r/InterviewCoderPro

They haven't realized it yet, but my friend and I have both accepted jobs at another company.

Once we leave, they're going to be in serious trouble. And I'm not exaggerating.

When I started there, we had 14 people. We're down to 4 now, and those four people have been carrying the workload that used to be handled by the entire team.

We've been asking for raises for more than a year after having our salaries frozen for years. We've been covering shifts, taking on extra responsibilities, and constantly rearranging our lives around whatever the company needed.

Every time we brought up pay, we got the same answer: "There's no room in the budget."

Eventually, we stopped asking.

My friend and I started looking elsewhere and, almost without planning it, ended up accepting offers from the same company.

We're giving two weeks' notice, but we're doing it a few days apart so we're not both dropping the news on the exact same day.

When I submitted my notice, something really interesting happened.

Suddenly, there was money in the budget.

They immediately started talking about what they could offer me to stay.

My manager was actually furious about it because he'd genuinely believed the company couldn't afford raises either. He told them straight up that if both of us leave, he's leaving too.

I've known this guy for nine years, and I've never known him to bluff about something like that.

So by the end of the week, they'll have less than two weeks to figure out how they're going to replace almost their entire remaining staff.

They'll need to find people, hire them, train them, and somehow get them comfortable enough to handle the workload before things start getting really busy.

And the funniest part is that I'm actually going to work my full two weeks.

Not because I feel guilty.

I just want to watch what happens.

I want to see all those magical offers that suddenly appear when they're desperate for someone to stay.

And I want to politely say no to every single one.

The weirdest part of all of this was actually going through the interview process again. After being at the same company for so long, I realized I'd gotten pretty rusty at talking about myself and explaining what I actually bring to a job.

I ended up reading a few interview posts on Reddit while preparing, including this one about how someone approaches interviews. A lot of it was stuff I already knew, but it was a good reminder that interviewing is a skill in itself and gets easier when you actually practice it.

For a long time, I convinced myself that leaving would somehow make me the problem. Reading other people's experiences helped me realize that staying somewhere indefinitely just because they're understaffed isn't loyalty.

It's just putting your life on hold for a company that wouldn't do the same for you.

So, yeah.

Two weeks from now, I'll be gone.

And I'm genuinely excited to see what happens after that. :)

I had a great interview a few days ago, and in the final minutes I strongly felt that they were going to make me an offer. So when they asked me what my current total compensation was, I inflated it a lot and told them I was making more than I am.

They came back with 38% above the number I had "inflated," which comes out to about a 76% increase over my real full package.

Was that the honest thing to do? No.

Do I feel guilty? Also no.

I'm not saying everyone should try doing this, because it could go very badly. But in my case, it worked out better than I expected, and I hope it works out for you too if you've ever been in that situation.

Salary questions can be one of the hardest moments in any interview, especially when you want to negotiate without undervaluing yourself. Having a prepared plan for how to answer can change the whole direction of the conversation.

I came across a post with job interview tips that might be useful if you're preparing for a situation like this. Honestly, salary expectations always make me feel like they're the part where one wrong sentence could cost you a lot, so it was useful to see several clear ways to phrase the answer.

At the beginning of this month, my office, which is a dental clinic in a very wealthy area in WA, held a staff meeting, and we were told that we would only be allowed two days of unpaid leave every six months. So basically, two days in half a year. Not a single person in our office gets benefits. No PTO, no health insurance, no paid holidays, nothing. Then they added that since we, the hygienists, are booked out far in advance, if we use one of those two unpaid days, we'll need to come in early or stay late to "make up" the patients we missed.

The other hygienists and I all handed in our resignation letters this morning. We wrote them, printed them, and left the whole stack on his desk. He came back from lunch and had to sit there reading them one by one. One of my coworkers said she saw him throw the stack toward the office manager and say, "Do you see this?"

Luckily, hygienists are in insane demand around us right now, and every one of us has already gotten interest or offers from other offices.

