r/recruitinghell

It's been well documented that very few people are actually getting hired. The latest job report states that only 29,000 jobs were added last month. That's less than 600 jobs per state.

I recently spoke to a friend who had SIX rounds of interviews for an entry level role paying less than 50k/year. They were ghosted after two months.

The only reason I can imagine this madness exists is that recruiters know the company isn't hiring, but they can't just sit around twiddling their thumbs in their office. They've decided to fill their calendars to "meet prospective candidates" or to "build a network for future candidates" as a way to argue that they are valuable to their employer.

Several people have told me that having 5+ interviews is justifiable and normal, but this hasn't been the norm. Every job I've accepted has been at most 3 interviews. What are recruiters going to learn about a candidate in the sixth interview that they haven't already learned in the first five? Are they trying to measure how many PTO days we're willing to sacrifice to do yet another interview?

At my last internship, I met a guy in his 40s. Worked in the IT department for the past 20-something years. Asked him about his career a bit. He studied physics in uni, then worked at a supermarket for a bit, then got into the IT department of that company (this is a large company btw). I asked and he said he barely used a computer before getting hired; computers weren't that common in my country in the early 2000s.

Can you even imagine that? A guy studied physics, with absolutely no coding experience, gets hired in IT. I am not insulting the guy he seems to know his stuff now but no way in hell someone like him gets hired in IT now.

This isnt even the only example I have. One guy I met worked on the design team at a vehicle manufacturing company. He mostly works with CAD programs. He said he was terrible at CAD before starting. He studied EE but didn't really use CAD before getting that job.

Last interview I had was with a company that makes heavy-duty racks for warehouses. Rejected because I am not familiar with rack designs.

I just wanted to hear that there are other people out there that have a gap and are struggling too. 5+ years marketing experience, MBA, hundreds of applications, 6 total interviews - some ghosted, some too selective, and still no offers. Recruiter calls in the pipeline, but will they ghost too? Time will tell.

I need to vent about this interview process because I still can’t believe how it ended.
A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn. I wasn’t even seriously looking for a new job, but I decided to give it a shot. Four months later, here’s what I went through:
Recruiter call – 30 minutes
Technical assessment – Around 20 technical questions and practical scenarios sent by email. I completed everything and emailed my answers back. Took about 2 hours.
Hiring manager interview – 1 hour
Interview with two team members – 1 hour
Quantitative test and behavioral interview – 3 hours
Interview with the hiring manager’s boss – 1 hour
Onsite interview in Dallas – They flew me out and covered my hotel, rental car, and food. I interviewed with 5 different people from 9 AM to 3 PM, with a one-hour lunch break.
After all that, I got rejected.

The recruiter told me they had some technical concerns about my experience (after 7 rounds) but couldn’t provide specific examples of what those concerns were. Apparently, they also felt I wasn’t interested enough in the company and couldn’t give a good reason for wanting to leave my current situation.

My wife is about to start her master’s degree, and most of our family lives in Texas. I wanted to move to be closer to family while she goes to school. That was one of my reasons from the beginning, and I never tried to hide it.

I’m honestly not even mad that I didn’t get the job. It’s the amount of time and effort that went into this process, only to receive such vague feedback at the end.

I have been job searching for roughly 6 months to try to get out of retail hell. For reference, I finished a bachelor’s in psychology last year and an HR certificate this year.

Over these last few months, I have applied for over 100 jobs and I learned so much throughout this process. For starters, please everyone keep a spreadsheet of the jobs you are applying to, what company it is for, where you saw the application, if you got ghosted, interviewed, rejected or accepted, it truly makes a world of a difference. Additionally, as annoying and repetitive as it is, tailoring your resume to the job description and requirements helps a ton.

