u/RandomWalkAu

I’m starting a running thread for Target Australia casual interviews, especially casual and store team roles.
The current starting point is one first-hand Adelaide report from 2024. Rather than turning one experience into a fixed “Target interview guide”, I’ll keep updating this thread as more candidate reports come in.
What I’m tracking:
application → first contact

Sapia / online assessment stage

interview invitation and scheduling

in-store interview format

questions or themes that keep repeating

availability / work-rights questions

offer / rejection / still waiting

how long each stage actually takes

The aim is to separate what candidates are actually reporting from generic retail interview advice.
If you’ve recently applied or interviewed at Target Australia, even a very short timeline helps:
Role:
City/state:
Applied:
Online assessment:
Interview format:
Current stage:
Outcome, if known:
No names, recruiter details or personal information needed.
I’ll add dated updates below as the picture changes.

I’m starting a running thread for Woolworths casual interviews in Australia, particularly Team Member and Night Fill roles.
Rather than treating it as one fixed “interview guide”, I’ll keep updating this as more candidate reports come in.
What I’m tracking:
application → first contact

online / phone / in-store stages

1st interview

any second or additional stage

questions or themes that keep repeating

offer / rejection / still waiting

how long each stage appears to take

The aim is to separate what candidates are actually reporting from generic interview advice.

If you’ve recently applied or interviewed at Woolworths, even a very short timeline helps:
Role:
City/state:
Applied:
Heard back:
Interview format:
Current stage:
Outcome, if known:
No names, recruiter details or personal information needed.
I’ll add dated updates below as the picture changes.

A quick snapshot of four US job markets today:
Product Manager: 8,747 roles · +54

Software Engineer: 8,330 · +57

Financial Analyst: 5,559 · +31

Data Scientist: 3,456 · +15

A few patterns stand out:
New York leads Product Manager, Financial Analyst and Data Scientist demand.

San Jose remains the largest Software Engineer market with 1,010 open roles.

Product and software hiring are still adding roughly 50+ roles a day in this snapshot, while data science is moving more slowly.

The market still looks highly uneven by role and city rather than broadly “good” or “bad.”
Which role are you tracking right now?

Leadership usually shows up in small moments long before someone gets the title.
A few behaviours matter more than they look:
give people your full attention

admit mistakes quickly

ask before answering

give credit publicly

keep small promises

protect the team from unnecessary work

stay steady under pressure

explain the reasoning behind decisions

make bad news safe to bring

The common thread is trust. People notice who listens, follows through and makes it easier for others to do good work.
Which of these do you think is most underrated?

A few standout movers from the latest hiring data:
CVS Health: 19,471 featured roles · +1,512
Rewe Group: 8,197 · +1,429
Trinity Health System: 8,083 · +611
Circle K: 5,909 · +575
Michaels: 3,187 · +524
AdventHealth: 12,116 · +401
The interesting part is that the strongest additions aren’t concentrated in tech. Healthcare, retail and consumer employers are adding roles at a much faster pace in this snapshot.
Are you seeing the same shift in the roles you’re applying for?

A quick look at today’s live US hiring data:
Product Manager: 8,693 roles · +71
Software Engineer: 8,274 · +59
Financial Analyst: 5,522 · +40
Data Scientist: 3,442 · +16
New York leads Product Manager, Financial Analyst and Data Scientist demand, while San Jose remains the largest Software Engineer market with 1,001 open roles.
Interesting that the strongest daily growth here is in product, not engineering.
Which market looks strongest from what you’re seeing?

Not every kind of work exhaustion is burnout.
A useful distinction:
Burnout: the work may still fit, but the pace, workload or environment has become unsustainable.
Role misalignment: rest helps temporarily, but the same dread returns when you go back to the work itself.
A simple test: after a real break, ask whether you feel restored — or whether you still wouldn’t want to do essentially the same job somewhere healthier.
Sometimes the answer is recovery. Sometimes it’s a change in direction.
How do you tell the difference?

A few things stood out from the latest hiring data:
Amazon: 20,468 active jobs · 95.1% on-site · 0.3% salary disclosed · 2.1% AI share
Google: 8,726 active jobs · 65.3% hybrid · 22.2% salary disclosed · 2.8% AI share
New-posting pace has slowed at both: Amazon -14% MoM, Google -70% MoM
Both are still hiring against a large layoff backdrop: 42,397 announced cuts at Amazon vs 15,546 at Google
The interesting part isn’t just who has more openings — it’s how differently the two companies are rebuilding their workforces.
Which hiring model looks more sustainable from here?

