If you're ever hiring to fill a position, be careful what you say to prospective candidates because your comments just might come back to haunt you one day. This thread was posted to Reddit by u/ReneeStone27 , who had applied to interview for a position despite living a couple of miles outside the desired area. Still, she came to the interview prepared only to be rejected and told that the position had been filled. The hiring manager went further to chastise OP as if it was their fault for inte…

Okay, be honest: what's the worst way you've ever answered an interview question ? This topic could unite us all. No matter how long you've worked, no matter how qualified and prepared you are, every person gets nervous going to job interviews. It's a universal fear, and for many people, it's just one of those things you have to do every few years in order to advance your career. For every five or ten interviews you do, you might get offered the job one time---or not at all. It's brutal out her…

Some employers try to hide the red flags that come with a certain job; others basically wave those flags for every prospective candidate to see. Before you give those employers any credit, this is usually not coming from a place of honesty or transparency. It's usually coming from a place of sloppiness and ignorance. Many employers are still completely tone-deaf to the fact that some of the demands put upon employees back in the day are backward, outdated, and a serious overstepping of boundari…

Getting passed up for a promotion when you know you are deserving of the role is rough. Probably the only thing worse is being asked for help by the person who got the job and has no idea what they're doing—proving definitely that you should have gotten the role in the first place. But, it's not uncommon for these types of things to happen in the workplace, where politics, corporate narratives, and other misguided decision-making processes often override actual logical reasoning. Unfortunately,…

Do the horrible bosses of the world not realize that when they give tone-deaf lectures to their employees, they are increasing the likelihood of receiving resignation letters? The two are about as directly correlated at this point as good weather and happiness. The more your horrible boss asserts their backward sense of authoritative power and control, the more people will up and leave. This Redditor worked in college admissions and created boundaries between their work and home life. For the c…

Imagine working countless hours of overtime including weekends only to have your boss shame you for taking off. Furthermore, it was a surprise trip for the employee's birthday and it involved a personal family relationship that was clearly very important to this Redditor . Apparently, despite all that extra work and the personal nature of this trip, none of it mattered to OP's employer. No one's boss can expect so much from their employees and then refuse to hold their end of a bargain. That ba…

There are several valid reasons for firing an employee, but this is beyond ridiculous. Employers are not within their rights to control whether or not one of their employees can get poached by another employer and recruiter. They cannot control whether or not you let that company or recruiter sit you down for an interview. Clearly, this employer thought otherwise. They forced this Redditor's best friend, who had been at the company for two years, to resign simply because they caught wind that s…

If you're not getting properly paid during mandatory company retreats, it doesn't matter how many free meals you get during said retreat. That time is time spent away from home and instead, it's time engaging with colleagues. In other words, that is time spent working. It doesn't matter how seemingly recreational the activities may be. If the purpose is team bonding, then the purpose is work-related. This means that employees must ensure that they are compensated properly for that time. If it f…

One of the most important lessons I've learned as a professional is to protect yourself when you're working with incompetent people. Otherwise, they will sink the entire ship and you will sink with it. Otherwise, you may be the one to have to take the fall for their inability to get things done well. Otherwise, you will be seen as the incompetent one. This may sound like a cynical approach to collaboration, but it certainly doesn't apply when you're dealing with normal colleagues. It's just the…

People seemed to be divided about who was in the wrong here. This candidate had applied to a lot of jobs and finally got a phone call from a potential employer. During the conversation, the Redditor asked over the phone if they made this inquiry about the position today because they couldn't quite remember. That became an immediate turn-off to the employer, who not only told the candidate that they wouldn't be a good fit for the position (an awful and overused phrase), but the employer also blo…

Managers often never listen to who actually knows best. Instead, they tend to make executive decisions not based on facts or awareness, but rather based on what's ultimately convenient for them and their sense of authority. This applies to all toxic work environments from restaurants to law offices, but in this case, we are dealing with a tech company. This Redditor often had to push long Friday meetings to the following Monday because they always ended up having to fix bugs in the system on Fr…

If you're free to work, you'll work for free… At least, that's what a lot of hiring managers these days seem to reason. If it's not asking you to develop a new sales vertical and make actual cold calls, it might be asking you to use your marketing expertise to develop an actual campaign—all with the assurance that you might get the job.

Imagine the thrill of getting hired at a new company only to be shamed on the very first day for having to recline a certain way because of health issues. This Redditor had a known disability that required them to recline on the job, but given their role and several years of experience in the field, it really should not have been an issue. Her seating position had absolutely no effect on the job she was performing, but of course, in the eyes of her traditionally-minded boss, her appearance came…

Every landscaper's nightmare

Sometimes, the opportunity for getting payback on your awful coworker does not arise until many years down the road. In this case, Jessica (said awful coworker) got this Redditor fired after they had called her out for doing nothing on the job. Of course, the wrong person was punished and everyone secretly knew this, especially the Redditor. However, while it seemed that the story ended badly for them, the opportunity for payback arrived years later when OP found themselves at a bank where they…

The interview process is unique because of the high stakes involved for both parties; the implications of ending up with a dud candidate can be disastrous for an organization or workgroup of any size, and a candidate ending up in a job that's not the right fit can be a huge misstep for them as well in their career. Likewise, the interview process is hugely resource-consuming for both parties, so wasting the other party's time with missed or rescheduled interviews and misleading promises or expe…