r/JobSearchMethods

I need to type this out or I'm going to spiral all night.

Six weeks ago I got a verbal offer for a senior project manager role. Good company, 30% salary bump, fully remote. The kind of job you tell your family about.

The recruiter called me on a Thursday afternoon. She said "we're very excited, we're just going to do a quick reference check and then we'll send over the formal offer package, should be early next week."

I gave them three references. My former direct manager Lisa. A colleague I had worked closely with for two years. And my old skip-level from a previous company who I thought loved me.

Early next week came. Nothing.

I followed up. "Still working through the reference process, shouldn't be much longer."

Another week. "We're finalizing things on our end."

Then the email. "We've decided to move forward with another candidate. We wish you the best in your search."

I was devastated but I told myself these things happen. I moved on. Kind of.

Fast forward to yesterday. I'm at a birthday dinner for a friend. Her husband works in HR at a completely different company, we've always gotten along. A few drinks in he asks how my job search is going. I tell him the story about the offer that disappeared.

He asks which company. I tell him. His face does something weird.

He goes "oh that's funny, I know someone who interviewed there a few months back and had a similar thing happen." He pulls out his phone. Shows me a LinkedIn message in his inbox from a recruiter at that exact company. A recruiter he knows professionally.

The message is asking if he knows anything about a candidate. My name is in the message.

He had never responded because he didn't know me well enough at the time and didn't want to comment either way.

But he scrolls up and shows me the full message. The recruiter had reached out to him cold because he was listed as a former colleague on my LinkedIn. He was not one of the references I gave them.

The message says "we're doing due diligence on this candidate before extending a formal offer. Any concerns?"

He said he never replied. But someone else they reached out to apparently did.

I sat there with my wine glass halfway to my mouth just completely still.

They didn't just call my references. They went off-list. They found people I didn't choose and called them. And someone I didn't pick, someone I had no idea was in this process, said something that killed my offer.

I have a pretty good idea who it was. There's one person from my LinkedIn history who I had a difficult working relationship with three years ago. We were never enemies exactly but we were not friends. I would never have given her as a reference. But she's listed as a former colleague and her profile is public.

I have no proof. I will never have proof. I cannot call the company and ask because they will not tell me. I cannot confront her because I have no confirmation and it would make me look unhinged.

I just have this sick feeling in my stomach and a job offer that disappeared after a verbal yes.

The thing that's making me crazy is I did everything right. I prepared. I interviewed well. I negotiated professionally. I gave good references. And none of that mattered because they went around me and found someone I didn't even know was in the room.

Does this happen more than people realize? Are companies routinely going off-list and calling people you didn't choose? Because if so nobody talks about this and they absolutely should.

I feel like I've been playing a game where I didn't know all the rules.

I'm sitting at my desk trying not to scream right now so I need to vent here before I do something stupid.

Three weeks ago I got rejected from a senior product manager role after making it to the final round. I was disappointed but moved on.

Yesterday I'm on LinkedIn and I see the company posted about their "exciting new hire" for that exact position. I click out of curiosity.

It's this woman Sarah. Her LinkedIn says she was a "Senior Product Manager at Google for 4 years" before this.

Something felt off so I clicked through to her experience section. It says "Senior Product Manager, Google, 2020-2024."

Here's the thing though - I have a friend who works at Google. We were in a group chat yesterday and I mentioned seeing this, sent him her LinkedIn as a joke like "damn I lost to a Googler."

He goes "That's weird, let me check our directory."

Five minutes later: "Dude, she never worked here. I searched every variation of her name, checked with HR. She's not in our system and never has been."

I'm like what the fuck.

So I dig deeper. Her previous role before "Google" says "Product Lead at Amazon, 2018-2020."

I have another friend at Amazon. I ask him to check. Same thing. She never worked there.

This woman completely fabricated her last two jobs - 6 years of fake experience at two of the biggest tech companies - and got hired for a senior role making probably $150k+.

And nobody checked. They just... believed her LinkedIn.

Meanwhile I've been busting my ass for years building real experience, have references, a portfolio, everything. And I lost to someone who just straight up lied.

I want to report this so badly but I don't even know how. Do I email their HR? Do I stay out of it?

Part of me thinks karma will catch up when she can't do the job, but part of me is furious that she's getting paid six figures for experience she doesn't have while I'm still job hunting.

