r/BehindHiring

As someone who has been on the job hunt desperately before I'm shocked to see how candidates aren't trying harder. I'm on a hiring team, but not the hiring manager, and I would be working in partnership- extremely close - with this position.

So far every candidate hasn't asked me one question- nothing about how we'd be working together or my thoughts about the company. Nothing. Only 1 has sent a thank you email to follow up. Only 2 looked me up on LinkedIn. Only about half dressed professional.

As much as I know first hand how bad and competitive the job market is, you'd think people would try a bit more when there's 100s of other qualified candidates.

On a related note, we were hiring for my position in a different department so I have a ton of connections on LinkedIn that do what I do. When I would see them recommend their colleagues who had been recently laid off, I would comment for them to reach out to me and that I could get their resume in front of a hiring manager. I wanted to pay it forward since I remember how frustrating job searching is. Not one person reached out.

It's hard to feel bad for people who won't help themselves.

I'm trying to get back into tech, and one of the things I have going against me is my first job I only spent 6 months there.

I don't know how to explain that I left my previous company because it was a scam, was worried some of the things they were doing behind the scenes was illegal, etc.

I want to be honest but if it's screwing me in interviews then I'm willing to say something else, I just don't want to say something as robotic as "it wasn't a good cultural fit".

Please help? If want more information I cam DM about it.

Idk if its job seeker’s fatigue, but mentally I’m somewhere between “I NEED A JOB” and “MY TIME IS MORE VALUABLE” because the application requirements are absolutely ridiculous. From creating a NEW account for every application, filling out employment history AFTER i just uploading my resume, and required cover letters?? (What year is this 2004??) And its truly a constant battle i deal with. I dont even care anymore.

Am i the only one?

What job application friction hurdles are you all jumping over just to be lowballed on the salary? I really want to know! 😂** **

(Sorry if this comes off as a rant. 😮‍💨. Maybe it is. I havent had coffee in days 😆😆)

I have recruiters from Netflix, United Talent Agency, Disney, and NBCU look at my Linkedin profile. So I know they saw my application, looked at my resume, and then bothered to check out my profile on Linkedin. Why didn't they bother to schedule an interview? Anyone have any insight here?

I used to think “we’ll get back to you” means the interview went well.

But after a few interviews, I realised it can mean many things.

Sometimes they are still interviewing other candidates.
Sometimes the role is on hold.
Sometimes your profile is good, but someone else matched better.
Sometimes salary expectation becomes the issue.
And sometimes, companies just don’t update candidates properly.

One mistake I made earlier:
I stopped applying after a good interview because I was waiting for that one HR response.

Now I follow this rule:

If there is no update in 2–3 working days, I send one polite follow-up.
But I don’t stop applying until I get the offer letter.

Has this happened to anyone else?
What was the reason in your case?

At one of the companies I worked for, I didn't have the best relationship with my manager. This manager gave me a below average performance review rating ("meet most expectations") while before I reorg'd to their team, I always got "exceed expectations" (at the same company). A couple of months after that performance review, I found another job and resigned. I was never put on PIP or anything. And nothing more dramatic happened.

Recently, I accepted an offer and am going through background check, including an employment history check. I'm not sure if this company marked me as "ineligible for rehire" because of what happened or whether the background check company will ask about eligibility for rehire. But I would like to understand, if they did and it came up during the background check, how bad would it look? Is it bad enough that my new employer will rescind the offer? TIA!

Here's the thing. The offer they give you first is rarely the best they can do. But most people accept it anyway because they don't know how to push back without feeling awkward.

So here's what actually works.

Know your number before the conversation starts. Not a feeling, actual market data. Glassdoor, LinkedIn, people in your network. Walk in prepared.

Lead with what you delivered, not what you need. Nobody on the other side of that table cares about your expenses. They care about your impact. Revenue, savings, results. That's your leverage.

Don't just negotiate the base. Sometimes the base is genuinely stuck. But the bonus, equity, extra leave, flexibility often isn't. Know what the full package looks like before you decide yes or no.

Ask questions before you name a number. What does success look like here? How are reviews structured? Is there flexibility in the budget? You'd be surprised what people tell you when you just ask.

Stay calm. Seriously. The moment it gets emotional, you've already lost ground. This is a business conversation not a personal one. Treat it like one.

I was put on PIP by my previous employer, one of the big four. However, I have resigned without a job offer before they could remove me on the basis of PIP failure. I have started applying for new jobs. My question is in case if I accept an offer from a company in the near future, it is obvious that they will conduct a background check. Will the new company find out about my PIP and whether this could affect my offer?

Most of us have that one part of our career we feel we need to explain. A pivot that looked odd. A role that did not fit the usual path. And every time we talk about it, we clean it up. Make it sound more planned.

