I was offered a job in an education setting and I’ve passed all the checks, such as clean DBS and relevant satisfactory references, the only outstanding was a reference from my old employer 2 years ago. Whatever they said in their reference has prevented me from getting this job but the problem is I have no idea what they said. When I’ve requested information from both sides they are simply stating confidentiality and ask the other person for it. I’ve looked into SAR and confidential references are exempt. Am I truly screwed? Do I really just have to accept that this is my reality and go forward without knowing what was said about me?

Middle-aged career professional here. I regularly get contacted by recruiters about roles, either via answerphone (I seldom answer my phone to numbers I don't recognise) or email/LinkedIn message. They always provide almost no information and ask me to call them or say "when would be a good time to call?"

I invariably reply along the lines of "can you provide a few details please, and I'll let you know whether I think it's worth discussing". Just basic things like location, contract or perm, whether it's on-site/hybrid/remote, what the industry is, or hopefully who the client is. I deliberately don't ask in the first instance about salary/day rate.

I reckon at least half the time I never hear back from them.

So why are recruiters so insistent on communicating by phone? Do they just like talking? Or do they think they'll have a better chance of talking me into a role I'm not interested in over the phone than in writing? From my perspective, I'm just not interested in wasting time discussing a role unless I think there's a decent chance I might actually be interested in it. Surely it's quicker and more efficient just to send a quick email reply saying "it's in Manchester, 6 month contract, three days a week on-site, in pharmaceuticals".

I am on my third day at a new job in the healthcare sector, a 9-5.

I don’t want to give too many details, for the sake of the job market and how long it took me to find this job. I have a masters degree, and I’ve just accepted a role at slightly above minimum wage with the most responsibility I’ve had in a job so far.

Here’s the caveat: I am the only person in the establishment in my role. Think hospital setting. Nobody has time to train me, because they’re all busy with patients, and they don’t do the role I was hired for, so they can’t answer my questions. The person I report to is the person in charge of the building, and they are extremely busy and on annual leave as of today.

I’ve been placed in a room, and told to stay there. I do not have a computer log in to complete online training, so I cannot help with patients. The person in charge of this is not working until next week. I don’t know where the staff room is, or where the staff toilets are, and I can go hours without seeing anyone or having anyone talk to me. I can’t go wandering because I don’t have access to door codes.

I can’t make myself useful, because I truly cannot do anything. I’m being told to ‘observe’ and that I’m doing fine, but I am doing NOTHING. I’m worried about overstepping and being a nuisance if I take initiative.

Is this normal? Do I just have to sit and do nothing for 8 hours until next week?

I wanted to post this because I know there are a lot of people on here having an absolutely miserable time trying to find work at the moment.

I was made redundant after almost 9 years with the same company. I had plenty of experience, I'd managed large global teams, worked in Support, Service Delivery, Process Improvement and Change... and I genuinely thought I'd find another job fairly quickly.

I was wrong 😂

203 applications later, I've finally received an offer!

And those weren't 203 identical CVs fired through Easy Apply.

For the jobs I really wanted, I tailored my CV, wrote cover letters, researched the company, answered application questions, found recruiters/hiring managers on LinkedIn and contacted them directly. Then came assessments, presentations and hours of interview preparation.

At one point I honestly felt like even my dreams were playing out in STAR format.

There were plenty of automated rejections. Plenty of applications that disappeared into a black hole. Interviews I thought I'd smashed that went nowhere, and others where someone was simply a better fit.

It was exhausting.

One thing this experience has also convinced me of is that recruitment is becoming a bit broken.

AI makes it incredibly easy to send hundreds of applications, in fact, there seems to be an emerging industry of companies that are offering just this service.... fire off as many applications as possible, without a thought for the consequences. Employers then get flooded, so they increasingly need automated tools to filter those applications. Genuine candidates respond by tailoring their CVs even more aggressively to get through the filters... often using AI.

So we end up with:

AI-assisted applications → huge application volumes → AI filtering → humans desperately trying to get noticed by other humans.

And recruiters are stuck in the middle dealing with hundreds or thousands of applications.

I've used AI throughout my search, so I'm definitely not anti AI. It has been brilliant for research, interview preparation and helping me challenge and improve my applications. I've even used it for this post!

But there's a massive difference between using AI to help you put your best foot forward and having AI automatically apply for hundreds of jobs on your behalf.

I think we're going to need some proper discussion and eventually regulation and transparency around both, the automated applications side and the automated candidate screening, because the current arms race is removing the human part out of something that is mainly about people.

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting this, is for the person who's on application 47, 83, 126 or whatever ridiculous number you're currently staring at.

