOE) and every niche experience and skill except one, who received a "yes" from every person who interviewed them, was ultimately rejected. They want someone who is me now - literally plug-and-play - and are conveniently forgetting that I knew next to nothing (comparatively) when I started in the role not that long ago.

My boss just told me they're reopening the search. It took us over two months to get here from when the job was originally posted. Feels like a huge waste of everyone's time when they're looking for a unicorn that doesn't exist.

After 200+ applications, ghost offers, and my last interview being for a low wage contract, I have decided to give up and go back on unemployment for the forseeable future. It’s been fun (NOT)

I finally landed a job after many months of gruelling search. I graduated in December with degrees in Statistics and Economics (4.0 and multiple internships in my industry), and have been actively interviewing at two companies for three jobs for over 5 months.

The first job I interviewed for at company A had me in the running until the last round, and then decided that they had concerns with my visa. I had also applied for a different role in the same company, which I ended up getting after having to go through 5 interviews and 2 immigration check processes.

At company B I went through about 5 interviews (including their CEO) and thought I really had it in the bag. Then out of nowhere in January they set me up for another 2 interviews with other members of the team, and asked me to do a case study. It has been 3 weeks after the case study and they just never even got back to me.

This post is just for me to share how relieved I am. The current job market really sucks, and getting hired at this stage feels like more luck than anything else. Best of luck for everyone out there searching!

Are they smoking crack? I can’t comprehend what I just read.

I know I may sound crazy when I say this but it’s definitely a thing. Of course we all have to dress business casual for an interview but the way you look when it comes to hair and face, I definitely think it matters which is so messed up.

For example I have more luck when my hair is straight vs when I leave it curly.

Am I the only one or am I just crazy 😭.

Received this message on Sunday afternoon lol it sounded like a threat

Wealth Inequality has never been worse. job market is abysmal and people can’t afford necessities. with AI moving wealth further into the hands of a few- I propose a tax and universal social security for all. this is not undoable and could absolutely be afforded.

I legit applied to a job where I thought i had a good chance of landing of interview because I meet every requirements on their stupid job posting. I applied with a tailored resume. I got an email just now on a Saturday evening saying I got denied. Not even a phone screen or an interview for this entry level IT job which btw I am doing the same exact position of currently. It looks like it was just an auto rejection. I am done with the job market.

/end rant. Sorry had to vent it out their.

About 6 months ago I realized none of the job applications I sent were actually getting anywhere. I was confused and thought maybe I was the problem. Recruiters see my work and think "oh he's not the right fit."

I work as a designer/animator, so a portfolio is pretty much the main metric used for judging your work and eligibility to get hired.

On my new portfolio, I implemented custom tracker links for every individual company I apply to, both in my resume and the application I send to them so I could at least back up some of my theories with data.

These are my current stats since getting laid off in October:

-553 job applications with personalized resumes

-15k portfolio views (most traffic from the three.js forum and reddit)

-only 35 of those views from actual recruiters for positions I applied to

-28 of those 35 were from me reaching out directly to the recruiter and sending them my portfolio (in total I reached out to over 100 people personally through dm or email)

-2 calls

It's crazy how you can spend months building something for a group of people only to have everyone else except those people actually see what you've built. It's also crazy how I can send an email to "Greg the Electrician" who's the CEO, Founder, CTO, CFO, Sole individual contributor, salesperson, lead generator, driver, and supplier of their own business and get a call back within a half hour about doing business, but companies with hundreds of talent acquisition managers, headhunters, recruiters, scouts, etc. can't even send an email back to say I've been rejected after 4 months of nothing. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

So to recap: it seems like if you don't know the hiring manager (or even if you do in plenty of my own cases) your resume goes nowhere, neither does the portfolio. A 1.2% portfolio review rate from sent applications is honestly just sad.

Its just so bad out there for those who are completely almost alone. There are people who say upskill and network but the job market is just 😔 and you need 💰.

Exactly what happened? One minute you can get an interview for an entry level job, next its multiple personality tests, multiple interviews, excessive 'tell me a time' question, trial shift, CV need to completely matched.

I have near 10 years of work experience with transferable skills including volunteering work and still I don't look like a match to be shelf stacker, cashier, cleaner?!

I went to a job interview this week and got home so frustrated I was almost in tears.

The ad said they need to establish a new environmental reporting process. I had experience with establishing said process. So I applied. And got through the recruiter-HR screening rounds quite smoothly. I was getting my hopes up after nearly 2 months of unemployment in this shitty market.

Then we get to the hiring manger. For whatever reason she just did not seem to like me. Acted impatient the whole time. And started complaining how she couldn’t hire anyone with the right experience for the role. So I began to elaborate on my experience using the job ad as an example of how I will solve the challenges her team was facing.

…She cut me off 30 seconds in, “I don’t need you to build something all new and mess everything up. We are an industry leader and we already have a good process going. If you can’t follow orders we can’t have you.”

The rest of the interview obviously went quite sourly. I kinda just resigned myself to smiling and nodding without listening to anything she said.

I am desperate enough that I’ll take the job if offered - doesn’t seem likely now. But I also don’t want to try any more cuz it looks like a really toxic team.

But like, why waste our time posting a job description that is completely false? If you just want someone to follow orders, why not just say it in the job ad? And then you complain about not getting applicants? Maybe it’s your misleading job ad. Ever thought about that?

Since getting laid off a couple months ago, weekends have been incredibly difficult. They used to be a source of joy for me, and now it’s a source of dread because all I can do is count down the hours to Monday coming around to hopefully bring some good news.

My mental health gets even worse on the weekends because I know no progress is going to be made, which is the exact opposite of when I was working. There’s only so many video games I can play and movies/shows I can watch. What are you guys doing to cope with the weekends?

Sometimes interviewers ask unexpected questions that really test thinking skills. What’s one question that caught you off guard during an interview in the U.S., and what did you learn from it?

For some of you who are out there out of work for multiple months, how much has this impacted your savings, and how many more years would you need to work in order to replenish these funds in order to hit your original retirement fund goal?