Tl;dr - The manager tried to control our unpaid time off, and badly misjudged how easy we are to replace. Now he is literally losing almost his entire clinical team.

The only problem I might face when applying for a job is anxiety about interviews, but I read a post about Interview Tips, and I think that will help reduce my anxiety a little.

I work in a pub, and my manager is the type of person who demands everyone be perfectly on time while she treats her own schedule like a mere suggestion. She always tells me to note down if someone coming for an interview is even two minutes late (of course, I don't do that, because who cares?).

She's usually still at home or hiding in the office when they arrive, and she just sends me a text with the schedule. Her hypocrisy reached a breaking point for me two weeks ago.

There was a guy waiting for 45 minutes, and she walked in casually, made herself tea, chatted with a supplier about something trivial, and then chatted with a regular for 15 minutes before finally starting the interview.

Naturally, he ghosted her when she tried to hire him.

I decided to start playing mind games with her. Since we are always hiring, it's very common for someone not to show up at all because they found another job. So every time she is late and someone doesn't show, I lie to her. I tell her they arrived exactly on time but left because she wasn't ready.

I know she's insecure enough that she won't call them to check, so I'm not worried about getting caught. Her attitude changed from "these people aren't serious about work" to "why are they leaving so fast? I was only 12 minutes late."

Things escalated a bit recently. There was a woman waiting for 20 minutes, so I simply told her: "She's on her way, but I wouldn't blame you if you left; your time is valuable."

She laughed and said she'd wait in her car for a bit, and if the manager called her, she might come back.

This was the eighth time someone "left" that month.

When the manager arrived 10 minutes later, I told her she might still be able to catch her on the phone.

I sat there listening to her literally groveling on the phone, apologizing and asking if she could come back.

The girl came back, but she had a "don't mess with me" look on her face the whole time.

The manager tried to laugh it off and make an excuse about Friday morning traffic, so the girl looked her in the eye and said: "Yes, that's why I left 25 minutes early to be here right on time."

The manager nodded embarrassedly and said: "Okay, it's good that you're a responsible person."

I had to hide behind the bar so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

Since then, she's been coming in early and stopped messing around with time when people arrive. She's all smiles now, offering them coffee or water immediately.

And we've hired the best staff we've had in a long time.

The funny thing is that this whole situation actually got me thinking about how much preparation people put into interviews compared with how little effort some employers put into actually conducting them.

I've been reading through some interview advice lately, and there's a post on HiringHell with a bunch of practical stuff about preparing answers, researching the company, asking better questions, and just generally not going into an interview completely unprepared.

After watching candidates spend all that time preparing just to sit there waiting 45 minutes for my manager, I can definitely understand why some people walk away.

Now I'm thinking about what other terrible habits of hers I can fix.

I'm a 27-year-old man, and I'll be turning 28 soon.

I started working not too long ago, and I make around 86-88k USD a year. My current workplace is very calm and comfortable, the people are easy to deal with, and the overall atmosphere is honestly excellent. No one watches the clock or makes an issue out of when you come in or leave, as long as your work gets done. I can work from home two days a week, and on top of that I'm allowed to work remotely from almost anywhere for around 60 days a year, and I also have 28 days of annual leave. This setup is a big advantage for me because I love traveling, and it gives me a lot of room to travel without using up all my vacation days. I'm currently an SDR, and the path will most likely move toward account management, and then possibly leadership/management later on.

I received an offer for around 115k a year. It's not finalized yet, but it will probably be close to that number. The hours would be from 6:30 AM to 2:00 PM on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; from 6:30 AM to 4:30 PM on Thursday; and from 6:30 AM to 11:00 AM on Friday. I'll probably need to clock in and clock out using a fingerprint scanner. Annual leave would be 24 days, or 32 days total if weekends are counted. The environment will definitely be stricter, more formal, and probably more stressful too, because I would essentially be a civilian employee in a military setting. The other thing that bothers me is that the career path isn't very clear, because the role would be as a translator, from English to Arabic and from Arabic to English.

