I’ve been actively job searching for the past two months, but I was laid off March 2025 and decided to take a sabbatical thanks to my severance package. Now I’m realizing I probably should have started right away, because job market is ridiculous.

I made it to four final rounds at four different companies, and all of them rejected me within one week. I like to read stories here, because I can completely relate. The same things keep happening to me, but yesterday someting new happened.

The COO of a company reached out to me on LinkedIn, saying I had a great profile and that they’d love to interview me. They asked me to formally apply and sent a link. While filling out the application, I saw a field asking for my expected salary, followed by another asking for my previous salary saying they might request payslips to verify it. Red flag, I know, but I shared my previous (fairly high) salary and lowered number for this role.

After applying, I messaged this person to say thanks and that I was looking forward to next steps. They replied, “Awesome, I’ll schedule the interview soon.”

The next day, their message was deleted!!! and I received an automated rejection email lmao.

Honestly, this is so funny. They reached out to me first, and I’m pretty sure the rejection was based solely on my previous salary.

I have zero faith in applying and I decided to be cringe too and start sending direct messages to hiring managers. I’ll share updates once I’ve done this experiment (don’t expect much please haha)