The job search is already hard enough without competing against people who just make shit up.

Has anyone ever discovered something like this? What did you do? I feel like I'm going crazy.

I need to tell someone about this because I'm so furious I can barely type.

Remember a few weeks ago I posted about interviewing for this senior analyst role? Four rounds of interviews, took half a day off work for the final one, whole presentation, the works.

Got the rejection email two weeks ago. Standard "we've decided to pursue other candidates" bullshit.

Today I'm getting coffee near their office and I run into one of the guys who interviewed me. We chat for a minute and he seems kind of uncomfortable.

He finally goes "Hey, I'm really sorry about how that went. For what it's worth, I voted to hire you."

I'm like "Oh, thanks, I appreciate that."

Then he says something that makes my blood boil: "The whole thing was BS anyway. They'd already decided to promote Rachel internally but HR made them interview external candidates to 'validate' the promotion. You were never really being considered."

I just stared at him.

He keeps going: "Yeah, they needed to show they looked at outside talent before promoting her. You and the other external candidates were basically just there to make the internal promotion look legitimate. Really messed up, sorry you wasted your time."

I did FOUR interviews. Took time off work. Prepared for hours. Turned down other interview opportunities because I thought this was promising.

All so they could check a box for HR and justify promoting someone they'd already decided on before they even posted the job.

I was never a real candidate. I was a prop in their internal politics.

The guy could tell I was pissed and tried to backtrack like "well you never know, maybe it was close" but it was too late. He already told me the truth.

How is this legal? How is it okay to waste people's time interviewing them when you've already made your decision? Just so you can tell HR you "considered external candidates"?

I want to blast them on Glassdoor but I'm worried it'll hurt me professionally. But I'm so angry I can barely think straight.

Has anyone else been a "fake candidate" like this? Is this a common thing companies do?

I had a pre interview / initial interview with a recruiter and it went really well. One week later, they emailed me on saying they’d love to invite me to a follow-up second stage technical interview with a more senior member of the team, they said they’d get back to me by the following day. I replied thanking them for getting back to me and asked some preliminary questions (nothing crazy just if it was online).

I have now not heard back from them since this initial invite email, it’s been over 10 days, and over a week since the date they gave me for sharing more information.

In total I’ve sent three emails in responses, my first initial reply, one towards the end of the first week inquiring about the dates, and one a week later asking for a predicted time frame.

I’m not going to send a fourth one as they are clearly now ghosting me. But is this a common practice in the recruiting world? They invited me for a follow up interview and then never reached out again?

I feel quite disheartened as the initial interview went really well, I was excited about the company and looking forward to this follow up interview.

I’ve realized my biggest problem with job hunting isn’t applying, it’s managing recruiter responses once they start coming in.

Last month I replied to one recruiter 2 days late because the email got buried, and I keep forgetting follow-ups or mixing up LinkedIn and email conversations.

I’ve tried labels/reminders but everything still feels scattered. Do people actually have a system for handling this?

Edit: Finally found a fix, started using Offerflowai to actually track recruiter mail. From what I've seen, It’s basically keeping my follow-ups organized so I don't miss anything now.

I'm having a full panic attack right now and I don't know if I'm overreacting or if my gut is right.

So I accepted a job offer on Friday. Marketing manager role, $92k, good benefits. I was so relieved after months of searching that I signed the offer letter same day.

This morning I'm excited and can't sleep, so at like 6am I'm googling the company just reading about them, getting hyped for my new job.

I click on their Glassdoor page.

3.2 stars. Okay, not amazing but not terrible.

Then I start actually reading the reviews.

Every. Single. Review. From the past 12 months says some version of the same thing:

"High turnover, people leave within 6 months" "Toxic management, everyone is miserable" "They're always hiring because everyone quits" "Don't be fooled by the good salary, you'll earn every penny" "This place is a revolving door"

I go to LinkedIn and search current employees. The entire marketing team has been there less than a year. Every single person.

Then I search former employees. There are 14 people who left the marketing department in the past 18 months.

The role I'm taking has been filled by 4 different people in the last 2 years.

I'm sitting here realizing I'm about to be person number 5, and all those people left for a reason.

But I already signed the offer. I already told my current job I'm leaving. My last day is Friday.

Do I back out? Do I try it anyway and hope it's not as bad as the reviews say?

