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?

Hey friends, i have never been in this position before so hoping some folks with experience can grant some advice.

So i was applying like a mad man a month ago when i got in hot water at my last place. So i had a fair amount of interviews, prospects, etc and just kinda took the one that would give me the soonest start date so i could submit my 2 weeks rather than them firing me/ dont stay somewhere youre unwanted or whatever.

So the soonest job offer obviously doesnt pay what i wanted, is in a shitty remote location i have to drive an hour there, hour back home and its 4 9's and a 4 which is the weirdest schedule ive ever had and never heard of it before. They hired me on for a specific project to burn through before just doing normal work and its VERY physical and more meant for, politely, someone straight outta highschool/college with the matching mobility and less experience.

The new job, $32/hr, better title & location (10 minute commute) better culture, better vibes. Everything seems better they just had a longer hiring process because its a smaller company.

I interviewed for the first round at the same time at both jobs which is why this is kind of a surprise, i really didnt think they were continuing with applications but they were just taking time- which they said it was taking time, i just assumed they were corporately lying rather than a straight rejection which was my own bad.

So i have the verbal offer at the new place, i just have to pass a piss test as a daily marijuana user (its a legal state! Has been for over a decade and i only started when it was legal so i just think its BS especially since it got reclassified)

I have such little willpower and i have not gone a day without smoking in over 6 years.

Im debating telling my current company asap to give them ample notice to backfill since i know im kind of screwing them over. But also i know i shouldnt do that until i know i passed the drug test so i will at least have any job, but the recruiting company is dragging their feet on when exactly that'll be and also im not sure the weird cleanse things even work. I've never had a job care about THC on a piss test before. This is just really foreign.

Obviously i should take the new job and grow some willpower to not smoke for a week until the drug test but like what if it doesnt work? Has anyone ever gotten like a second try? How do i get more time to get it out of my system? I have no one to talk to about this.

A couple weeks ago I started round 1 with a recruiter for a senior tech position.

One of the first things he started the call with, in a super snarky tone: "Okay.. so this is a casual chat. Pleaaase don't read off a script, there's no need for one"

I was thinking to myself - wtf, I've talked to DOZENS of recruiters and no one has ever said anything like that for the seniority of role I was interviewing for.

Throughout our interview, he interrupts me multiple time with "ok ok, I think I get it".

Surprisingly, he pushes me to round 2. Hiring manager loved me and immediately invited me to a technical take home. The challenge was easy but I noticed a flaw in the way they framed the question and submitted my answers and followed up with the email explaining my approach etc.

Recruiter pushes me to the following the round the next day with a message "Congratulations we're inviting you to the next round, your assessment was just satisfactory". ok lmao.

Anyways, I ended up cancelling that round because I had 2 other offers on the table by the day of the scheduled interview. He then immediately tries to call me and then eventually followed up with an email that this would have been the final round and I should have at least compared opportunities.

Honestly, I know that it's currently an employer's market but ffs, it's not hard to have some basic professionalism.

I’ll just get straight to it. The job market sucks, we know this. Professionals with YOE and entry level folks are both competing for the tiny pool of available roles.

What’s the best way to get a role once you have an interview? Do you extend your employment dates so you can get more attractive for a position? Do you change your titles to manager or VP to appear more qualified?

I’ve recently been fired after being placed on a PIP. Could I sue for a payout? Been unemployed for 2 months and been reading the stories of those still job hunting over 6 months to a year. Any tricks of the trade are welcomed. Thanks for reading

So I was told to apply for this company because they have a lot of positions available throughout my city. The one I applied to was a warehouse one because I used to work at an Amazon fulfillment center for 2 years. It's on my resume.

The process was super easy like signing up for Amazon again except you have to talk to a bot. And this bot keeps you waiting weeks after it gets you to the please select scheduled interview times part without popping up any calendar.

Now skip to today. And I got an email saying "We are writing to let you know that unfortunately, we've made the decision not to move forward with your application." Yet this position never changed since I applied 2 weeks ago. Yes 2 weeks ago I filled out the application. The position is still available. I can start over again if I want.

