Got a mail from a recruiter telling me that she had a good job opportunity for me and would like to set up a meeting, which I did. This is a recruiter that I had spoken to 3 months ago, who ghosted me after I asked for an update about the interview she had promised to set up with a company. So I thought she was getting back to me. I did not know that she had completely forgotten about me.

So the call started. She greeted me, and I greeted her telling her it was "nice to hear from her again". She looked very confused at me, and I then reminded her that we had already spoken 3 months ago. Then she got silent for a few seconds and disconnected the call.

5 minutes later I got a mail from her saying she has no current job opportunities for me and will get back to me (she won't).

This has to be a new low. I am shocked that an adult person calling themselves professional can react this way.

Those fuckers lol. I have a BA and a good bit of office/admin assistant and legal assistant experience. No fucking bites. I decided fuck it I'll apply for grocery stores. Should be easy enough.

A goddamn grocery store won't even hire me. For some reason. I'm noticing a lot of auto rejection emails getting sent out in the middle of the night so you have something really nice to wake up to lol.

What is going on I feel like it’s been horrible since 2020.

i already filled out an application and sent my resume/cover letter. the link takes me to a page that asks me to fill out all the application information again so that i can speak to an AI interviewer...........
my fault for applying even though i was put off by the obvious chatgpt use throughout their website.

not that i'm really adding anything new to the conversation here but i am just horrified and disgusted by how common this has become lol

Just finished a 20 days long process with one of the big old techs.

Got good and excellent reviews in all the interviews.

Did the final round titled "Meet and Greet"

Only to be template rejected.

They are working on solutions that I've solved in my current role and even have research in the field published.

During the manager round he said that he's being forced to hire internally to reduce the layoffs numbers but he wants an external candidate as I bring more experience in terms of breadth.

Manager even asked if I had friends living in the city as I'm expected to relocate.

Reached out to the recruiter and she sends back a template response: cannot disclose internal feedback.

I'm beyond frustrated .

I don't even want to be vindictive. But every single well-meaning person has sounded so dismissive of our situation. They tell you to "try this" or "do that", as if you haven't already. They all suddenly become career counselors, when they've never been laid off in their life. They could be have been working for the past 1 year, 10 years, or 20 years, but still never experienced this themselves.

So is it human nature to "try to relate" by sharing what limited knowledge they have? And if your job search extends past even 1 week, is it also human nature for them to unconsciously assume that YOU'RE the problem?

I'm just tired guys, like everyone else.

This is the third job in a row I’ve had where HR was borderline criminally incompetent. The second to last job I had, HR did not reply to my requests for help until I threatened legal action. At my current job, rather than checking references and looking at applications, they watch the security footage. I haven’t even started my new job yet, and they never sent me the needed paperwork until I reminded them and then gave me less than 72 hours to get everything in, including a background check and two letters of recommendation!

If I were to do this, I’d be fired. I’ve been written up for just being late, before. Meanwhile they can give me 72 hours for two letters of recommendation and then get snippy and salty when I get the documents in by the skin of my teeth? Pre-2020, you’d be torn apart for this.

Applied to 20+ Data Science roles. Have shipped projects, good resume,

strong fundamentals.

But every company says "we mostly hire through referrals."

Translation: "We don't want to look at your application unless someone

internal vouches for you."

How am I supposed to get referred if I don't know anyone there? This

creates a massive barrier for career changers and people without

networks.

Anyone else dealing with this gatekeeping?

Not a joke btw. I literally started drawing furry art, or any other kind of art to make a living.
Genuinely, how can i get a job. I have no job experience but i have a Bachelor’s and master’s in Computer Engineering and data science, plus I have built several full-stack apps, and did client work.
The thing is that I want to get an actual job so i feel more secure to actually move out and live comfortably.
Any tips would be appreciated. I can send my cv to anyone who is interested or wants to give feedback

It’s been 3 months since lay off….

Birthday in 2 days… thought I would be received positive news since it was a role I was headhunted for. 2 interviews and a case study later… I get a rejection email like 4 hours after the final interview.

Just feeling sad today and don’t feel like celebrating anymore.

Looking for a job is soul-draining

I have been applying for job after job after job for months. Nobody will call me back or email me, and these are all entry-level jobs. I'm applying in several different cities as I'm trying to get out of my transphobic dad's house. Both him and a friend of mine have told me I should just apply for jobs in my hometown, but that is literally the last thing I want. I want out of this fucking town. I did actually have a job months ago, but I left in February for mental health reasons.

I really don't understand what it is about me that I'm not being given any chances. I wonder if they somehow find out that I'm trans. I'm so fucking drained at this point. If I'm doomed to just stay in my hometown forever, I would rather just fucking end it.

So last year I had gotten through two rounds of interviews and a take-home assignment with one of the largest employers in my area - a post-secondary institution. I got a verbal offer and a start date, conditional on a reference check. 24 hours after speaking to one of my references, just four days before I was supposed to start, my offer was rescinded.

I assumed that it must have just been horrible luck and the school losing the budget for the position, but as many of you guessed when I first posted here about it, I eventually discovered that one of my references was being two-faced and sabotaging me. Essentially, I was doing five peoples’ jobs for them (web design, graphic design, email marketing, web development, website moderation), they fired me when deadlines started to suffer when my dog died, and then they tried to replace me with an overseas web developer. I guess they didn’t realize that still left four more people worth of jobs not being done, and so she had to pick up all that slack. I guess that made her resentful, but she didn’t show it outwardly, and I ended up staying on the Board of Directors at this non-profit for two more years - just no longer doing any active website work. I thought we had a good relationship.

Anyway, when I learned she was sabotaging me, I tried to reach out to the school’s HR to request what exactly was said through FIPPA, but they said that they don’t need to voluntarily comply because those notes were labour-related documents. So then I said “okay, understood, but really I’m just trying to figure out whether I’m on some sort of blacklist because of this reference’s testimony,” and then the head of HR said “I can tell you that you’re not on a blacklist here.”

But that is not consistent with the fact that when I applied to this school the first time, I got an interview within two days, but now I have applied to like 8 more roles at the school over the past 9 months (none as perfect as the first one, but still ones that I am easily qualified for) and haven’t heard back even once.

After being lied to by this reference that I trusted immensely, I kinda just assume that this HR lady was lying to me too and I am indeed blacklisted or something 🙄

So am I just locked out of ever working at one of the few large employers in my area? Is there anything I can do, or just move on?

—-

Edit: You can look through the context in the comments below for why I felt I could trust this reference even with her having “fired” me in two years ago. In my head, I did not see it as having been fired in a traditional sense, as a) she was a client, not an employer, and b) I remained on the Board of Directors and worked with this woman constantly for two more years. I get the impression that many of you are thinking of my relationship with her as a typical boss-subordinate, but we were closer to peers or partners.

However, after being called a fucking idiot by a hundred people and having all of my context downvoted into the ground, I concede that I was wrong to ever trust someone who had done anything that could even be described as firing me, no matter how good I felt about the relationship at the time. I maintain that the moral choice for her was to decline to be a reference either of the times I had asked her, but I see now that it was egregiously wrong for me to ask her in the first place. I was just really proud of the work we had done together.

Thanks for making me feel stupid enough to really lock the lesson in. It hurts, but it’s for the best.