Part of me thinks maybe I can handle whatever it is, the money is good. But 14 people leaving one department in 18 months? That's not normal right?

I feel so stupid for not checking Glassdoor BEFORE accepting. I was just so desperate to end the job search that I didn't do my due diligence.

Now I'm trapped between a job I'm leaving and a job that might be a nightmare.

Has anyone ignored red flags like this and regretted it? Or am I overreacting to online reviews?

I genuinely don't know what to do and my start date is in 2 weeks.

Reading through some of the posts on here made me remember one of my horror stories for an interview process.

About 4 years after college, so 17 years ago, I went to a job fair that was only open to current students and alumni only. It was almost 2 hours from where I lived by this was just after the 08 crash and I needed a job bad. I drove up to the job fair, I "interviewed" at no less than like 10 tables. 1 place seemed to have all of their stuff out together and actually offered me a more thorough follow up interview the next day. I immediately accepted.

Now i wasnt going to drive back home and back the next day. So i called my cousin to crash at his place, I grabbed some food, went to a Macy's to get some clothes for the follow up (a shirt and tie), went to my cousin's place to study up on the company further and prep for the interview. I woke up early, got ready, went back to campus where they were holding the follow ups to prepare more. The time came, I went to the office early and waited.

Had a great conversation with the interviewer, got a ton of good info. We talked about the company, the culture, the area around the office, housing, the department, position, reporting and evaluation. All of the stuff everyone says to talk and ask about. At the end, we shook hands, expressed our interest in connecting more to further the process and I drove the 2 hours home.

Here comes the kick in the teeth. I waited until Monday morning and sent the follow up, thank you, I cannot wait, it was great to get further insight...the works. Radio silence. I wait a few more days and still nothing. I finally get tired of waiting at the end of week 2 and reach out again. I repeat my expressed my interst and impression of our conversation and added a question about when I could expect some type of response positive or negative. That was on the 2nd Friday after the interview (which was a Friday). On Tuesday the following week the interviewer finally sent a reply of thanks but going with a different candidate. I was floored. I took a couple days to process and then responded with a quick question on what I did wrong and how could I improve for next time. He said I wasn't chosen because I didnt bring a notebook to the follow up interview.

A frigging notebook? I was 2 hours from home. I spent money on food, on clothes, on parking, and it came down to a $2 notebook as the reason I wasn't chosen to move forward. No consideration for someone at the job fair from outside the area. Or taking a follow up on no notice. In hindsight I am so very glad I didnt get the job as a notebook being a deal breaker shows more about the culture than any number of interviews and convos with current and past employees. Their turnover was massive and I wouldn't have lasted.

I was a hiring manager for 6 years. I never told candidates what I'm about to tell you.

I was on the other side of the table for six years. I hired over 200 people across three companies. I sat in the rooms where decisions were made. I watched candidates get rejected for reasons that had nothing to do with their qualifications.

I never talked about this publicly. I felt a little guilty about it honestly. But the market is brutal right now and I think people deserve to know.

So here it is.

The "maybe pile" is where careers go to die.

Every hiring manager has three piles. Yes. No. Maybe.

Everyone talks about getting into the yes pile. Nobody talks about the maybe pile. The maybe pile is the most dangerous place you can be.

Here is what happens to the maybe pile. We review the yes pile first. We schedule interviews. We get busy. We forget about the maybe pile for two weeks. Then HR reminds us the position needs to be closed. We look at the maybe pile. We pick one or two people if we still need them. Everyone else gets a rejection email that says "we decided to move forward with other candidates."

You were qualified. You just were not obvious enough in the first ten seconds. So you went into maybe. And maybe killed you.

The difference between yes and maybe is almost never talent. It is almost always clarity. The yes pile candidates made it immediately obvious they could do the specific job we posted. The maybe pile candidates made us work to figure that out. We did not have time to work. So we moved on.

I used to ignore cover letters completely. Then I started reading them. I wish I hadn't.

For the first four years I never read a single cover letter. I told candidates to submit one but I never opened them. Most hiring managers I know do the same.

Then one quarter we were hiring for a senior role and I was really struggling to choose between two finalists. My colleague said read their cover letters. So I did.

One of them had written a cover letter that was clearly a template. "I am writing to express my interest in the Senior Marketing Manager role at your esteemed company." It had the wrong company name in the second paragraph. They had forgotten to update it.