Part of me feels like the extra money is hard to pass up, especially since I'm still early in my career. But another part of me thinks that flexibility, travel time, and the clearer sales career path might be worth more than the salary jump.

What would you do if you were in my place?

TLDR;

Around 88k a year, fewer working hours and more vacation days, and a better opportunity to travel

Vs.

Around 115k a year, fixed/strict working hours and less vacation time, and unclear career progression

I feel like no matter how much experience you have, salaries stop at 65 to 85k and don't go beyond that. Bills are going up, grocery prices are getting worse, insurance is rising, but pay feels like it's stuck at the same level people were earning in 2011 or even before that.

A lot of people seem to have either accepted this situation or gotten tired of fighting it. Employers always say they can't pay more, but somehow everything else gets more expensive every month.

As a man in my late thirties, I honestly don't see how my family is supposed to be able to buy a decent house or improve financially without a much higher income. It's not even that we want to live a luxurious life. We're just trying to be able to live a normal life without feeling like we're falling behind all the time.

Every few months something goes up by 10 or 25 percent, but wages barely move. Rent, food, repairs, utilities, everything. I'm talking more about wages outside huge cities or expensive states. I'm in the Southeast.

My mom is a very, very lovely person, but she doesn't really understand what trying to get accepted for a job looks like in 2027. She's always bringing up my dad's "struggle" to find a good job in the eighties, which mostly meant him deciding which huge consulting company he was going to say yes to after graduating from a very fancy business school. So I figured the cleanest way to show her the reality was to have her apply for jobs online herself.

She used to work as a clinical psychologist, but she's been out of the workforce for many years, and she also never formally defended her doctoral dissertation because of family circumstances. So that means anything requiring licensure was a nonstarter, because they'd ask for a license number and all that. So we thought a little creatively and picked six jobs looking for unlicensed counselors, or people still in grad programs, or roles without direct client interaction that wanted graduate-level psych education. Overall, she has six years of experience, an undergrad double major from a top-40 school with honors, and clinical training from a respected program in a top-ten metro area. I fixed up her resume so it looked more current, adjusted the graduation years and similar details, and let her start.

After three hours, she called me. "Hi, I'm trying to upload my resume to Greenhouse, but it's not putting things in the right fields. The dates are coming out weird and it's ruining the spacing under each job." So I walked her step by step through the usual applicant portal nonsense, had my brother set her up with one of those autofill extensions that saves your information across applications, and went back to what I was doing. Maybe 45 minutes passed.

"What are people supposed to write in cover letters now?" I basically never send them unless I'm forced to, so I sent her a few templates and some tips and let her keep going.

I had pretty much forgotten we were doing this until the following Monday, when she called me again. "I got rejected from three of them because I didn't meet the qualifications. How is that possible?" And honestly, yeah, it didn't make sense, because I had written the resume to match every listed requirement. But that's job hunting in 2027, my guy. She asked me if she could request feedback from the recruiter. I told her to go ahead and try, but they probably wouldn't answer, and that's exactly what happened. I told her to tailor the resume more to each posting and sent her a link to Teal so she wouldn't have to do it all manually. "So I have to pay $29 a month just so maybe someone will look at me?" "Yes. Pretty much."

About a week later, my mom got an email from a recruiter who seemed enthusiastic and sent her follow-up questions: salary expectations, how comfortable she was working with certain client populations, experience in different treatment settings, and things like that. This role asked a lot about her experience working with neurodivergent teens, and she said that wasn't even described that way back when she was working. With her help, we answered everything and sent the reply.

Nine days passed and the recruiter replied with a salary range and a few more questions. My mom called me immediately. "What is this salary? This is almost the same as what I was making in the eighties." Of course, salaries vary a lot depending on the exact role, insurance billing, nonprofit versus private practice, and all of that, but seeing the number written out was a real "what the fuck" moment for her.

The other two jobs never responded at all. Her final assessment of the process was: "This is a joke."

