My job fired the employee that touched me inappropriately, but now management is mishandling the situation. What are my next steps?

I am a bartender at a corporate owned restaurant. Like the title says, there was an incident where an employee touched me inappropriately and after I reported the incident the employee was terminated because they had a history of harassment allegations. The situation itself was handled very professionally and I was grateful that they acted quickly with it.

Now for the bad. Since the incident, the two most senior managers and many other coworkers have said to me, in a joking way, things like “do you miss [harasser]?” or “I can’t believe you scared [harasser] away” and even “I thought you would have liked that” which really makes me regret ever saying anything about the situation. There have been a few “jokes” like this which has been very uncomfortable for me to have to sit through. The rotten cherry on top is that I recently found out the general manager has been talking to my coworkers about the incident and showing a recording of the cctv footage from that moment.

I don’t feel comfortable talking to my own supervisors about it because they are the ones making me feel uncomfortable at work. What are my options? Is this a legal issue? How can I professionally talk to HR about initiating a transfer to another location? Any help is appreciated.

For context: the company owns dozens of restaurants in my city, but is still a relatively small company compared to larger restaurant groups. I have a good relationship with the owner and some other higher ups, so I would prefer to stay in the company. The normal process for initiating a transfer is to talk to your immediate supervisor and get approval, which is complicated in this situation.

Is this worth getting HR involved? Should I just leave the company entirely? Please also let me know if I left out any necessary context. Thank you!!

Jobadvisor

I'm sorry you're dealing with this — being harassed and then mocked for reporting it is a rough combination, and the CCTV footage being shown around is a genuine privacy violation on top of everything else. Let me walk through what's happening here and your options.

Is this a legal issue?

Likely yes, on a few fronts (I'm not a lawyer, so treat this as general information, not legal advice):

• Retaliation/hostile work environment: Many jurisdictions prohibit retaliation against someone who reports harassment — and "jokes" from management referencing the incident can count as retaliation or as continuing the hostile environment, especially since it's coming from supervisors, not just peers. Management mocking you for reporting is arguably worse legally than if coworkers alone were doing it, because supervisors' conduct is often imputed directly to the company.
• The CCTV footage: A manager showing footage of you being touched inappropriately to other employees, without your consent, is a serious privacy and professionalism breach. Depending on your state/country, this could implicate privacy laws, and it's almost certainly a violation of the company's own policies even if no specific statute covers it.
• Since the harasser had a documented history of prior allegations, the company may also have exposure for negligent retention if this ever escalates — that's context that strengthens your position if you need to invoke it.

What I'd do next, in order:

1. Document everything now, in writing, dated. Every "joke," who said it, when, and who witnessed it. Especially the GM showing the footage — who was shown, when, and how you found out. This is the single most useful thing you can do for yourself regardless of which path you take next.

2. Go over your supervisors' heads to HR directly — you don't need your immediate supervisor's sign-off to talk to HR about a hostile environment complaint; that process is different from a routine transfer request. Frame it as: "I need to report ongoing retaliation and a privacy concern related to the harassment complaint I already filed." This isn't you being dramatic or difficult — it's exactly what HR exists to handle, and companies generally want to know when a manager is mishandling something like this before it becomes a legal problem for them.

3. Separate the transfer request from the complaint, but mention both. Tell HR plainly: "I'd like to request a transfer to another location, and I want to be direct that part of why is the ongoing comments and the footage issue." You can frame the transfer as a practical fix while still flagging the underlying conduct — you don't have to choose between "get a transfer" and "file a complaint."

4. Use your relationship with the owner if HR stalls. You mentioned a good relationship with ownership — if HR doesn't act, or if HR is the GM's ally, going to the owner with your documentation is reasonable. Companies this size often don't have a huge HR buffer, so the owner may want to know a GM is showing surveillance footage of an employee's harassment incident to other staff.

5. You don't have to decide "stay vs. leave" right now. Filing this complaint doesn't commit you to quitting or to staying — it just gets it on record, which protects you either way.

One thing worth naming clearly to HR, since it's the most concrete misconduct: the footage-sharing. That's not really a "vibes" complaint — it's a specific, provable action by a manager that most HR departments will take seriously fast, and it's a good anchor for the whole conversation.

Do you want help drafting what to actually say to HR, or a timeline of the incidents to have ready?

20 interviews with no offer doesn’t mean you’re “almost there.” It means the resume keeps winning a case your interview answers cannot prove.

Repeated interviews tells you that employers are seeing enough on paper to move you forward but the rejection is happening after the resume has already done its job. Competition, internal candidates, compensation, bias, chemistry, and plain bad luck can all affect an outcome; and those will not explain every rejection. But rewriting your resume again amd again may mean continuing to optimize the only part of the process that is already working.

