Dear Recruiters and hiring managers:

What is the number 1 advise you would give to someone job searching in this current climate to get the first interview?

Are you starting to notice resumes that feel obviously AI generated and completely ignoring them? Not asking whether AI is “bad” but more curious whether certain resumes are starting to blur together stylistically.

Would love honest observations from people reviewing applications daily.

Hi everyone.

First of all, thanks for reading.

I might get an offer soon. Speaking with the HR about the salary range, I’d guess she tried to make me lower my salary expectations. I won’t go there in detail but I think I’ll have to negotiate the salary they would offer me, and anyway, I’ve heard we should do it most of the time.

The question is, if being polite and assertive, could the offer be pulled out at some point ?

Let’s say, I get an offer per email, which is what she told me would happen. I’d call her to ask for something let’s say 5-10% higher. She would have to come back to me to confirm. Is it possible they just say « we moved on with somebody else » or just « no » and end the communications with me without being able to find a compromise OR even to accept the first offer ?

Because actually I would be the only risk of negotiating at this point.

I can imagine telling her I’m worth this much because I bring this much experience which is also very specific, and that it would be better because I plan to stay for the long run (a lower salary prompting peoole to look for something else etc, which I wouldn’t explicitely say).

Thanks a lot. I’ve never negotiatied my salary so far so your help is more than welcome !

I wish you a nice day

Basically the title. I was told that I’m one of two finalists for a role I really want. The role has a delayed start date (August) due to budgeting, and I asked during the final interview is there a possibility of the role not materializing because I’ve had a role cancelled on me before. The hiring manager assured me the role was approved. I sent a thank you email on Friday, and the HM followed up immediately saying that they’d be in touch and I can reach out with questions. Then I received a call from the recruiter further assuaging my concerns about the start date. However, he didn’t offer the role.

He said that final decisions would be made Monday (today) and I would hear back either today or tomorrow. I didn’t hear back today, so I hope to hear tomorrow. Honestly, though, I’m terrified that I’m the backup candidate. Any thoughts? I’d really appreciate insights.

Ive been trying to join the usaf this year . I’ve went to meps and scored a 52 . My recruiter gave me my jobs last month and told me just to look over the list and get back to him . He also told me before he can schedule me for meps he has to run my credit I’m assuming for tsc because I did have intelligence jobs on my list . He told me before he would run it to just make sure everything was paid off and he gave me a date to have it paid off by So that’s what I did . When I texted him before the date he had given me he didn’t text me back til 12 days later asking me when can I come in office . I told him it’s have to be a week later . He didn’t respond but he liked my message . The day comes and I’m texting and calling asking what time would I be able to come in that day or the following day he didn’t reply to my calls or text that was at the beginning of this week so I go in office and he was on his lunch break so I got to ask the other recruiter questions . He was helpful but he told me the next process was my meps prescreen and I might need to bring my recruiter some things . He said he was gonna let my recruiter handle that and when I told him I already texted and could get any response he was like to just try again and make an appointment basically . However my recruiter still hasn’t let me know anything . So my question is communication is very poor and I’m really trying to get my process going . Should I just wait for a response or should I go find another office ? It seems I’m not getting any information on what to do next until long periods of time and it’s like I’m chasing my recruiter at this point .

I have some college experience but didn’t finish. I’m working on transitioning from mortgage banking into an analyst type and don’t know how to approach schooling aspect.

I’ve heard some hire based on just experience, but in an already competitive market, it makes it even harder…

Can anyone shed light on this? If I put a bachelors would it be verified? Even so if it was, would you care considering I can show extensive knowledge and skills?

& if absolutely it would be an issue, would a “buy accredited online degree” mill type of deal, work?

I’m hoping to specifically hear from recruiters that can directly give valid insight on this, and that handle hiring for analyst roles.

Tysm in advance 🙏🏼

Last quarter, we were hiring for a key role in our organization.

And we identified three candidates with strong profiles who were suitable for this position.

However, the journey was not as smooth. Because all three went quiet after their final round of interviews.

One accepted a similar role elsewhere. One ghosted, and one actually was kind enough to give us actionable feedback.