Because the system always rewarded the predictable story.

But here is what he pointed out.

He called it onlyness.

Think about it this way. AI can copy the standard. It cannot copy you. And the more specific and unusual your path, the harder you are to replace.

And here is how you actually use that.

First, stop hiding the parts that felt unconventional. That pivot. That industry switch. That role nobody quite understood. Those are not gaps in your story. Those are the best parts of it.

Second, learn to tell your story in a way that makes the connection obvious. Not your job titles in order. But what each move taught you and why that matters now. 

Third, lead with what you uniquely bring. Not your title. Not your years of experience. The specific combination of perspective and judgment that only your path could have built.

That is your onlyness. And that is what makes you genuinely hard to replace.

If this made you think differently about your career story, share it with someone who needs to hear this right now. And follow for more conversations like this. 

I was in a in-person final round and I saw a virtual interviewer’s slack (dept head) and it said, “I don’t think (my name) is the right fit” pop up.

I was pretty disheartened when I read it and the other interviewer (future direct boss) in the room quickly closed the slack and kept the interview going.

How knowledgeable is a recruiter about the job they are interviewing us for? I asked if she could walk me through a typical day. I got a very generic one sentence answer. She then kind of rushed me off and I didn't feel comfortable asking a second question. I thought we were supposed to take an interest and ask 1-2 questions.

Next semester I’ll be studying in Switzerland as an international student. The school I chose is a small private institution, not really prestigious or globally recognized. It’s more of an expensive private “boarding school” type environment than a top academic powerhouse.

When I was choosing where to go, I talked to several professors and mentors I genuinely respect in finance/business. Most of them told me not to obsess too much over prestige for a semester abroad. Their point was that an exchange is temporary, you don’t actually graduate from that institution, and the return on investment of paying massively more just for four months at a top school usually isn’t that high(prices above 15-20k semester tuition not including housing/food expenses)

They told me I should see it more as an international experience: meeting people, building a network, growing personally, improving culturally/socially, and getting a broader perspective rather than trying to maximize prestige for such a short period of time.

So I followed that advice.

For context, I’m currently in my seventh semester and one semester away from graduating. I study finance/business, I’ve been preparing for the CFA, I’ve done some smaller certifications and courses like CFI and Harvard Business School Online, and I’ve tried to build technical skills outside of class too.

But now I keep overthinking the whole thing.

Part of me feels like I wasted money choosing a smaller unknown school instead of trying harder to go somewhere “elite” like London Business School, Bocconi, LSE, etc.

I keep wondering if those names would’ve actually made a significant difference on my CV for recruiting, or if a four-month exchange at a prestigious institution doesn’t really carry that much weight compared to internships, technical skills, networking, certifications, interview performance, and all the other things that matter in finance.

The only real upside I can currently see is that the environment seems very international and wealthy, so maybe the networking aspect could still become valuable long term.

I guess I’m trying to figure out whether I’m catastrophizing this decision or if exchange prestige genuinely matters a lot in finance recruiting.

It could have made a great difference being just 4-6 months on a top school for my CV/recruitment process in a job? Or it’s not that significant/important :c

You’re good at your job. Everyone around you knows it. So why does your resume make you look average. This is the most common thing I see when people come to me for help.

1. The people who are best at their jobs are usually the worst at talking about them.

When you’ve been doing something for years it stops feeling like a skill it just feels like Tuesday. So you write it down like it’s nothing and move on without realising that the thing that feels obvious to you is the exact thing someone else has been trying to hire for months.

2. They describe what the role involved instead of what they actually did.

Responsible for. Assisted with. Supported the team. That’s not a resume that’s a job description. Anyone who held that title could have written it and that’s exactly the problem. Nothing on the page tells me why it had to be you.

3. They write their resume like their manager already knows them.

Every job they’ve ever gotten came through someone who vouched for them so they’ve never had to make a case for themselves to a stranger. The resume reads like an inside joke nobody else is in on.

4. They cut the most impressive thing they ever did because it felt like too much.

So the one line that would have made a hiring manager stop and go back to the top never made it onto the page trimmed out of habit, out of modesty, out of not wanting to seem like they were exaggerating. And the person reading it never knows what they missed.

5. They got given more and more responsibility but the title never changed.

So the resume shows the same role for four years and looks like nothing happened when what actually happened is they quietly became the most relied on person in the building. The growth was real, it just never got a name.

6. They were the person everyone went to and it never once showed up in their job description.

The one people called when something broke, when a client was unhappy, when nobody else knew what to do. That was their actual job. None of it is on the resume because nobody ever told them it was worth writing down.

7. The thing that made them exceptional at their last job means nothing to anyone else.

They were so deep in how that company worked, that team operated, that specific problem got solved that pulling it out and making it land for a stranger feels impossible. So they write something vague that sounds like everyone else and wonder why nothing moves.

