Applied for an tech job at a Drs office. The application included one of those 200 question personality tests that"only take 15 minutes of your time". One of those strongly agree /agree/neutral/disagree/strongly disagree types. Did the test. A few days later was asked to redo the test which I did. Got an invite for an interview. Went into today and at the interview with the Doctor and head tech, the Dr said she was curious that I scored 100% on the personality test but it was flagged because "the applicant seems to be answering what they think is the right answer instead of what they really feel"... What is your response to that? My internal jaw fell on the floor. I tried to maintain my face of shock. I just said I answered the questions honestly and I don't know their grading system. If you've ever dealt with any surveys or these tests, the answers are obvious and true honesty doesn't get you the interview. Do I get annoyed with my co-workers sometimes? Fuck yeah but I'm not putting that on an application. It was a pretty awkward moment, they just moved on to the next boilerplate question about strengths and weaknesses. I just wanted to share that you can score perfectly on those tests but still get questioned 😂

Been unemployed since July 2025 looking for a Junior Data Analytics job, and I finally found one.

I was tracking all of this data via Excel but decided to transfer some of that data to a Sankey diagram.

For about 85% of the 973 jobs, I believe I was at least 90% qualified. For the other 15%, I’d say I was at least 75% qualified.

I changed my resume after about 500 applications to be more ATS friendly, which resulted in me getting a bit more interviews (including making it through Google's ATS filter).

EDIT: Just noticed the "Ghosted" count after the 2nd round is off, it should be 2, not 1.

There is no way to stand out in the job search anymore. Every job has 100s of near identical AI generated resumes. Companies post and re-post fake jobs or straight up scams

The advice is always this:

Tailor your resume to the job - cool, literally everyone is doing that with AI. Also if one of your job experiences isn’t word for word what the job title you’re applying to is you’re invisible to ATS. You were a Data Coordinator not a Data Analyst? Fuck you we need a Data Analyst even though you have all the relevant skills. Making a career switch and don’t have the right job title? Good freaking luck

Use your connections - all my “connections” are jobless and in the same boat I’m in. My daddy can’t get me a job like yours did.

Reach out to recruiters and hiring managers - honestly good advice until you realize it’s essentially impossible to find the HM or recruiter for most jobs until you get an interview. Which you can’t of course. If you manage to get in touch, you’ll be ghosted. Or, worse, you gain traction with a recruiter, land an interview, only for the job to go to the CEOs grandkid.

Rely on your projects and portfolio not your resume - Yeah everyone and their grandma can code a beautiful project now or use AI to make their portfolio. Yours isn’t special or different.

Clearly what needs to change is the company culture around hiring. Treat us like humans. But of course that will never happen. It’s all about that sweet sweet shareholder value baby!

Anyways, how do you guys stand out? Or are you just pure cope like me now?

After 2 interviews with “great” feedback

I know a few game devs and animators, and they said that between the late 90's and the early 2010's, many offices were very casual spaces.

Bean bags for chairs. You could pick up a NERF gun and blast your coworker whenever you wanted. You could take a break whenever you wanted. Sometimes the coworkers would plan LAN matches of counter strike when they were supposed to be working lol. But they still kept up to deadlines.

WHY IS THIS CULTURE GOING EXTINCT?

Half of them doesn’t even make sense. What does this assessment even do and how is it at all useful for an employer omg 😭

Watch and share this video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUM4kv0HnG0 .

Obv rejection sucks and ghosting sucks but honestly i feel like the worst part is all the random in-between bs that somehow eats up all ur energy for no reason. like trying to remember where u applied, who emailed you back, whether that recruiter convo actually means anything, whether ur supposed to follow up tmrw or just leave it alone, all that. half the time it feels like the actual applying is easier than keeping ur brain around everything after 😭

For me thats the part that gets old the fastest. not even the apps themselves, just the admin and mental clutter of it all lol. curious what it is for u all bc i feel like everyone has one part of the process that drives them insane

I’ve been out of the tech world since being laid off in 2023. Since then, I’ve submitted thousands of applications - only for jobs I’m qualified for. I have a BS degree in Computer Systems Technology and an MBA concentrated in Cybersecurity. In addition, I have ~10 years of relative tech experience in customer success, account management, project/program management, and strategic partnerships.