She said the process took six weeks and that she received no feedback between rounds.

By week four, she had already started feeling that we were one of those companies that were not serious about this role. Fair enough!

She waited for a reasonable time before accepting a competing offer.

I've since read that slow processes and weak candidate communication are among the top reasons for late-stage dropout.

I believed it was theoretical until I experienced it with a pinch of salt.

We've been tightening things up since.  Moving skills screening earlier so we're not running five rounds for someone who wasn't qualified for the role anyway. Using async video interviews in place of a first call to cut two weeks off the front end. And actually sending updates between stages.

We have been doing the following things since then:

• we have moved skill screening much earlier in our process
• we have introduced async video interviews before our first call

This is quite extensive, but we hope it will enhance our engagement with prospective candidates and reduce drop-offs.

What's been your actual fix? Is this a process problem, a comms problem, or just the market right now?

Recent funding? Job postings? Hiring posts? No internal talent team? Something else?

So there's been a lot of posts going around on Reddit and LinkedIn lately.

Candidates calling out companies, tagging recruiters, writing long posts about being ghosted after multiple rounds. I've been reading them and honestly not saying much because I've been on the other side of this. And it is frustrating.

I had dinner last night with a friend who runs a recruiting agency.

She told me about a candidate who cleared all three rounds: Phone screen, technical, and full panel. The company was close, genuinely close to hiring him. Then a hiring freeze hit, and the whole thing got put on hold.

Because it's a startup, everyone assumed someone else had sent the email, but nobody had. Classic case of inaction due to unaccountability.

The candidate posted on LinkedIn a few days later.

He didn't name anyone specifically, but tagged the company. My friend reached out to him and tried to explain that it wasn't intentional. And I believe her. But I also think the candidate is completely right to be frustrated.

I've read that 61% of job seekers in the US say they've been ghosted after an interview. And I think the number is going up.

The more rounds someone has cleared or participated in, the more they feel they're owed at least a rejection or some form of feedback. And they are right.

After hearing this, we've started sending rejection emails on our end. But it's honestly not airtight yet. There are still gaps, especially when a role gets paused mid-process.

So genuine question: are there any tools you're using that actually help send structured, thoughtful feedback at scale? Or have you built a system internally that works? Would love to hear what's actually holding up in practice.

I'm exploring an idea and want honest feedback before I build more.

The premise: a marketplace where people who are interviewing at or just got an offer from a specific company can book paid 30-minute calls with verified current and former employees of that company. The employee is verified through corporate email, government ID, and LinkedIn cross-check. Payment is held in escrow and released after the call.

Three things I want to know:

If you were interviewing at [Stripe / Google / wherever you're actually interviewing], would you pay $50-100 for this? Why or why not?

What would make you trust that the person you're talking to is real and actually works there?

If you were a senior employee at one of these companies, would you ever sign up to take these calls? At what price?

Specifically interested in pushback. Tell me why this doesn't work or why it already exists in a form I'm missing.

I am currently researching upon the growing number of fake resume submissions on top job opening where as close as about 90% of applications have submitted fake resumes which is exactly tailored to the job requirements. What is the mindset behind these fake resumes?

I'm very curious where people actually are with this.

There's a lot of noise about AI sourcing tools and automation but in practice every recruiter I talk to has a different story. Some people have built out pretty solid workflows where they're not manually searching anymore, others tried a bunch of tools and went back to basics because the quality dropped.

I feel like the answer is that automation works really well for some parts of the job and actively makes things worse for others. Would love to hear specifics about what's actually working vs what sounded good in the demo and then didn't hold up. Trying to figure out the best strategy here.

I’m not even talking about ghosting after interviews. I mean basic human communication.

I’ve been in recruiting for over 25 years and the shift over the last few years has been WILD:

• unanswered calls
• unopened voicemails
• texts treated like malware
• people applying for jobs and then vanishing into the forest

At this point I half expect carrier pigeons to outperform LinkedIn InMail. Curious if recruiters across different industries are seeing the same thing.

When you post a job 100s of people apply and almost all the resume looks similar - using AI and matching the job description. And when called for interview most of them cannot even explain things they mentioned in the resume.