Part I was about leverage, BATNA, process and closing.
Part II is more about what happens inside the room.
A few ideas from Stanford- and MIT-style negotiation frameworks that matter:
Shift from “winning” to solving the problem
Define your ideal outcome, acceptable outcome and walk-away point
Acknowledge emotions instead of pretending they aren’t there
Separate what is fixed from what is actually negotiable
Align roles if you’re negotiating as a team
Protect the relationship while still being firm
Use anchoring, reciprocity and loss aversion carefully
Communicate clearly — less jargon, less hedging
Know when silence is more useful than another argument
Close with every important point confirmed
The biggest lesson for me:
Good negotiation is not just about moving the number. It’s about managing the room.
Preparation matters. But emotional control, timing, relationships and knowing when to stop talking often matter just as much.
This is Part II of the negotiation series.
What’s one negotiation tactic you learned later than you wish you had?

A quick comparison from current hiring data:
- NVIDIA: 13,071 active jobs · 57.4% hybrid · 4.8% AI-related
- Intel: 4,327 active jobs · 75.5% hybrid · 2.4% AI-related
- Salary disclosed: 22.9% NVIDIA vs 49.3% Intel
- NVIDIA’s hiring remains heavily engineering-led, while Intel’s current footprint is much narrower.
The more interesting signal is momentum: both still have thousands of open roles, but new-posting pace has slowed sharply — about -36% MoM at NVIDIA and -91% at Intel.
So the headline isn’t simply “NVIDIA is hiring 3x more.” NVIDIA appears to be maintaining a much broader growth-oriented engineering pipeline, while Intel looks more like selective replacement/rotation hiring against a much heavier restructuring backdrop.
Which company’s hiring mix surprises you more?

Most companies say they want “great employees.”
Then you look at what that actually means and the list gets… ambitious.
At the bottom:
Be competent
Show up
Meet deadlines
Don’t need constant supervision
Apparently, congratulations — you have completed Level 1.
Then comes:
Level 2: Reliability + integrity
Do what you said you’d do. Take feedback. Be trustworthy.
Level 3: Teamwork
Communicate well, handle conflict, and somehow remain pleasant in meetings.
Level 4: Ownership
Stop waiting to be told. Bring solutions. Own the outcome.
Level 5: Impact
Improve the work, raise the standard, think beyond your own job description.
The slightly uncomfortable truth is that career progression often works this way.
Being good at the actual job gets you in.
Trust, relationships, ownership and impact are usually what move you further.
Of course, the other uncomfortable truth is that companies sometimes expect Level 5 behaviour while paying for Level 1.
So: what actually separates a good employee from a great one — and where do employers start asking for too much?

I know the market is bloody tough. But we still have to try our best. Prepare this so we can have a plan for the next 100 days.
job search becomes much easier to manage when you stop treating every week the same.
For a senior or experienced candidate, I’d break a 100-day job search into five overlapping stages:
Days 1–18: Target the right roles
Build a focused list of companies, roles and teams instead of applying everywhere.
Days 15–30: Position yourself to be found
Align your resume and LinkedIn with the roles you actually want.
Days 29–60: Build a warm pipeline
Reconnect with relevant people, ask for introductions and create referral paths.
Days 57–85: Prepare for interviews
Build a small bank of strong examples and practice answering the questions that matter.
Days 81–100: Negotiate the full offer
Look beyond salary: scope, title, equity, sign-on, start date and review timing all matter.
The stages overlap deliberately. A good job search is less about bursts of activity and more about maintaining momentum.
Fewer targets. Warmer pipeline. Stronger conversion.
For people who’ve recently changed jobs: which part of the search took longer than you expected?

Looking for a new job while you’re still employed is a different process from searching when you’re between jobs.
The goal isn’t maximum activity. It’s to run a quiet, intentional job search without creating unnecessary signals at work.
A few things help:
Keep LinkedIn’s Open to Work visible to recruiters only
Turn off profile-update broadcasts before making changes
Interview on personal devices and outside work hours
Avoid vague “new chapter” posts that suddenly signal you’re leaving
Reconnect with people before you need something from them
Ask trusted contacts for targeted introductions
Build visibility around one or two topics relevant to your next role
Apply to fewer jobs, but tailor each application properly
Track conversations and follow-ups in one place
Protect your energy — searching while working full-time can become a second job very quickly
One thing I think gets overlooked: networking doesn’t have to look like job searching.
A useful comment, an industry event, or a 20-minute catch-up can create more opportunities than sending another 20 cold applications.
The rule I’d use:
Stay visible to the right people. Stay discreet with everyone else.
For anyone who has successfully changed jobs while still employed: what helped you keep the search confidential?