This past week, I don’t know what the hell happened but I received emails and calls from four different positions I applied for. This led to me having three interviews on the same day and I genuinely could feel the stress in my body that day, it was insane. Anywho, out of the three interviews there was one job I wanted the most and that was the third interview of the day. I went in there and during the interview I fumbled over my words a few times and was very obviously anxious. Then, they asked me to take five different assessments after the interview and I messed up on one pretty bad I thought. I kept replaying the interview in my head over and over and I just genuinely felt like I blew it.

Within two days, I get contacted by the job I wanted saying they wanted to make an offer. I was absolutely shocked. Of course, I did accept it and now I can finally start a career in something I’m actually interested in.

I just want to be your reminder to continue to push foward. I had many days where I felt like it was hopeless to keep trying and that I could never make a breakthrough. Often, I would get rejected or ghosted without getting the opportunity to interview. Then, if I did get an interview all I could focus on was what I could have improved. I promise guys, if I can get out, so can you!! Good luck to everyone continuing to job search!

About two months ago, I (21M) made a post talking about how mentally draining it was when my parents blamed me for not finding a job, despite listening to everything they tell me to do. Well, today it seems to have finally reached a boiling point for my mom.

Because of the stress of not finding a job and other aspects in my life, it's been affecting my school work, and when I told her that I wasn't doing to good, she flipped. She's been saying I've been living off her for too long, that other kids have jobs and careers, that I'm not actually trying (despite the fact she's seen me leave and come back from interviews), and that fact that I just stay in my room. She now wants me to pack my things a live with my dad, which honestly is for the best since I don't feel safe with her.

Crazy part is that I'm not even mad anymore, It's just funny at this point. Jobs will really never give you a chance, and you have to bare with the consequences with those around you. She's still telling to just walk into places and ask for a job, even though I keep telling her that doesn't work these days, hence why I'm in my room all day just applying anywhere I can. I'm hoping this ends soon, but all I know is when I do get any job, I don't wanna hear her cheering me on saying she had faith when she clearly didn't.

It just makes me ask so many questions:

- Is the employer unwilling to train someone on their own systems?

- Does the employer think people are dumb and cannot learn from such training?

- Does the employer think that if someone is trained on a system, that same system must carry them the rest of their career? No pivots?

- Do they not understand they are turning away extremely competent individuals who are qualified?

In my FIFTEEN YEARS of experience I have NEVER seen someone take more than a week to be trained on ANY system, especially ones where the system does the exact same shit other systems do.

It just seems like a really anachronistic way of doing a job posting where maybe employers had more leverage in the past, but nowadays its wildly tone deaf.

I’m in the last year of my MBA and recently made it to the final round for a job I’d absolutely accept. It was in person, so I made the 1.5-hour commute.

The interviewer opens with: “Who are you? Why are you here? I didn’t get a chance to look at your resume.” Lol. I play it off, and we have a normal 15-20 minute conversation.

Then things get weird.

Important: They work in private wealth, but I was interviewing for a corporate role in a completely different department. I mentioned that I was interested in the corporate role because it involved more strategy work.

It feels like they lost the plot mid-interview and thought I was interviewing for private wealth (WHICH I WASNT) and spent the next 10 minutes telling me why I wasn’t a good fit, how the work was more technical, and that they weren’t hiring MBA interns (?), the position I’m interviewing for is FT, and more.

I’m sitting there thinking, Did I completely misunderstand the position?

At the end I said, “Sorry, maybe there was a miscommunication, but I believe I’m interviewing for XYZ, not private wealth.” They immediately got flustered and explained they had somehow ended up interviewing me instead of someone else.

I had already completed two interviews for this exact position before this experience.

I’m still so confused. Has anyone experienced something like this? I’m pissed bc I want this job and I’m waiting to hear back but no way the interviewer is going to say good things about me.

I’m looking for a job in project management or business analysis. No one helps me ever. I’m so alone in this and I feel like this is THE WORST humiliation ever.

I hate myself so much. I wish having a job was not that difficult so I would not need other people.

Edit : comments are proving my point. If you’re looking and struggling people will blame u and be negative. Reddit is becoming a lost cause full of 🗑️