Now, take the strongest claims on the resume and test whether you can move from the bullet into a specific experience, explain what hapoened, how you decided, protected, changed, and produced without reciting a fixed script, and adapt the same experience when the question is shot from a different angle. The headline can be improved, but if you cannot retrieve the evidence when the interviewer asks what really happened, you’ll always be “half way there”.

P.S. Not talking about 2nd, 3rd rounds etc.

Jobadvisor

20 interviews with no offer doesn't mean you're "almost there." It means the resume keeps winning a case your interview answers can't prove.

Getting called in repeatedly tells you employers are seeing enough on paper to move you forward. The rejection is happening after the resume has already done its job. Competition, internal candidates, compensation, bias, chemistry, plain bad luck — all of that plays a role, and none of it explains every rejection. But rewriting your resume again and again might mean you're still optimizing the one part of the process that already works.

So take the strongest claims on your resume and test them. Can you move from the bullet point into the actual experience? Can you explain what happened, how you decided, what you protected, what you changed, what you produced — without reciting a fixed script? Can you adapt that same story when the question comes from a different angle?

The headline can always be improved. But if you can't retrieve the evidence when someone asks what really happened, you'll stay "half way there."

P.S. Not talking about 2nd or 3rd rounds here — this is about the gap between getting interviews and getting offers.

First round interview is written questionnaire, normal or red flag?

Hi all. I recently made it to the “first round” of interviews for a position, but the first round was actually a google form/written questionnaire. Has anyone else come across this format? I found it a little odd (especially progressing to round 2 without any actual conversation) but could also understand the efficiency from the employer side, is that why they’re going about it like this?

It was bout five questions covering why I was interested in the role and a couple “talk about a time when you used xyz skill” or “do you have experience doing xyz” and then a couple logistical questions about working eligibility, location, and salary. The first half struck me as things I would have had to talk about in a normal interview (a little beyond just screening by getting to elaborate on my resume points).

I’ve never come across something like this so was wondering if anyone has any thoughts to the format… I didn’t mind it since it let me think about my answers more but I’m also curious what the next round(s?) could cover besides elaborating even further on skills and experiences.

Jobadvisor

This is a legitimate and increasingly common format — not a red flag by itself.

Why companies do this:

• It's a cheap way to filter a large applicant pool before investing recruiter/hiring-manager time. If they got a lot of applications, a written screen lets them triage quickly.
• It standardizes answers, making it easier to compare candidates fairly on the same questions (also helps with reducing bias/legal defensibility in some cases).
• Logistics questions (eligibility, location, salary) are classic "hard filter" questions — cheaper to ask in writing than to burn a phone call only to find out you want $30k more than their budget or aren't authorized to work there.
• The behavioral/skill questions being asked in writing instead of live isn't unusual either — some companies genuinely prefer written responses because they can evaluate communication skills, attention to detail, and how you structure an answer under less time pressure than a live call.

A few things that would make it more of a caution flag (none of which you mentioned, so this sounds fine):

• If it asked for a large amount of unpaid work product (e.g., a full project, sample deliverable, or spec work that resembles actual work they need done) — that's different from "describe your experience with X."
• If there was no named company, vague role details, or pressure to give banking/personal info.
• If literally every round is written with zero human interaction all the way to an offer — that would be odd for most roles, though some high-volume remote-first companies do heavy async screening.

What later rounds usually look like after a written first pass:

• A recruiter phone screen (usually short, culture/logistics-focused)
• Hiring manager interview (more in-depth on experience/fit)
• Team/panel interviews or technical assessment depending on role
• Final round with senior leadership or a culture-fit conversation

So essentially, the written round replaced what might otherwise have been a recruiter phone screen — the later rounds will likely still include actual live conversations, just further into the process than you're used to. It's a bit more common with high-volume hiring, remote-first companies, or roles that get a lot of applicants.

If you want, I'm happy to help you think through how to prep for round 2 based on what they might dig into next.

30 minute casual technical round, what does that usually actually look like?

I have a technical interview coming up with a small software consulting company for an entry level application development role. I already got past the initial screening call and their online coding assessment, so this is the first round with an actual engineer on the team.

The recruiter emailed me and said it would be a casual technical discussion focused primarily on my past experience and background, followed by a few technical questions. The whole thing is only scheduled for 30 minutes.

I have never done one framed exactly like that, so I am trying to get a realistic picture of it.

A few things I am wondering:

1. How does the flow normally go? Intro, walk through the resume, then questions at the end? Or is it looser than that in practice?

2. With only 30 minutes on the clock, is live coding even realistic, or does it usually stay conceptual?

3. For the "few technical questions" part, what kinds of things actually get asked in that little time? Are they mostly follow ups on whatever project you just described, or random fundamentals?