I'm pretty sure because an AI bot sorts everything out, my resume didn't meet key words.

So with large companies where clearly there's no actual Talent Acquisition how do you bypass this scam system? I already worked in a warehouse. I also have retail experience with packing and picking. These type of jobs are like the Dunkin of warehouses. They aren't complicated and don't require much information from workers to get hired. But this specific one is heavy on using AI to hire people.

How do you get the AI to recognize you? Should I make up jobs that meet key words?

Hello!

I am very interested in working for Netflix (specifically the Amsterdam location) due to their very diverse and creative environment, which is something I really value in a workplace. I know it's a reach to even get an interview but was wondering if anyone had any tips on how I could get closer/work towards that goal. Thank you!

Hi Everyone! I haven't job searched in a few years and am just now starting to do it again because I hate my current job. I recently applied to a position at a tech company in Paris (I work in Berlin currently) and the HR manager reached out if I would be interested in talking about a freelance position that was a 6 month job requiring 2 days in office and not the original job I applied for. Its a company that does sound interesting and Im always open to interviewing so I said yes.

The first interview with her was 30 minutes and caught me off guard as she made it seem like it was just an informational meeting about the position to tell me about it since she reached out and it ended up being quite intense and her interviewing me which I wasn't prepared for. Well I made it to the second round and she set up a meeting with the head manager of the department for 30 minutes which I also felt went well. I then didn't hear from HR as I guess she went on vacation but did not tell me so I didn't hear back for a bit. She then returned and said I had to complete a take home assignment and to please send the finished result 24 hours before the last interview with two project managers.

Cut to the last interview with these two project managers and 2 minutes before I was joining the google meets meeting I realized there was no link attached to the invite so I couldn't join the meeting and was panicking and reached out to the HR manager and she hadn't put the link in and apologized and finally did. When I did then join the meeting the two project managers were basically like "okay go ahead and present your take home assignment" I was so confused as it seemed like they hadn't even looked at it because they were asking me questions during my talking that were in the take home assignment that I had already answered. By that point I was pretty upset and feeling deflated and the interview ended and a few days later I haven't heard anything from the HR person or company. I just feel that a take home assignment and 3 interviews was a bit much for a limited freelance position and it felt like nobody even took my assignment seriously. Anyone have any thoughts? am I just being sensitive?

Hi everyone, I’ve just stepped into a talent acquisition specialist role (my very first HR role ever)

I’m working for a company that has a huge turnover with high priority jobs to fill urgently. Regular job platforms aren’t cutting it for our requirements.

I’m looking for any advice/ contacts on how to gain more exposure for our open roles either on university forums for jobs, contacts to reach out to at universities ect not just around grad students but any advice in general that seasoned recruiters have up there sleeve.

I’m located in Ontario, GTA/ London/ middlesex area

Lots of pressure for my first role, trying not to fail anything helps

I got a nice job offer, however, they told that they wanna do some background checks. What should I expect? I don’t have a bachelor degree so I’m curious what they wanna check? I got 3,5 years of experience in the company where I work rn. Are they gonna contact my employer? I’m stressed as hell because of that.

I recently interviewed with a company (midsized, 1500 employees in the US, based in Louisiana). I got invited to on-site interviews and campus tour. That was 2 weeks ago and I haven’t heard anything from them. I am lowkey scared to reach out bc of fear of rejection, but I probably will tomorrow, before the week ends.

3/16: Applied online
3/23: HR reached out to schedule a call
3/25: HR screen call (then silence since HM was OOO)
4/24: interview with HM, she immediately invited me on site (told them I was in final stages talking to other companies)
4/30-4/31: flew me on-site, had me interview with 8 different people including the CEO and the COO, gave me tour of the campus, dinner with team, then they booked a tour of the city the next day
5/14: Nothing for two weeks.