8. Their best work left no evidence.

They fixed it before it became a crisis. They caught it before anyone noticed it was wrong. They held something together that would have fallen apart without them and because nothing broke there’s nothing to point to. The best thing they ever did is completely invisible on paper.

9. They talked themselves out of every achievement before they wrote it down.

They know how much was luck. They know how much was the team. They know how much was just being in the right place. So they sand everything down until it sounds like nothing and hand a hiring manager the most modest possible version of a career that deserved far more credit than it got.

10. They were the glue and there is no line on a resume for that.

The person the whole team leaned on. The one who made things work when they shouldn’t have. The one whose absence would have quietly broken everything. That kind of value doesn’t fit in a bullet point and most people who have it spend years watching less capable people get further on paper because at least they knew how to make themselves sound like something.

Being good at your job and being good on paper are two completely different skills

Thanks for reading

I already signed the offer letter for the job. And was only referred to job by recruiter(directly hired to new company) HR from the company that hired me said they would send me a link for onboarding, edocs, etc.

The recruiter keeps contacting me to fill out a background check and other paperwork. I don’t want to do two separate background checks if I’m already hired as a full-time employee and the recruiter only referred me. Can I just ignore the recruiter’s background check and continue with the company’s onboarding process? I don’t want to complicate things.

PS: Please only answer if you actually know why the recruiter is pushing for me to do their background check too.

"Tell me about a time you failed."

That's it. That's the question that trips up some of the most impressive people I've interviewed.

And honestly? I get why.

When you've spent 15 or 20 years building a reputation, admitting real failure in front of a stranger feels wrong. Everything in your career has trained you to project confidence and have the answers.

So what happens? You either pick something so safe that it means nothing. Or you dress up a success story as a failure, thinking we won't notice.

We always notice.

The irony is that junior candidates are often better at this question simply because they have less ego invested in the answer.

What actually works is just being honest. Pick something real, say what went wrong, what you learned, move on. No long setup, no over explaining, no humble bragging.

Nobody expects you to be perfect. They just want to know you're self-aware enough to admit when you weren't.

That's actually the whole point of the question.

I write resumes every day and before that I was a recruiter. So I’ve watched this from both sides. The honest answer is it depends and I know that’s annoying to hear but let me explain what it actually depends on because it’s more specific than most people think.

The job description is not a checklist

A lot job descriptions are written by someone in HR who has never done the role. They pull requirements from old listings, add whatever the hiring manager mentioned in passing, and post it. The result is almost always a document describing someone who doesn’t exist.

The hiring manager almost never needs all of it. They need someone who can solve the core problem the role exists to solve. Everything else is a wish list that got out of hand.

Applying to a role where you meet seven out of ten requirements is not the same as being unqualified. It just means you read the description more literally than the person who wrote it intended.

The requirements that actually matter versus the ones that don’t

There are two types. The ones that are genuinely non negotiable qualifications the role legally requires or that the work cannot happen without. And the ones that are preferences dressed up as requirements years of experience, specific tools, industry background.

Missing a non negotiable is a real problem. Missing a preference usually isn’t.

A role that says five years experience when you have three is a preference not a hard stop. A tool you don’t know but could learn in a week is not a real barrier. A specific professional licence the role legally requires is.

What I’ve actually seen work

The people who get interviews for roles they weren’t fully qualified for on paper did one specific thing. Their resume made such a clear case for what they could do that the gap felt like a detail not a dealbreaker.

Not by lying. By being specific enough about what they had actually done and owned that the hiring manager could see immediately what they were getting.

The people who don’t get through apply with a generic resume that doesn’t make a strong enough case for the experience they do have. So the missing requirement becomes the thing the recruiter focuses on because nothing else is pulling their attention.

The answer is usually yes if you can genuinely do the job. The question worth more of your time is whether the resume you’re sending is strong enough to get you through when you’re not the obvious candidate. If it isn’t that’s the thing worth fixing first.

Thanks for reading

With the amount of job applications that are submitted, how many resumes do you actually review?

1.5k views and no one knows? Does anyone else find any of this is odd? Am I the only one who runs into this problem?

Every job I interview for wants “professional references.” I’ve managed to get a few friends who either own their own company or used to work with me, but not in supervisory position, to jot some things down. But every job I ever had uses third party contractors to verify someone’s employment there. No one is allowed to give professional references. I have two former bosses who have been kind enough to be a “personal” reference, but cannot officially speak as {managerial position} at {company I worked for them}.

So, my question is this: why do companies who don’t do professional references as policy ask you for professional references? And, besides fudging it like I’ve been trying, what do you say when you don’t have any because of the same reasons people can’t get references from the place you’re interviewing at? Obviously they understand it but ask for them anyway.