Most career advice jumps straight to “leadership” or “personal brand.”
But the ladder usually starts much lower.
Show up on time — reliability is the entry fee.
Do what you say you’ll do — follow-through builds trust.
Anticipate problems — notice issues before they become fire drills.
Make your boss’s job easier — filter noise and bring solutions.
Become hard to replace — not by hoarding knowledge, but by developing judgment people rely on.
Multiply yourself — mentor, delegate ownership and raise the team’s floor.
Build a reputation — eventually opportunities come because people already trust your name.
The shift is basically:
reliability → trust → judgment → leverage → reputation.
Which step do you think matters most for actually getting promoted — and which one gets overrated?

I’ve read thousands of CVs over the years, and I think they become less useful as an assessment tool the more senior the candidate gets.
Not because senior candidates lie.
Because they’re usually very good at telling a coherent story.
“Led 40 people.”
“Transformed the business.”
“Delivered growth.”
“Strategic leader.”
All useful context. But none tells me how that person behaves when judgment actually gets difficult.
For senior hires, I’d rather spend the interview trying to uncover things a CV is structurally bad at showing:
When were you visibly wrong in front of your team?
Did they change their mind or defend the original position?
What went seriously wrong on your watch?
Do they take ownership or subtly redistribute the blame?
What strong belief did you later change?
Can they identify the evidence that changed it?
Who is the best person you’ve developed?
Can they talk specifically about someone else’s growth without making themselves the hero?
And references can be particularly revealing when you get beyond “Would you hire them again?”
The signal I’m looking for is not a perfect career.
It’s judgment under pressure, accountability when things fail, and the ability to update when reality disagrees with them.
A polished CV can make almost anyone look consistent in retrospect.
Senior leadership rarely is.
For people who hire senior executives: what question has given you the strongest signal that a CV never could?

Most interview advice focuses on having the “right” answer.
But strong candidates often do something different: they connect their answers to the company’s actual problem.
A few phrases that help:
“I noticed this role emphasizes…”
“Here’s how I’d approach my first 90 days…”
“What separates great from just fine here?”
“Is there anything in my background that gives you pause?”
None of these are magic words. They simply shift the conversation from “please hire me” to “let’s see if I can solve what you need.”
That’s usually a much better interview.

One thing I think we get wrong about graduate job search:
We tell people to search for a job title before they understand what their skills can actually unlock.
Take a fairly ordinary CS graduate:
UW Computer Science
3-month internship
Java + SQL + Git
Seattle
The obvious search is “Software Engineer.”
But the same starting profile maps reasonably well into at least three different entry-level paths:
Software Engineer
Java + Git already transfer. The gap is mostly deeper coding, testing and debugging experience.
Data Analyst
SQL transfers directly. The gap shifts toward Python, statistics, visualization and BI tools.
Data Engineer
Java + SQL provide a surprisingly relevant base. The missing layer is ETL, Python and cloud/data infrastructure.
And these aren't hypothetical career suggestions. The numbers in the graphic come from currently available roles, with actual openings used to identify the skill overlap and gaps.
That changes how I think career-switching tools should work.
Instead of:
degree → job title → apply to 200 jobs
It should be:
degree + existing skills + location → reachable career paths → live jobs → smallest skill gaps
The interesting question isn't “What jobs can a CS graduate do?”
It's:
“Which doors am I already 70% of the way through?”
A degree isn't a job title. It's a map of doors.
Would be interested to hear from CS grads: what role did you end up in that you weren't originally searching for?

Better language. Bigger outcomes. Cleaner stories.
And that’s exactly the problem.
At senior level, I’m rarely trying to work out whether someone can produce an impressive career narrative. I want to know what the CV cannot tell me:
How do they behave when they’re wrong in front of their team?
What happens when something fails on their watch?
Can they change their mind when the evidence changes?
Do people become better because they worked for them?
Those answers are much harder to polish.
I put together the questions I think reveal more than another round of “walk me through your experience.”
For people who hire senior roles: what question has given you the strongest signal about a candidate?

Look for more opportunities, go visit workopia.io/graduates