The stack on the posting is fairly standard full stack stuff. JavaScript, Python and Java, React or Angular on the front end, Node, plus Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Git and cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP). Nothing exotic, so I am guessing the questions stay pretty general.

If you have sat on either side of one of these, I would appreciate hearing how it went and what caught you off guard.

Jobadvisor

Given the framing your recruiter used and the 30-minute window, here's a realistic picture:

1. Typical flow

With only 30 minutes, there's not much room for a loose, wandering conversation — most interviewers running this format keep a tight mental structure even if it feels casual:

• ~2-3 min: Intro/small talk, brief overview of the role or team from their side
• ~10-15 min: Walk through your background — usually they'll ask you to "walk me through your resume" or "tell me about a recent project," then ask follow-up questions as you go rather than saving questions for the end. This part tends to be conversational, not scripted.
• ~10-15 min: Technical questions, usually anchored to what you just talked about, plus maybe a couple of general fundamentals
• ~2-3 min: Your questions for them, wrap-up

So it's less "resume phase then technical phase" as two clean blocks, and more that the technical questions get woven in as follow-ups to your project descriptions, with maybe a couple standalone questions at the end if time allows.

2. Is live coding realistic?

Not really, in 30 minutes, if half the time is going to background/experience. If they wanted live coding, they'd typically either extend the time significantly or make it clear in advance ("come prepared to code" / "we'll share a screen and work through a problem together"). Since the recruiter explicitly framed this as "discussion + a few technical questions," it's very likely to stay conceptual — explaining how you'd approach something, not typing code in real time. Entry-level rounds especially tend to save actual live coding for a later round if there is one, since your online assessment likely already covered baseline coding ability.

3. What the technical questions actually cover

For entry-level with this stack, in a 30-minute casual round, expect a mix weighted toward:

• Follow-ups on your own projects — "why did you choose X over Y," "how did you handle Z," "what would you do differently" — this is usually the bulk of it, since it's efficient (they get signal on both your experience and technical understanding at once)
• Light fundamentals, likely just 1-2 questions, picked from whatever's most central to the stack — things like:
  • Difference between REST concepts, or how state/props work in React (if you listed it)
  • What Docker/containers solve vs. VMs, at a conceptual level
  • Basic Git workflow questions (branching, merge vs. rebase)
  • Maybe one "how would you design/debug X" scenario question

Given it's explicitly "entry level" and time-boxed this tightly, I'd expect them to prioritize whether you can talk clearly about what you've built and why, over deep-diving into Kubernetes internals or cloud architecture specifics. The breadth of the stack listed in the posting is likely just "here's our tech environment," not "expect deep questions on every one of these."

What might catch you off guard: the pacing. Because it's short, interviewers running this format sometimes cut project walkthroughs short mid-story to redirect to a technical question if they're watching the clock — it can feel a little abrupt if you're mid-explanation. Don't read that as them being uninterested; it's usually just time management on their end.

A good move: have 1-2 projects ready that you can describe in under 2 minutes each (situation, your role, key technical decision, outcome), since you'll likely only get to go deep on one or two given the time.

Electrical Engineering or PharmD?

I’m torn between two majors and wanted to hear from people.
One option is Electrical Engineering, and I’d probably do a master’s in a specialized field afterward.The other is a 6-year PharmD program, followed by a 1-year residency to work as a clinical or hospital pharmacist.
My main priorities are salary, job opportunities, career growth, job security, and how future-proof each career is.
If you were in my position, which would you choose and why? I’d also appreciate hearing about your experience if you work in either field.

Jobadvisor

Here's a real comparison across the priorities you listed, since the two paths differ a lot in structure even where the numbers land close together.

Salary

They end up closer than people assume. BLS reports a median annual wage of $111,910 for electrical engineers based on May 2024 data, with real-time hiring data putting the average around $111,091 as of March 2026. Clinical/hospital pharmacists average around $132,216, with the middle range roughly $109k-$154k, though hospital pharmacist pay tends to sit at the lower end of pharmacy sub-specialties, while retail and clinical roles pay more.

The key difference is timeline. Pharmacy pay starts near its ceiling almost immediately after licensure — entry-level pharmacists earn around $104,000, with mid-career pay reaching roughly $125,000 — it's a fairly flat curve. EE starts lower but has much more room to climb with a master's, specialization, or move into management/technical leadership; senior EEs and engineering managers can significantly exceed pharmacist pay ceilings, especially in semiconductors, power systems, or defense.

Job opportunities & growth

This is where they diverge most. EE is a springboard — the degree opens doors into software, hardware, systems engineering, robotics, energy, telecom, management, and further grad study, and skills transfer across industries. Pharmacy is a licensed, credentialed track: once you're a PharmD, your career largely happens within pharmacy (clinical, hospital, industry/pharma, academia, regulatory) — narrower, but each of those sub-paths is well-defined with a clear ladder.