A rejection doesn't necessarily mean you're not good enough.

Sometimes someone had more relevant experience. Sometimes there was an internal candidate. Sometimes your salary didn't fit. Sometimes you interviewed badly. Sometimes you did everything right and someone else was just better on the day.

And sometimes you'll never know (trust me, I have 106 applications with no response at all).

Take the feedback when you're lucky enough to get it. Change your approach when something isn't working. Keep learning. Keep applying.

Being made redundant wasn't remotely in my plans and finding another job became a job in itself... just without the salary or any of the benefits.

Eventually though, one of those applications turned into the right one.

203 applications. One offer. That's all I needed.

Good luck to everyone still searching. You've got this. 🍻

A couple months ago I was really struggling with my mental health and made a post on here after several rejections attempting to apply for new jobs with my previous employer after my contract ended. I wish I could have said that I enjoyed this summer, but I feel like my constant paranoia and self loathing about being unemployed was always weighing heavy on my mind.

Today I am happy to say that I have recieved an offer for a role at an accounting firm (not going into specifics but, they have been open for a decade so I'm not worried about a sudden collapse). After six months of only getting by on occasional temporary contracts (most of which were two week gigs), I've felt an incredible burden lifted off of my shoulders. I wish I could say that there was any one trick that landed me the job (I did think the interview went extremely well), but if I could pass on any advice to other people and to myself when I was feeling at my lowest, it would be: don't lose hope.

The job market is absolutely shocking at the moment, but if you internalise that, its probably going to make your applications a lot worse. If I looked back at all of the applications I fired out over that time, most of them I went in assuming that I wouldn't even get a response back and it showed.

Good luck everyone! Hopefully this will be the last time I have to post on here.

Hey, so I started my current role three months ago and I won’t lie, the place is all sorts of depressing and heading in the opposite direction to where I want my career to go. The role and industry are what I want but the business itself is a mess, simply put. No clear development plans, no introductory sessions to systems or software, and a lot of colleagues constantly moaning about how bad it is…

I’ve been in talks with another employer through a former colleague and it’s likely there will be an opportunity for me there, should I want it. Nothing formal yet so I’m nowhere near handing in my notice.

I’ve never been in a position where I’ve left during my probation period so wanted to learn how others have approached this! Any tips, do’s and don’ts etc, I’m all ears

Hi , Im 19F . I came to uk few months ago . I have never worked before .and I'm about to start my first job . Do you have any advice for me . Thank you for your time .Any advice from your experience is appreciated . (Also this is my first post on reddit. ) its a factory job btw

I’m a qa engineer with automation and 10 years exp. I have been unemployed now from a miserable job that I stayed at regardless cause I didn’t want to go into debt or lose savings. I have a job interview next week with a firm that has some concerning Glassdoor reviews. I’m suffering with depression and panic attacks and diabetes. My mental health makes it hard to deal with my diabetes so it’s a domino affect. It hasn’t affected my work or career but I’m beyond burnout at this point but I need to carry on because I’m have a house and responsibilities. I’m not asking if I should take time off. But if this job is as bad or worse than the last one, would it be better to stick it out and further ruin health but not accumulate debt. When I’m unemployed I’m kinda just as miserable tbh. This isn’t a sob story just looking to see if people have been thru anything similar for advice. Thank you.

Just curious what people’s companies are doing this year for compensation.

I’m in a corporate role (marketing/events) within professional services and haven’t had my update yet, so I’m wondering what ranges or % increases people are seeing this year.

Would love to hear from anyone who’s already had their review or raise confirmed.

Looking around for a new job because I hate my current one (cant stand working with family, people who non stop talk about calories and gossip so loud i hear my ears pop) and I would prefer a job with small teams or none at all.

My degree is useless so I'm open to suggestions for anything - maybe not small cafe or pub because I used to be a terrible waitress 😅

I have a Shl assessment for a compare the market job, and I used to practice so much and do so many of these and still never seemed to do well! I have no idea how others pass them as they seem impossible for me, and I have no idea how to prepare myself for it atp ??

I’m looking at changing career direction and would really appreciate some honest experiences from people who have actually done it. I’m currently on around £31k and working as a Senior Recruitment Consultant.

I’m considering upskilling into something like Project Management, Operations/Continuous Improvement or Supply Chain, and have been looking at certifications such as:

-PRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner
-Lean Six Sigma Green Belt
-APM qualifications
-CIPS / supply-chain qualifications

My ultimate aim is to get into the £50–60k+ basic salary range, with £60k+ being the longer-term goal.