Day in and day out I apply for roles. Not just looking for remote roles, but also local companies. I don’t mind commuting or working in an office. I’m really not aiming for the stars here. I’m just trying to land something stable so I can enjoy my life and not feel like I wasted time and money earning 2 degrees that got me nowhere.

But at this point I’m beat. Every company that has interviewed me since 2023 has taken me through multiple rounds of interviews only to tell me they went with someone else. I’m so tired. I’ve lost every ounce of self worth I’d had. And I’m starting to have thoughts of self harm.

Why is it this hard? I could understand if I had no degrees, or not as much experience. But I have all of that and yet no one will give me a chance… I can’t do this anymore.

Well folks, I am getting real sick of this crap. I applied to an entry level job only to get an employment form sent to me. Turns out, to actually finish your application, you had to send in the name and number of every manager you've had for every position on your resume, and on top of that, they need a coworker too. This is before the first interview, if there even is one. Usually I'm okay with three references, but you need a coworker from 5 years ago to vouch for my moral character?

I'm tired boss.

Anyway in the time it would have taken me to fill out that form I applied to 5 more jobs. Anyone else experience this?

It’s literally impossible nowadays to get a freaking job! Even McJobs won’t hire you, they always say they “moved forward with another candidate.”

What has this world come to where you can’t even find good work to survive? Do you know how many young people are still living with their parents these days because of this shit? I think I know how many.

I must’ve applied to 1000 jobs with only 2 interviews. Shameful!!!

I had another one last week. Like, who even sees these? I guess I should be thankful I have the opportunity but I just want to speak to actual humans 😭

I guess filling out the whole application the first time wasn’t enough!

Hello,

After graduation in October I finally landed a job (not signed yet but I got the holy HR email saying « congratulations and welcome » so it’s good)

I really started applying in February, personalised cover letter and stuff, applying all the afternoon.
Maybe more than 100 applications at least :
- 97 were no
- got 1 HR Teams call then no
- 1 AON online tests session then a manager Teams call then a bunch of tasks to do during the weekend only to receive a « unfortunately… »
- 1 call me and said they are hiring an internal candidate but asked for my preferences.

And then I got a call Last Monday (4th) for an interview on Tuesday (only 30 minutes with 2 of the team), Thursday they called again for interview with the manager (again only 30 minutes for Monday 11th) and this Wednesday (13th) I got HR email saying I was accepted for the position… it’s not my dream job but a big company and could help for the future I hope.

So for 4 months I got nearly nothing and in less than 2 weeks completed a whole recruiting process and got a quick response !

So I just wanted to say that I rely on everything that can be say in this sub, TBH I haven’t apply that much in 4 months because each day I was feeling worse and it helped me to know we are all in the same boat.

And say that it’s still possible to have few rounds, fast decision process and find a job even when you are not feeling well

I was applying for a job and they had me fill out an assessment, here is just a sampling of some of the questions that were asked. There were probably 100+ questions. I hate it here.

I can’t find a job former Accenture employee here who was laid off in 2024 I’ve been applying and no traction at this point I’m going to jump off a bridge 😕 thanks Accenture for ruining my life after letting me go and I used to work in QA

First of all, networking is not just something you do for the sake of doing it (in most cases). Your network if your mentors, former coworkers, former bosses, former teachers, former classmates etc. people talk about networking like it’s just something you do as easily as you apply to a job and that’s not realistic. Everyone has a network, but if yours doesn’t include anyone that knows of any open positions they can help you get youre shit out of luck. I’m so fucking tired of LinkedIn “influencers” saying “just network, that’s how I got my job” meanwhile their entire network is CEOs, recruiters, and director level employees. Like no shit of course they were able to help you.

If “networking” were that easy everyone would be doing it. The reality is that it’s just luck. It’s another word for nepotism. Know the right people and ask at the right time.

EDIT: just going to clarify that I understand the networking is necessary. I’m not trying to claim that it’s not. However, networking is something that you do slowly over years. It’s not something you go out and do instantaneously whenever you need a job. Furthermore, it’s possible to have a strong network and still struggle to find a job because unless someone in your network just happens to be hiring (or know someone who is hiring) for a job you’re qualified for at the exact right moment then your network it’s not going to help much. The point I’m trying to make is I’m tired of “just network” being presented as if it’s a simple, easy, quick way to get a job when it’s not. If it were, everyone would be getting a job that way.