I decided to expand my job search and use the VA resources given to me to speak with some guy I think was a career counselor.
90% of the talk was about AI. Prepping my resume with AI so the AI reading it can do better and he told me how to act when being interviewed by AI.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN AI IS DOING INTERVIEWS NOW?! I look into it and fucking Burger King of all places is now using AI to interview people!
I also applied to another fucking place today after speaking with that guy after work because I hate myself, I guess and this fucking application for an IT Support Position took me an hour an a half to do because it included another fucking personality test and not one but THREE MOTHERFUCKING VISUAL NOVEL TYPE OF THINGS OF “what would you do in this scenario?”
ARE YOU FUCKING ME!? HOLY SHIT, HOW DID WE LET IT GET THIS BAD?!
End my suffering, please. This cannot be where our country has gone.
I think one of the worst use cases for AI has been to look at resumes and judge them, along with “AI interview questions”. I refuse to do any of that at this point, and so should you.
I wish you the best, remember you are worth more than this bullshit late stage capitalist system, and you have a lot of value to provide to others. Stay strong and remember what makes you important.
I’m still waiting for someone to prompt inject these AI interviewers and learn the secret method to have them instantly approve you.
I put in a ton of applications. Zero AI used in my CV. I’ve gotten to the coding test once, passed it, and then on to an interview where I watch some recorded video and record a video response. It’s terrible. I’m there with you, and I’m a software engineer with 20+ years of experience.
Yeah man, things are so fucked these days. And as much as I kinda agree with that other guy here? Like sure, there are liars and cheats and sneaks here, haven’t we always had that?
Like there were frauds in the 80s, but they didn’t have to spend a whole hour and a half applying to work a job where I deal with trouble tickets and fix the printer. Or talk to SR(Slop Resources) to flip fucking fries at Burger King.
Suddenly, I’m glad I’m a welder.
Welding job interview - weld these two pieces of metal together.
Me - ok here you go.
I guess you could use AI to ask me stuff but end of the day they just want to know if I can do it or not.
Suddenly, I’m glad I’m a welder.
Once again, Office Space shows it was actually a prophecy.
Used to be my favorite movie, now it doesn’t feel like a comedy any more.
Have you also seen Idiocracy?
Shit. It always felt like a documentary to me.
I think there’s genuinely deep thought and meaning put into his character. He gets little screen time and only has a few lines, but goddamn if they don’t set the tone for the entire movie. I feel like you could write an entire essay on how Peter’s story would change without him in it.
For my IT interview, they also asked me to weld two pieces of metal together! You know, I don’t think that was a very good manager…
Any piece of electrical equipment can be a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough.
hey there, i’ve been traveling for 15 years and taught for 7, teaching English abroad is pretty cool and real, and there’s an enormous demand for English teachers so no useless interviews.
jobs are available today in dozens of countries, 2-10k usd equivalent a month, ~25 working hours per week, it’s very cheap to live abroad, so you can immediately begin saving money, and you get to travel.
there are literally over a billion esl students looking for a teacher, you can get a lifetime TEFL accreditation in a couple of weeks with a self-directed pdf course that will raise your salary and negotiating power.
if you’re interested, feel free to ask questions here or in the travel community.
if you’re lucky enough to be a fluent english speaker, it’s a very low-barrier, high-reward job.
Do you have a recommended reputable course to get ESL/TEFL certified? Looking online there are a ton and many feel scammy.
tldr: enjoy tefl is accredited by Gatehouse Awards through the UK government and their courses are on sale, so they’re my recommendation right now.
the one I usually recommend, TEFLfullcircle, is accredited by Gatehouse Awards, which is registered with the UK government as a teaching institution:
but wow, for the first time in a decade(this is where I send everyone), they don’t have a discount on groupon right now!
as long as the program is accredited with a third-party regulatory body, you’re good. since teaching english occurs in so many countries, there isn’t one overarching organization, so you want the course you take and your tefl certificate after completing the course to be registered with some longstanding regulatory body, the uk government or their department of education, for example it looks like enjoy TEFL is also accredited by Gatehouse Awards, so I’ll recommend them in lieu of fullcircle. I recommend at least the 120-hour course(about 12 hours of real-time work), and 160+ courses are better because they often include a more in-depth “younger students” specific course.
enjoy tefl 120 and 180 hour courses are 75% off right now, plus an additional 20% groupon discount, so 24 and 32 bucks respectively instead of $116 and $160. It’s a lifetime accreditation, and my course included several good tips while making sure I understood English well enough to teach it and what teaching would be like. including mock lesson plans and chapter tests. fullcircle is a pdf course, it looks like tefl enjoy uses videos as well.
How did it get this bad? Simple. The single most powerful drug of all time is convenience. And if AI doing someone’s job is more convenient, they will take it regardless of the eventual blow back.
Where have you been?
In the Army and then I nabbed a contractor job in 2021 by telling a guy I knew how to fix the printer, but now I’m losing my contractor job because the company and the government failed to agree on something and now I’m getting fucked because of it.