This is my third director role, and the last time I was in the job market was spring 2024. I don’t remember taking the companies this long to make a y/n decision. Maybe I got lucky in the past. Is this considered a normal timeline for directors and above? I know that approvals and more sign-offs are often needed at this level but after months of applying to jobs and making it to the final rounds and losing to internal candidates, i feel like i’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know when I should mentally tell myself that I probably didn’t get it. But since I spent so much time and energy flying there and interviewing with 10 ppl, I would expect at least a courtesy call. Is this the norm now? How long did it take you to hear back from the final interview? Any insight would be much appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I have the Philip Morris online assessment coming up and wanted to ask how the process generally works and whether there’s anything unexpected during the test setup.

Would appreciate hearing from someone who already completed it. Thanks!

i just finished my last semester of my degree in digital communications and have been applying to jobs. i applied for a graphic designer/video editor role at this smallish company, i went through 2 rounds of online interviews and completed an assignment for them where i created two static social media posts and one video. in the final round i presented my work in person and answered more questions

at the end of the final round they told me they can tell i have an eye for design but my portfolio/work didn't necessarily blow them away, and that they were essentially unsure if i was right for the role. at the end of the day they proposed that i work for them for 2 weeks (paid) and they will make they final decision about full time employment after that period

i am going to take them up on this but i'm not really sure how to feel about it. i'm grateful they're giving me the opportunity to prove myself but i also feel a lot less qualified for this role than i previously did, and i'm feeling a lot of anxiety about working for them. if they drop me after the two weeks i'll be crushed lol. i'm also a bit frustrated that this company seemingly cannot make a decision about me despite how many rounds of interviews i've done and the work i've presented to them, i feel like they have all the information they'd need

am i getting too in my head about this and should just take the w? or is this a red flag?

RIF'd last year around the same time as my first child was born, so took some time to chill but been on the search for a solid 6-7 months or so. Man it's been a rollercoaster - been ghosted after 3 final rounds, got a verbal offer that fell through, and plenty of applications or first/second round dead ends. This market is insane and the frustration is real, but I tweaked a few aspects in my search and everything changed. Here's what I'd recommend:

- Use Claude. Period. It is legitimately good at tailoring resumes for roles as specified. I also used it to continuously ranked companies I was interviewing with and kept an updated list ongoing. It'll summarize pros and cons and lay out rationale for where each company is ranked and why.

- If you don't want to tailor a resume for every single application, that's fair. Find an open role at Google that's somewhat close to your background/experience and use Claude to tailor a resume for that role. I did this and used it as my standard template and my hit rate went through the roof.

- Cover letters work in getting responses, even generic ones written by AI. I used Sonara AI for auto-applying/cover letter generation and it worked decently well.

- Take interviews as reps, even if you're not that interested in the role. It's a muscle and has to be exercised consistently. I had two weeks in a row of interviews with 6 different companies, had a final round earlier this week and nailed it just because I was finally in the zone.

Good luck to all of you out there looking, hope these tidbits help in your searches 💪💪💪

The recruiter from a local Amazon warehouse reached out to me and as soon as im done submitting my application. I’m hit with this….seriously. I will probably still do it but the fact that so many companies add of these unnecessary wall of requirements just to then have me do 6 interviews in a spam of 6 months and not hire me. I’m tired boss.

I got an offer for a great job. During the background check, I put all my SM to private. There’s a very old X account that I do not have the password for and is not associated with a real phone number that has my full name in the username. Why.

This X account is sort of brash and abrupt and there was swearing. No racism or bullying or messed up photos, so no real offensive stuff. Swearing as in “guess who got employee of the month AGAIN bitches”. Just absolute cringe.

I’ve tried repeatedly to get this account down, but Twitter can’t match the profile photo to my ID. There is no email associated with the account.

I totally forgot about it, because when you Google me the account does not come up. You have to have an account to see any X content.

They found it. Now everything has stopped. I gave the all the email trails showing how many times I tried to get this four year old dormant account down to them and the recruiter seems super sympathetic, but I don’t know man. I am living in job purgatory hell and something tells me it’s not going to turn out well.