The other one was two short paragraphs. No formal greeting. No "I am writing to express." Just: here is the exact problem you are trying to solve, here is the one time I solved that exact problem, here is the result. Done.

I hired the second person. They were outstanding.

Here is the thing though. That cover letter barely mattered. Because by the time I read it I had already decided she was a finalist. The cover letter just confirmed what her resume already showed. Her resume was so clear and specific that she never ended up in the maybe pile.

Cover letters do not save bad resumes. They can only confirm good ones.

The conversation that happened after you left the interview.

I want to tell you what happens in the room after you walk out.

You finish your interview. You shake hands. You leave. Then four people sit around a table for fifteen minutes and talk about you.

Here is what they actually say. They do not say "her Python skills were impressive." They say "could you see her doing this job." They do not say "his resume had great metrics." They say "did he seem like someone you would trust to own this."

It is emotional. It is gut based. It is not fair. But it is real.

The candidates who make it through are the ones who made the interviewers feel something specific. Confidence. Calm. Clarity. Not nervousness. Not trying too hard. Not over-explaining every answer.

The number one thing that killed candidates in my debriefs was rambling. Someone asks you a question and you talk for four minutes. By minute two I have stopped listening. I am just waiting for you to finish. Then I write "unclear communicator" in my notes.

Answer the question. Stop. Wait for the next one.

Why we ghosted you. The honest answer.

I am not proud of this.

Sometimes we ghosted candidates because we filled the role and HR forgot to send the rejection emails. That is a process failure and it is on us.

But sometimes we ghosted candidates because we had a conversation internally that we did not want to put in writing. Something like "she was great but she seemed like she might leave in a year." Or "he was technically strong but I'm not sure he would fit with the team lead." We could not say those things officially. So we said nothing.

I know that is awful to hear. But silence is sometimes the answer that protects the company legally while also being the most human thing we had left to offer. We did not want to lie to you. We did not want to open a conversation we could not finish honestly. So we went quiet.

If you got ghosted after a final round, it was probably something said in a debrief that nobody could put in an email. It almost certainly was not about your skills.

The thing I started doing differently in my last year.

In my last year as a hiring manager I changed how I ran the process. I was tired of watching good candidates disappear into the system.

I started looking at rejected applications myself once a week. Not the ones the ATS filtered out. The ones that made it through but got sorted into no by my team. I found three people we had rejected who I thought were clearly strong. I called them. I interviewed them. I hired two of them. They were both excellent.

The system missed them because their resumes did not match our keywords precisely. But they were right for the role. I almost never found them.

I tell this story because I want you to understand something. The system is not designed to find the best person. It is designed to reduce the workload of finding a good enough person quickly. Those are very different goals.

Your job is not to be the best. Your job is to not get filtered out before a human sees you.

Format your resume so the machine can read it. Match your title to the exact words in the posting. Put your real skills in a clean list. Use tools like CVnomist or Hyperwrite if you are applying at volume and burning out on the tailoring. I would have used them if I were on your side of the table.

Get past the filter. Then be yourself.

I left that job eight months ago. I am job hunting now.

I know how it works from the inside and I am still finding it hard. The market is genuinely difficult. Companies are cautious. They want exact matches. They are not taking chances on potential the way they used to.

But I also know that the filter is beatable. I have seen it beaten. I have watched people with imperfect backgrounds get through because their resume was clear, their keywords matched, and they made the interviewer feel something in the room.

You are not up against a perfect system. You are up against an overwhelmed human using an imperfect tool.

Help them find you. That is the whole game.

I've been applying for a couple of months now and haven't made it past an initial screening call. Most of what comes back is auto-rejection from LinkedIn or a company portal, with no context.

And it's not like I haven't taken any action to course-correct. I went back to my university's learning and development team, sat with mentors from the same industry, and we reviewed my CV thoroughly. We went deep, understood what a hiring manager would want to see, and then reframed my sentences accordingly.

Then I even tried going through a recruitment agency to get my CV in front of companies directly. That didn't move the needle either.

At this point I'm not sure if the problem is the CV, the roles I'm targeting, or whether any of it is even reaching a human before something filters it out. That last part is what I keep coming back to.

Has anyone actually figured out what changed their response rate? Not the usual advice. What worked for you specifically?