*sobs*
If the company is going out of business, then that will help you because you can lie lie lie on your resume.
I dunno if they are going out of business, but I knew shit was getting bad when my boss was laid off about a month ago. Some of us stayed, but we were told we are all going away in June. I am in that group.
Another thing to say that is bad is if you are a veteran like me, companies really have this tendency of, “Your military work is not applicable,” and one recently told me they found my federal contracting job experience to not be applicable either!
Like really, this job market sucks so much shit! It feels like every company is doing everything they can to not hire you! If you’re poor, an immigrant, or a veteran? The nation is just saying fuck you. And god help you if you’re all 3.
Sorry, just had to vent part 2, but I would never lie on my resume. Just stretch the truth a teensy bit.
So… Do you know how to fix a printer?
Sadly. This dark knowledge has followed me for eons.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN AI IS DOING INTERVIEWS NOW?!
…and…
HOLY SHIT, HOW DID WE LET IT GET THIS BAD?!
Interviewing prospective candidates isn’t my primary job, but I was asked to join a series of interviews of engineer candidates for an IT contract we were hiring for. Luckily the person from my company that regularly interviews candidates was also on these calls with me. We were doing an interview of a candidate over teams. Keep in mind, this candidate had a resume that made it past all the checks with the right work experience listed, technology skills, and certifications listed to get this far to a human interview.
I’m asking the guy technical questions related to the subject the upcoming work is for testing him for his skill level. He’s from a different culture, so I am giving allowances that English is his second language, but the way he answers is still …off somehow. Some of the technical answers are fine, others answers are a clear wrong context for what I’ve already told him the area we’re working on. Five minutes into this interview my co-worker shot me a private message saying “He’s not our guy. He’s got the audio of your questions feeding directly into AI. Watch his eyes as he answers. He’s reading the AI generated answer from his screen”. I asked our candidate another question, and sure enough, my co-worker was right. We went ahead and asked the boilerplate questions about availability and next steps assuming we chose him, then ended the call.
Other candidates with equally good resumes couldn’t answer even the most basic questions about the technologies they claimed to have years of experience on. This was after we’d eliminated hundreds of candidates whose resumes showed they were unqualified for this level of work (juniors applying for senior positions far above their competency) or people applying for IT positions with zero IT education, experience, or certifications.
We ended up having to pass on the work because we couldn’t find a qualified candidate. There might have been one, but if so, they were drowned out by all the noise from bad candidates.
That is how it got this bad.
Yeah some of my friends are on hiring calls (not me, I’m always trying to get organised, so don’t get those invites for some reasolol) and the current meta is to ask the candidate to wave their hand in front of their face.
Tbh for technical tasks I’m not sure why screensharing isn’t the norm for software. Like I’m most comfortable bombing around the terminal and you can tell if someone knows what their doing if they’re driving their dev environment for you.
What did you ask to confirm he was using AI? Or was it the eyes reading text the giveaway?
What did you ask to confirm he was using AI? Or was it the eyes reading text the giveaway?
The eyes reading the screen added with the candidate answering questions in clearly the wrong context.
Imagine the conversation was talking about preparing a cold desert with pineapple.
Me: How would you cut the fruit?
Candidate: I would first cut the spiny outside skin off the fruit. I would then use a core cutter to remove the core. I would then cut the resulting cylinder into slices.
[and this is a good answer]
Me: What would you do with the cut fruit next to make the desert?
Candidate: I would take the slices of pineapple and put them on the bbq grill to make sure they were well heated when when served hot.
[and this is a bad answer, for this context, the context is we are preparing a cold desert. There is no step we should ever be heating the pineapple, nor serving it hot. Grilling the pineapple and serving hot is a perfect answer for a different meal which we were never talking about. So its a valid answer for the wrong conversation. I see this with AI answers frequently.]
He answered multiple technical questions with this pattern of a couple normal acceptable responses for the context, but then providing a right answer for a completely different context which ends up being wrong for the context we were talking about. If he actually knew the subject matter and had the experience he claimed, he would have recognized the contextual problem, but he didn’t recognize it because clearly didn’t know what he claimed.
Not the person you asked but I’ve had the exact same experience. It’s not just the eyes, it’s the delay they try to cover for as the AI agent starts its thinking. Then it’s the way they answer the question. Work with AI a little bit and you can tell how it answers things vs a human that actually knows the subject.
100%. I was seeing the “thinking” delay too, and maybe on the first question asking it was forgivable, but every single thing I asked, we just sat there looking at each other for 2 to 5 seconds before he starts rattling off a perfectly eloquent (but sometimes wrong) answer. A human responds with clarifying questions “Do you mean in the situation of X or Y?” or “umms” or “ahhs” while they form the thought. Maybe the close their eyes to visualize to think through their answer. This guys was staring right at the screen/camera not even blinking in silence for that time.