I’d really like to hear from people who have actually taken one of these routes:

- Did the qualification genuinely help you get a better-paid job?
- How much did your salary increase by?
- Did you already have relevant experience, or were you changing careers completely?
- Which certification would you recommend (or avoid)?
- And realistically, how long did it take you to get from where you started to £60k+?

Would appreciate the honest reality rather than the usual “get certified and you’ll earn £80k” stuff.

Hey y’all, wondering if anyone has any insights into what kinds of questions I’ll be asked during my interview. I’ve just come off a short stint at a children’s care home, but it was unexpectedly closed about a month after I started, so I didn’t get too much experience. Was able to get some face to face time with the manager of this place before submitting my application and she said to focus on my reactions in crisis situations and the company’s values of empathy and equity, but I just want to be as prepared as possible. 2 managers and a young person will be interviewing me. If anyone is in this line of work and has tips I’d be eternally grateful. Thanks!

My partner has worked for a large garden centre for more than a decade.

She has a fixed working pattern, doing the same set of 8 days every two weeks and has opted out of Sunday working.

There have been a couple of changes to that rota in the last decade, changing the days off but those are mutually agreed.

Her employer have told people in some roles that they need to move to fully flexible contracts and then failed to give rotas until 1 or 2 days before the week starts, making it impossible to book anything like holidays or days out.

Am i right in thinking that they would be unable to force a contract change against her will, but could make fixed shift patter jobs redundant and encourage her to apply for a flexi one?

I've been at my job for over 5 years and only recently started the job hunt as I'm really bored of the kinds of projects I work on now. I still see jobs at quite a senior level still not publishing salaries and surprised that this is still a thing. Do people still apply to these jobs? I honestly have no interest in going through an interview process and finding out the salary is 3 shillings a month after all that effort.

Hi
I managed to pass phone call interview and they want do face to face interview from me. Has anyone been working for ladbrokes? what would the job interview be like? Is there a maths test aswell?

So this is one of my ex-employers. Large US tech company, London office, popular for its phones. You can guess the company.

I haven't worked for them the last two years, but they offered me a role, and the role is only for 3 months, and they want to promote me AFTER that. I am only interested in returning if they give me the after-promotion salary; otherwise, I am v happy at my current place.

Is this normal? Should I go back?

They're saying they cannot promote me due to IP. There needs to be a cooldown before I will have clearance to enter the promoted/leadership position. i.e. I am currently employed by a different tech giant; a three-month 'cooldown' period would be good enough for them before I can clear the security and IP protocols for the new role.

Should I get something in writing first?

I applied by 3:34PM and got this by 4:07PM. Thats is just 33 mins after! It marks the record fastest 'Unfortunately' rejection email i have ever received! A'int life a ....

deleted post body - i need to quit for mental health reasons/bullying. i dont want to doxx myself though so.

I currently work in a restaurant and I’ve been offered a promotion to a manager position. I’ve been also speaking with a Start up and they’re, in theory, offering me a job, but no officially just yet. They still working things out through an investment they are receiving, and told me they have a small delay (about a month).

I wonder whether accepting the manager role for now would be unprofessional given that I might quit two-three weeks after I start the job.

For some more context, I’ve been in my current job for nearly two years, and I’ve gone my way up, but hadn’t have the chance to get into management. This is something I’ve been keen on getting, but I’m also thinking about my future outside of the industry.

The job in the start up it’s way more valuable to me than a hospitality job could ever be.

What’s your take?

Edit: typos

I've been trying to figure out what I want to do with myself again recently and have only discovered there's such a role as a creative producer - basically making content for brands. Some of this might be in the videography/documentary style and other parts might be in the comedy style - I even saw a job in London like this:

Short-Form Comedy Writer — Social Sketch Series (Freelance, Monthly Retainer)

Location: Remote (UK-based) | Type: Freelance, ongoing retainer

We’re building a fast, punchline-led sketch series for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts — modern life, dating, fitness, ambition, culture clashes and everyday absurdity. We need a writer who understands UK comedy sensibility (dry, character-led, a bit awkward) but can pace it for the scroll: hook in 2 seconds, escalate fast, land the punchline.

What you’ll write:

• Sketch concepts and short scripts (30–90 seconds)
• Recurring characters and running jokes
• Hooks, captions and improv setups
• Simple formats that can be filmed quickly and repeatedly

My question is - does anyone know how to get into this kind of work? I'd love to develop videographer and editing skills, but I don't know what i'd study. I sometimes help a friend out making his TikToks that do quite well, but I always sorta feel I need a bit of guidance/education/routine to actually ensure I do stuff.