r/recruitinghell

I’ve been browsing listings lately and some of the requirements just don’t make sense.

Entry-level roles asking for multiple years of experience, mid-level roles wanting senior-level skills, and salaries that don’t match either.

It feels like companies want a perfect candidate who doesn’t exist.

Are people actually applying to these or just skipping them?

Scrolling through this sub, we see the same patterns over and over. Endless interview rounds, ghosting, "entry level" jobs requiring years of experience, people desperate to get anything just to pay rent.

What if the deeper issue is that money is tied to having a job in the first place? When our ability to pay rent, eat, access healthcare and live with basic stability depends entirely on getting hired, the whole dynamic becomes distorted. Employers get disproportionate leverage.

Imagine if basic survival wasn’t tied to employment. We could walk away from toxic hiring processes.

I have been recruiting for about six years. And I spend a lot of time on this sub just reading what people go through. ghosting, endless interviews,tasks that take five hours, no feedback- I get it and a lot of it is fair criticism.

But I want to be honest about something from the other side. Most recruiters I know are not evil, we are just drowning. And when you are drowning, you make bad decisions that hurt candidates without meaning to.

what I mean guys- my company posts one entry level role and we get 500 applications in three days, I am the only recruiter ,do you feel this? I also have twelve other roles open and i physically cannot read every resume. So I scan fast, Itry to use key words and probably miss great people because I am moving too quickly. That is not fair to candidates. But I do not have a better system right now guys.

then there is the ghosting thing. I hate it, I really do. But here is what happens- i screen twenty people for a role. I send ten to the hiring manager- manager takes two weeks to decide who to interview. by then, five of those ten have taken other jobs. I have to go back to the original twenty. But now I am embarrassed that it took so long. so I just freeze really. And people never hear back, It is bad i know it is bad.

The whole process is broken from both sides. Candidates feel invisible and Recruiters feel overwhelmed. And nobody is winning.

I have been trying to fix some of this on my end- better communication templates, scheduled times to send updates, blocking time on my calendar for candidate follow ups.

I am curious about- from the candidate perspective, what is one thing a recruiter could do that would actually make a difference for you? not a huge system overhaul, just one small change.

And for other recruiters here who actually read this sub, what are you doing to not be part of the problem?

I am not here to argue, I just want to get better. And reading this sub has honestly helped me see things I was blind to before.Thanks guys.

Been unemployed for 4months.

I'm in a chemistry field in Canada, and can't fucking land a single fucking job.

Pissing me off so much. All those recruiters ghost after interview even after promises.

The war is never ending, the economy is getting worse and brutal.

Job market does not seem to get better at all.

I have 17m old baby, whom i need to be with all days.

I fucking hate this world.

16 months unemployed. God knows how many applications, emails, calls, messages, interviews, BS I've done. So far past my breaking point I can't even cry or laugh about it anymore. Just feel like I'm paralyzed in anxiety 24/7 because I'm always thinking about it and the hopelessness, depression, fear, etc that it brings on. (disclaimer: I have struggled with depression/anxiety long before being unemployed and am in therapy)

People say: Exercise, pick up a hobby, get out in nature, etc. That works for about 6 months and then after that forget it. The negative emotions/thoughts infiltrate every aspect of life whether at home watching netflix, at the gym, on a walk, at the grocery store, etc. I can't do this anymore, what am i going to do, whats wrong with me, etc.

TLDR: Unemployed for 16 months and asking for advice on how to stay sane since the hopelessness, anxiety, depression dominate my thoughts from the time i open my eyes to the time i shut them.

Hey everyone,

The company I work for is restructuring, and I’ve been given a two-month heads-up that I’ll be out of a job. Such is life in 2026, right?

But as I started applying, that old familiar feeling crept in—the silence, the ghosting, the "is my CV broken?" anxiety so I would go in a loop of:
Should I check this CV MAKER ?
This premium subscription in LinkedIN will solve it!
SHOULD I NETWORK MORE AND BEG ON MY KNEES (~ in a professional tone ofc~)
SAVE EVERYTHING IN AN EXCEL!
TRACK EVERYTHING IN AN EXCEL!
FUCK THE EXCEL APPLY IN BULK TO EVERYTHING!
Be stressed
Not give a fuck anymore
Be stressed again.

Then I realized: It’s almost never a "you" problem. I lurked on there jobs and recruiting subreddits for months now to find tips and tricks.

Sometimes the best moral support is seeing a data point that says: "Hey, it's not just me. This company is just messy."

We’re not crazy, the market is, and fuck these platform that ask me to leave a job review, sing in with my first born data or whatever the fuck paywall scheme in place just to see a simple fucking metric.

I was trying to find instances where there has been fust fights during interviews, but I came up empty. Do you know of any such incident?

I've been I situations where the interviewer was rude and unprofessional and I shot back hard (perhaps too hard) and it looked like they wanted to cry or punch me, but they never did. If I have a memorable bad experience, I fire up my VPN and post with the name of the company and individual so others can avoid the place.

I'm old and met a lot of people in many places. I've have said things like, "even children know to introduce themselves and you don't even have that decency" and "how did you get this job because you still haven't learned how to speak to other people" and my fav, "your parents didn't teach you how to speak to other people?"

These posts are everywhere on LinkedIn and they’re probably well intentioned but also quite tone deaf. Ok, great that you’re not in this vulnerable position but no one truly understands this grueling market unless they’re actually in the trenches. The message comes across as preachy and yet another implication that job seekers aren’t doing it “right” or doing enough. Thanks for letting me rant here 🤪

I’ve been laid off for a while now and am hitting the 2 month mark but I am fortunate to have planned somewhat ahead so I have a good amount of money + unemployment saved as well as the fact that my living expenses are already low. I know the general wisdom is to have 6 months saved but of course seeing that there are people who haven’t landed anything after 2 years, it’s pretty much just save whatever you can and just survive now.

I cant see it being sustainable in any way like sure some people have family or friends or they do gig work such as Uber but what about those people that have no one and don’t have a car? It’s like the path for them is just to be homeless and starve to death. It’s not like you’re safe either if you do land something because you could easily get laid off again within a month even. And I’ve already read stories of laid off/unemployed people offing themselves because they literally couldn’t land anything (or the process is just exhausting in general) and the bills were starting to creep up.

I worry about what the next few years will start to look like on many others wellbeing because it’s as if society is killing them.

so like why are high paying jobs just reduced and so many layoffs keeps happening over the years where most of the white collar jobs in tech , engineering, finance or something are just been off shoring to developing countries like India. like what benefits are u.s companies getting? and so many folks are struggling to find jobs let alone keep their jobs for the past few years.