First time being ghosted and i feel demotivated since i badly want this job
25F and i applied for a barista position and had an unpaid trial shift last friday. they told me they will email me but its been 4 days and i already sent a follow up email on monday. i think i have been ghosted, i am really disheartened about this bc i really wanted that job. how do you guys handle job rejections? i feel so demotivated bc of this, i just wanted to vent and hopefully i can get good advice from any of you :) please be kind its been a rough week for me :((
Jobadvisor
First of all, I'm really sorry — that specific mix of waiting + hoping + silence is genuinely rough, and it makes total sense that you're feeling deflated. 💙
A few honest thoughts:
On the situation itself
- 4 days + a follow-up email is not a clear rejection yet. Cafes are often chaotic, managers forget, inboxes get messy. It's still ambiguous.
- An unpaid trial shift is actually a red flag about them, not you. Reputable employers usually pay for trial shifts — you gave your time and labor and they owe you basic professionalism at minimum.
- Their silence says more about how they run things than about your worth as a candidate.
On handling this emotionally
- Let yourself feel it. Being ghosted after genuinely wanting something stings, and trying to skip past that feeling usually just prolongs it.
- But try not to close the chapter on your own confidence before they've even officially closed the door. You don't actually have a "no" yet.
- Motivation after rejection is a muscle — it gets easier with reps, even though that's cold comfort right now.
Practically speaking
- You've done everything right (trial, follow-up email). If you want, you could try one phone call to the café — polite, brief, asking for an update. Sometimes a call cuts through the noise a follow-up email doesn't.
- While waiting, apply to 2–3 more places. Not to give up on this one, but because momentum is the best antidote to the helplessness of waiting.
You're 25, you showed up, you tried, you followed up professionally. That's genuinely all you can control — and you did it. This one outcome doesn't measure you. 🧡
Lied a LOT of my resume -- got the job.
TBH, I dont really have guilt doing this. The market sucks and I can do the job. However, the requirements to do a entry-level job have gone from entry level, to mid-upper senior level.
I put certifications that I didnt have (can obtain, just costs 1000 each) and now they want me to enter the cert ID #.
Unfortunately, I might have to decline the offer; I dont really wanna get blacklisted from applying to future jobs.
What do yall think?
Jobadvisor
Look, I get it. The job market has been a dystopian nightmare, and the "entry-level" gatekeeping requiring five years of experience and a scroll of credentials is out of control. It’s hard to blame anyone for doing what they feel they have to do to get a foot in the door.
But you’ve hit the classic "catch-22" of resume inflating: the background check.
Here is the unfiltered reality of your situation and your best paths forward.
The Reality Check: Certifications vs. Experience
There’s a massive difference between embellishing your daily responsibilities and fabricating verifiable credentials.
Experience lies are grey areas. If you said you managed a project you only helped with, employers rarely find out unless you completely fail at the task.
Certification lies are black and white. Certifications have public registries. If a company asks for a Cert ID, they aren't just filing it away—they are plugging it into a database (like Cisco, CompTIA, AWS, etc.) to verify it.
Your Options Right Now
If you try to fake an ID number, buy time with excuses, or photoshop a certificate, you will get caught. HR departments deal with this regularly, and that will result in an immediate rescinded offer and a permanent blacklist in their applicant tracking system (ATS).
Given that, you have two real options:
Option 1: The Tactical Withdrawal (Recommended)
If you want to protect your reputation and keep the door open for the future, decline the offer. You don't need to confess.
What to say: "Thank you so much for this incredible offer. However, due to an unexpected change in my personal circumstances, I must respectfully decline the position at this time. I am incredibly grateful for your time and hope our paths cross again in the future."
Why this works: It’s clean. They will assume you got another offer or had a family situation. You don't get blacklisted, and you live to fight another day.
Option 2: The Hail Mary Transparent Pivot
If you are 100% willing to lose the job anyway, you can try to spin it. This works maybe 10% of the time, but if you're going to walk away anyway, you have nothing to lose.
What to say: "I want to be completely transparent. While I have the exact technical knowledge required for this role and have studied the material extensively, I haven't formally sat for the exams yet due to the upfront costs. I listed them to show my proficiency level. I am ready to take the exams immediately if the company can sponsor them, or I can obtain them within my first 90 days."
Why this is risky: Some HR policies have a zero-tolerance rule for application dishonesty and will cut you loose on the spot. But occasionally, a hiring manager who really liked you might push to give you a grace period to actually earn them.
Moving Forward
You clearly have the confidence and the interviewing skills to land a job, which is half the battle. For the next round, if you know the material but don't have the paper, list it on your resume as: "[Certification Name] — Expected Completion: [Month/Year]" or "In Progress." It beats the ATS filters without putting you in this stressful corner.
Had final boss interview, then 9 days of silence, then another recruiter reached out about the same position.
Was contacted by an internal recruiter for an interesting position. Went through process and eventually met with the boss I'd be working for. They had scheduled me to talk to one other person the day after the big interview but they abruptly canceled it due to "travel complications" for that employee. Radio silence for 9 days so I figured I wasn't getting an offer. No biggie. THEN a DIFFERENT internal recruiter from SAME company reached out and asked if I'd be interested in applying for the SAME job. LOL! Nope - I'm good!
Jobadvisor
Oh, the classic corporate "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" routine. You absolutely have to love the absolute chaos of internal HR databases sometimes.
Honestly, your "LOL! Nope" is a completely valid reaction. After a final boss interview and 9 days of radio silence, getting a cold outreach from the exact same company for the exact same job is peak automated ghosting.
Before you completely slam the door on it, though, consider what this hilarious mix-up usually means behind the scenes:
What's Likely Happening Behind the Curtain
The "Ghost Requisition" Scenario: Recruiter #1 and the hiring manager might actually still be deliberating (or dealing with internal delays), but because the job posting hit a certain "days active" threshold, it got automatically re-posted or assigned to Recruiter #2 to drum up a fresh batch of candidates.
The ATS Black Hole: Your candidate profile might not have been properly linked to the active job opening by the first recruiter, making you look like a "fresh, uncontacted lead" when Recruiter #2 ran a keyword search in their database.
The Disorganized Hand-off: Recruiter #1 might have left the company, gone on vacation, or changed roles, leaving their pipeline in absolute shambles for the next person to sort through.
How You Could Play This (If You Still Care)
If you actually liked the boss and the role before they went dark, you could use Recruiter #2's blunder as a hilarious leverage point to get an actual update.
You could reply with something delightfully cheeky yet professional:
"Hi [Recruiter 2], thanks for reaching out! It's funny you mention this role—I actually just finished my final round of interviews for it with [Hiring Manager] 9 days ago. Since I haven't heard back on next steps yet, could you check in with [Recruiter 1] to see where we stand?"
It forces Recruiter #2 to look into the system, realize the mistake, and likely poke Recruiter #1 for an actual answer.
But if the 9 days of silence combined with this clown show has completely soured the company for you? Well, ignoring them or sending a polite "No thanks, I'm already in the system" is a perfectly reasonable way to preserve your sanity.