I’m 4th year into my bachelor in a national university in Japan and may plan to find a job if it suits me. Tell me your worst job hunting experience so I can better prepare myself. ( or any advice/recommendations I’ll be more than happy to hear it )
5 in person interviews where they increasingly say they are preparing an offer just to hear nothing back from them and then getting rejected after following up on it.
Multiple full-day “training” sessions only to not be hired at the end of it.
I was younger, dumber, and more desperate at the time. Looking back, my advice would be to never agree to start training if you haven’t already signed a contract. If a company is still trying to evaluate you, they should be doing it in shorter call-back interviews and maybe some short tests depending on the job. Don’t go in for a whole day of anything if they haven’t put anything on the table.
After three rounds of interview (in which the last one is with the 社長), they gave me a verbal offer only to pull it a week later. My school advisor herself was shocked as she has never experienced that before.
A few months later I landed another offer in a different industry, with much better comp. So all in all, except for a couple of sleepless nights it was pretty good.
1. Have an understanding of the level of competition in across industries. There are places and job roles where they would hire a cat if they could, and places and job roles where companies are choosing from dozens of peep. This info is not typical, but can be glanced from things such as Hellowork job ratios, etc. 2. There are a lot of “tests” used nowadays. It is basically a type of SaaS sold to company HR’s all over the country. Usually not backed by anything strong scientifically. Asking wonky stuff about you or about math and Japanese and social studies and so on. I never heard of this until looking at listings in the past few years, but is common now. You might see differing opinions across the web, but as people in r/recruitinghell might say, your personality is not a static thing to be measuring in one sitting. So don’t sweat answering things frankly. Companies that use it early or seem to weigh it well are either just suspicious, overvaluing themselves or really swamped and being lazy with applicants (ie. the places/job roles where companies choose who they want mentioned in #1).
edit: add another two
3. When looking at companies… don’t allow yourself to emotionally invest too much. With the expected mountain of disappointment (rejection notices) it isn’t worth giving more than necessary to the application process. Prepare for interviews, do research in preparation, but before that “keep your distance”.
4. All paid work is work. Your time working is not for free. Don’t “discount” your time.
You are in your 4th year, you should already have a job.
Made a career change, was told I was too old to be considered for a new grad/entry level position.
It would take an average 3-6 months (if you’re LUCKY emphasis on luck ‘cause yeah we’re foreigners so it makes it double hard for us to find jobs here) and could take up a whole year to get hired. I have been job hunting since beginning of May and yep only 1 interview so far even with 3 years experience
You are already very very late for jobhunting right now
“may plan to find a job if it suits me”
Must be nice to not have to work unless you feel like it.
Some idiot deputy director greased me off at a internship cocktail event
Applying for a job and getting rejected. Seeing the exact same job listing being posted 2 weeks or a month later.
I, a UK native, took Nintendo’s English exam for a game programmer position, and struggled badly. Esp. with #24, which was talking about loans and mortgages.
– make a spreadsheet and keep track
Lying about work hours, lying about benefits, lying about bonuses, lying about salary… yeah, plenty of lies. Gotta have a keen eye to see through them. Maybe that’s just in my line of work, though.
Worst experience? All of it. Every single job refusing me because I am a married woman with kids.
I avoided the job, but felt very weird when the interviewer said I would be a “superstar.” Definitely a serious position when they use the word, “superstar.”
I was trying to switch fields and had a recruiter directly tell me I wasn’t worth his time, and that I wouldn’t get a good salary, so I should just stay where I was.
17 comments
5 in person interviews where they increasingly say they are preparing an offer just to hear nothing back from them and then getting rejected after following up on it.
Multiple full-day “training” sessions only to not be hired at the end of it.
I was younger, dumber, and more desperate at the time. Looking back, my advice would be to never agree to start training if you haven’t already signed a contract. If a company is still trying to evaluate you, they should be doing it in shorter call-back interviews and maybe some short tests depending on the job. Don’t go in for a whole day of anything if they haven’t put anything on the table.
After three rounds of interview (in which the last one is with the 社長), they gave me a verbal offer only to pull it a week later. My school advisor herself was shocked as she has never experienced that before.
A few months later I landed another offer in a different industry, with much better comp. So all in all, except for a couple of sleepless nights it was pretty good.
1. Have an understanding of the level of competition in across industries. There are places and job roles where they would hire a cat if they could, and places and job roles where companies are choosing from dozens of peep. This info is not typical, but can be glanced from things such as Hellowork job ratios, etc.
2. There are a lot of “tests” used nowadays. It is basically a type of SaaS sold to company HR’s all over the country. Usually not backed by anything strong scientifically. Asking wonky stuff about you or about math and Japanese and social studies and so on. I never heard of this until looking at listings in the past few years, but is common now. You might see differing opinions across the web, but as people in r/recruitinghell might say, your personality is not a static thing to be measuring in one sitting. So don’t sweat answering things frankly. Companies that use it early or seem to weigh it well are either just suspicious, overvaluing themselves or really swamped and being lazy with applicants (ie. the places/job roles where companies choose who they want mentioned in #1).
edit: add another two
3. When looking at companies… don’t allow yourself to emotionally invest too much. With the expected mountain of disappointment (rejection notices) it isn’t worth giving more than necessary to the application process. Prepare for interviews, do research in preparation, but before that “keep your distance”.
4. All paid work is work. Your time working is not for free. Don’t “discount” your time.
You are in your 4th year, you should already have a job.
Made a career change, was told I was too old to be considered for a new grad/entry level position.
It would take an average 3-6 months (if you’re LUCKY emphasis on luck ‘cause yeah we’re foreigners so it makes it double hard for us to find jobs here) and could take up a whole year to get hired. I have been job hunting since beginning of May and yep only 1 interview so far even with 3 years experience
You are already very very late for jobhunting right now
“may plan to find a job if it suits me”
Must be nice to not have to work unless you feel like it.
Some idiot deputy director greased me off at a internship cocktail event
Applying for a job and getting rejected. Seeing the exact same job listing being posted 2 weeks or a month later.
I, a UK native, took Nintendo’s English exam for a game programmer position, and struggled badly.
Esp. with #24, which was talking about loans and mortgages.
– make a spreadsheet and keep track
Lying about work hours, lying about benefits, lying about bonuses, lying about salary… yeah, plenty of lies. Gotta have a keen eye to see through them. Maybe that’s just in my line of work, though.
Worst experience? All of it. Every single job refusing me because I am a married woman with kids.
I avoided the job, but felt very weird when the interviewer said I would be a “superstar.” Definitely a serious position when they use the word, “superstar.”
I was trying to switch fields and had a recruiter directly tell me I wasn’t worth his time, and that I wouldn’t get a good salary, so I should just stay where I was.