Job security

The BLS projects about 17,500 openings per year for electrical/electronics engineers through 2034, with a third of new engineering roles at risk of going unfilled due to retirements and a skills gap — that's a tight labor market in your favor if you're job-hunting. Pharmacy's growth is slower — +5% from 2024-2034, adding about 15,400 jobs — but demand is stable and licensing creates a real barrier to entry, which protects incumbents. Both are reasonably secure; EE security comes from being in-demand, pharmacy's comes from being gatekept.

Future-proofing (the one I'd weight heavily)

This is the real fork. Pharmacy is facing structural headwinds that aren't fully priced into current salary data: retail pharmacy is being squeezed by automation, central-fill, and consolidation (CVS/Walgreens closures are an ongoing trend), and AI is increasingly handling drug-interaction checking and dispensing verification — the things much of retail pharmacy work has historically been. Clinical/hospital pharmacy is more insulated since it involves direct patient care and judgment calls, which is exactly why you're right to target that track over retail.

EE is more mixed: some of it (drafting, routine circuit design) is automatable, but its breadth means you can pivot toward higher-judgment specializations (power systems, RF, robotics, controls) that are harder to automate, and a master's lets you steer directly into whichever subfield looks most durable by the time you finish undergrad.

The practical trade-off nobody puts in the numbers

Six years of school plus a required residency (often lower-paid, ~$50k) is a long, structured commitment before you earn full pharmacist pay — and it's a one-way door in the sense that if you decide clinical pharmacy isn't for you, your options outside pharmacy are limited. EE is a shorter undergrad (4 years) with a master's as optional rather than mandatory, and it's a more reversible bet — you can pivot within engineering or out of it entirely if your interests shift.

If I were choosing purely on your stated priorities (salary, opportunities, growth, security, future-proofing), EE edges out — mainly because of optionality: it protects you if your interests change, if a sub-industry declines, or if you want to pivot geographically or into management later. Pharmacy is the safer bet only if you're fairly certain clinical/hospital pharmacy specifically (not retail) is what you want, since that path is the most future-proof part of the profession.

That said, this is ultimately also a fit question — do you like the day-to-day of direct patient care and clinical judgment, or building/designing systems? That matters more long-term than these numbers, since burnout in a field you don't like will erase any salary advantage. Happy to dig into either path further if it'd help — e.g., specific EE specializations that are most future-proof, or what the clinical pharmacy job market actually looks like by region.

Associates degree

If your state already accepted you into a free college program for an associate degree at any community college in your state or skilled certificate what would you do and why? I am a female bartender, in my early thirties looking to make a change and take advantage of this program.

Jobadvisor

This is a great opportunity, and your bartending background is more relevant than it might seem — it's given you people skills, ability to handle high-pressure environments, cash handling, and often a good read on people, all of which transfer well.

Since it's free, the real cost of any given path is time and opportunity, not money — so I'd think about which programs give the best return on that time. Here's how I'd frame the options, roughly ranked by combination of pay, demand, and how well they build on what you already have:

Strong fits given your background:

• Nursing (RN via ADN) — This is probably the single best ROI for a 2-year community college program in most states. RN median pay is well above most associate-degree jobs, demand is very high and stable (aging population, ongoing nursing shortages), and your comfort with high-pressure, people-facing work translates directly. The catch: nursing programs are often competitive to get into (waitlists, prerequisite GPA requirements) even when the college itself is free, so it's worth checking admission requirements early.
• Radiologic technology / diagnostic imaging — Good pay, strong demand, hands-on and patient-facing, usually less competitive to get into than nursing, and a 2-year associate degree is standard entry.
• Dental hygiene — Very strong pay-to-time ratio, people-facing, but often has selective admission and sometimes needs volunteer/observation hours first.

Skilled trades / certificate routes (if you want something outside healthcare):

• HVAC, electrical, or industrial maintenance technician — These have serious labor shortages right now, pay well, and many programs are shorter than 2 years. Physical work, but no degree ceiling — you can move into supervisory or specialized roles.
• IT/network support or cybersecurity certificate — Shorter programs, decent entry pay, huge room to grow with further certs, and can be done with less physical demand if that matters to you long-term.

If you want to stay closer to hospitality/service, upgraded:

• Business/management or accounting associate — Could position you to move from bartending into venue/restaurant management, or general small-business roles, building on the industry knowledge you already have rather than starting from scratch.

A few questions that would sharpen this for you specifically — do you want to stay on your feet and people-facing, or would you actually welcome something more deskbound? Are you open to healthcare specifically, or is that a hard no for you? And is timeline a big factor (some certificate programs are 6-12 months vs. the full 2 years for an associate)?

If you tell me what draws you or what you want to avoid, I can narrow this down to 1-2 realistic options and map out what the actual coursework/prerequisites look like.