u/Deborah_Nelsond7b1v

When I first started helping with international hiring, I assumed the hardest part would be sourcing candidates or convincing people to join a company overseas. Turns out that was sometimes the easier part. The real chaos started after someone signed. Different countries wanting different documents, payroll timelines not matching up, contractor vs employee rules changing depending on location, random banking issues nobody warned you about. I've had situations where the candidate was ready, the manager was excited, the offer was signed… and we were still stuck trying to figure out how to legally pay someone on time. And candidates usually don't see any of this. From their side it's just "why is onboarding taking so long?" which honestly, fair enough. I think before doing international recruitment, I massively underestimated how much of hiring is actually operations. The interview is maybe the cleanest part of the whole process...

Had an interview recently where the candidate was walking me through a project that was clearly important. The more I asked, the more it sounded like she had done a lot of the heavy lifting. She handled coordination, solved a few messy issues, and seemed to know every detail inside out. But every single time the conversation got close to giving them credit, she pulled back.

"It was mostly the team." "My part wasn't that big." "I just supported here and there."

I get why people do this. Nobody wants to sound arrogant in an interview. But honestly, as a recruiter, it can make things harder for you than you probably realize. Because interviews are already short. We're trying to understand what you actually did, what decisions you made, where your strengths are. If you keep shrinking your own role, eventually it becomes difficult to tell where your contribution even starts. And the strange part is, the candidates who actually overstate their impact usually sound much more confident doing it.I don't think people should exaggerate. But sometimes I do wish more candidates would let themselves fully own the work they clearly did.