This was after we’d eliminated hundreds of candidates whose resumes showed they were unqualified for this level of work (juniors applying for senior positions far above their competency)
I bet your good candidate was among those, and you didn’t give him a chance because his experience on paper didn’t reflect his actual competence.
I bet your good candidate was among those, and you didn’t give him a chance because his experience on paper didn’t reflect his actual competence.
Entirely possible. Welcome to the first step of understanding the problem of hiring! How were we supposed to find the good candidate in the overwhelming number of resumes we receive?
I don’t think this justifies putting me through a personality quiz or using AI to interview people at fucking Burger King, dude.
I can agree there is a problem with people using AI to fluff themselves up, but come on. A personality quiz and 3 “what would you do in this scenario” quiz/visual novel thingies before I even had an interview?
Yes, that is the problem. I have applied to numerous places and haven’t even had an interview yet. All I know is one guy I had on the inside at this startup tech firm said they rejected me because the personality quiz found me too outgoing. I guess they wanted an autistic guy who watches cartoons instead of me, the autistic guy who likes live action shows.
Like I do still feel the bigger blame here is on companies asking for way too much. I am still hung up on how many places rejected me because my 8 years of IT experience in the army was “not applicable” or that other place that found my total of 12 years experience was, “In the realm of working with federal IT regulations and not with interest to commercial standards and considerations.”
Fuck it all, dude.
I likely have answers for most of those demands, and even an understanding of some of the rejection responses you received, but I’ll skip that conversation direction. You’re posting in a vent community to vent, which is entirely fine! This is a safe space to vent!
I’m sorry you’re going through this right now and I’m crossing my fingers you find a job soon. I’m sending you good luck from another former printer repair tech (Epson dot matrix and HP Laserjet II and III certified!).
If you have been talking to the VA you should have been given a counselor, I’m not talking career.
If you have expressed, these immediate thoughts and problems to them, I guarantee you will get a call immediately. Whether it be family services or just food that you need. You’re gonna have to work for it a bit. It easier than getting to an O7.
You’re gonna get this shit, nothing you can do about it. Walking in and talking to a manager is still a thing at places. You have to have a plan, resume in hand, and experience. You can find a small business that needs it.
As far as work, you need to look into trades. I don’t know if you like the electrical part of IT, but that’s an easy branch. They dgaf about that, and depending on trade they’ll pay you in school. Shit, half the systems have to get ip routed and confirmed, plus updates, all that shit at my work.
As far as work, you need to look into trades.
Can we leave this redditism in the past, please? I’m not going to do that. Trades are a fucking scam. End of discussion.
As for therapy, HA! Ah dude, I did once tell the VA I wanted to kill myself and I was put on a waiting list for 6 months and then decided to not off myself because it is kind of funny how little they care about us.
Trades aren’t a scam my dude. Maybe they aren’t for you but someone has to make sure the lights stay on and the toilet flushes.
Yes and if everyone goes into trades then they’ll pay minimum wage. Plus they can be hell on your body depending on which trade you’re going for.
Maybe they aren’t for you but someone has to make sure the lights stay on and the toilet flushes.
Where I come from, that would usually be the homeowner tbh, why would you pay someone to do basic maintenance???
Some of the trades are a scam, particularly the more obvious, low skilled ones.
There are a lot of interesting niche ones that straddle the line between blue collar and white.
They vary a lot, depending where you live, but are definitely worth considering. Once the employee pool gets small enough, then it’s easy to push back on wages.
E.g. I work in broadcast engineering, as a specialist. It pays reasonably well, and can lead to some fun travel and opportunities.
The weirder niche trades also attract weirder people. Not quite fitting society’s mould is suddenly a benefit, not a problem.
With a military background, you’ve likely picked up a few unusual skills etc. Leveraging then is worth considering.
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Employ yourself and then none of this no longer applies to you. Most people have an idea in their minds about what they’d like to do that they can’t stop thinking about. Do that.
Alternatively you could try go ask a local small bussiness for work. Not one that’s openly hiring but one that you actually would like to work for. I’ve gotten an interview in the past by just cold-emailing a local company. It took me 10 minutes to write the email and I didn’t even attach CV.
Good thing you fought for your corporation for this. Were you fighting for the oil corporations in Iraq or for the heroin corporations in Afganistan? Hmm? Maybe just the good ole’ boys in the munitions corporations in Iran?
But why do these corporations have so much power? Gosh, we’ll never know. Maybe if you do another personality test, you’ll finally figure it out.
“I don’t get it, all these psych tests look like guns and bullets! Why do they keep asking me about the feelings of the kids that I killed in foreign wars in these tests? Why will nobody hire me? The army said I’d be able to directly transfer my ‘terrorist’ torture methods to flippin’ burgers at McD’s!”
Screw you for your service.
I feel like us veterans have said worse things about ourselves, but I appreciate the troll attempt anyways. Have a wonderful day.
lol yeah their comment history tells a lot, and they’ve got quite a bit of modlog action going on. Downvote cheerfully and move on, they aren’t worth the interaction.