I'm sitting here feeling like a stressed-out piñata waiting for someone to hit it, and the stick in this scenario is AI. I'm not trying to be dramatic, I swear, I'm genuinely lost.

For context, I studied BBA. Yeah, yeah, I know it's not exactly a degree that opens every door, pls let's not start. But that's not even the terrifying part. My engineering friends are still unemployed. My cousin was working in data analytics at a big company in Canada and just got laid off; an entire department was removed. My sister has an MBBS and keeps getting rejected??? Like almost every day. Pharma people, dentists, coders, biotech people. Literally everyone around me is sitting at home refreshing job portals.

I had a neat little plan in my head. Masters in Business Analytics abroad. Logical. Mature. Look at me making life decisions. Except now AI is clearly coming for that too, which is funny in the worst possible way.

And before anyone says "but human interaction," people are literally using AI for therapy because real therapists are expensive. So the whole human touch argument feels like it died before it even began.

I started looking at every possible field like a maniac.

Data analytics: AI came in and sat in the chair.

Software development: still technically breathing, but everyone in it looks psychologically damaged.

Public policy: seems interesting, but the ROI is depressing and I'm not rich.

Psychology: I love it, but the salary situation is not nice at all.

Nursing: my family would consider it a crime because it's not "respectable" enough.

MBBS: see my sister's situation above; still not reassuring.

Management: AI will automate the report and politely loop everyone in.

Skilled trades: safer for now, but the machines are definitely warming up.

Creative work: AI finished the starter and ordered the main course.

Academia: they'll accept your soul and pay you in prestige and exhaustion.

At this point I want to buy a small farm and disappear. But land is expensive. And someone told me automation will probably take that too someday, so okay, beautiful.

What are we even supposed to do now?? I'm asking seriously. Please, no toxic positivity, I won't be able to handle it.

I've looked into careers around climate, sustainability, and renewable energy, and honestly they don't look bad, but I'm still very confused.

I'm 31 years old and male, and I've been at my company for 7 years. I'm paid well, and I genuinely love the place and the people I work with, and honestly, I thought I'd probably spend most of my career here. Until they passed me over for a promotion, and that changed something in me.

My direct manager told us about 6 weeks ago that he'd be moving to a higher position in another branch within the group. We were all happy for him, of course, but I also felt like this was finally my chance. I understand this job very well, I have a good relationship with everyone in the office, and I bring in the highest client revenue by a large margin. Also, the 4 managers before him had all come from my exact same position, so it didn't seem like a strange or far-fetched request. I sent an email to my manager and HR saying I wanted my name to be considered, and HR replied that they had noted my interest.

About 10 days later, we were all called into a meeting room and they introduced us to the new manager. A woman I'd never met before, who had never worked at our company before, or even worked in our field. They told us she would bring a fresh perspective and challenge the old way of working. After the meeting, I spoke to my manager, and he simply told me that no one had even asked him who should take his place. He told me that sometimes the partners just choose anyone they have connections with.

That was the moment I understood that I probably wasn't going to advance in this place. I'm useful in my current position because I bring them a lot of money, and if they moved me up, that would create a problem for them. So I spoke to a recruiter and got another offer within 9 days. The salary is a bit lower, and it's still not management, but strangely, I already feel relieved.

Now everyone is acting like I'm the bad guy. My old manager says I'm making his final period awkward because I'm refusing to accept the counteroffers they keep throwing at me. And the new manager, who hasn't even really started yet, has called me several times saying I'm making her fail before she even gets in the door. And my partner thinks this is about the new manager being a woman, not about respect. They didn't even talk to me about the role at all, FFS.

Edit: I'm actively looking for a new job now, as I don't think I'd ever want to go back to my old position. Seven years is a long time, so it's definitely strange starting over and having to think about interviews again.

A friend actually sent me this post with some interview questions worth practicing, and I've been going through them while getting ready for interviews. Figured I'd share it in case anyone else is in the same boat.