Normalize leaving negative Glassdoor reviews when companies waste your time or ghost you

People really need to stop feeling bad about leaving negative Glassdoor reviews after getting ghosted.

I’m not saying lie or write some unhinged revenge post. Just say exactly what happened. How many rounds, how many hours you spent, whether you took PTO, whether they made you do an unpaid case study, and whether they even bothered to respond afterward.

I’ve had companies drag me through five rounds over several months, give me three-hour case studies, put me in front of huge panels, and then disappear.

My worst experience was Home Depot’s AMP program. The final interview day was on a Wednesday and took around 11 hours in person. There was an Excel assessment, a case study, behavioral interviews, and multiple conversations with different people. I took PTO, drove there, spent the whole day interviewing, and got positive feedback in person.

Afterward, several of us who interviewed connected on LinkedIn and realized we had all received basically the same generic rejection email. It was pretty much: your Excel assessment was bad, your case study was bad, and your behavioral interview was bad. Somehow every candidate failed everything, even though we had all been getting positive feedback during the actual interviews.

The recruiter told me they had chosen another candidate. Then I saw her repost the exact same job on LinkedIn because they were apparently still looking, minutes after telling me somebody had been chosen for the job. After that, it kept getting reposted almost every Wednesday for around six months, with a fresh group of easy marks going through the process each time.

Later, someone internal told me there was no real urgency to hire and that they were not seriously looking for anyone at the time. That honestly explained the entire process.

I also cancelled an interview with another company because its Glassdoor page was full of terrible interview reviews. They actually called me afterward asking why I cancelled. When I told them it was because of the reviews, they almost sounded upset. They started explaining that they had changed their process, retrained HR, and fixed a lot of the issues people had complained about.

That is why people should leave these reviews. Companies absolutely notice when bad candidate experiences start hurting their ability to recruit.

Candidates are expected to take PTO, spend hours preparing, complete unpaid assignments, attend endless interviews, send thank-you emails, and act professional the entire time. The least a company can do is be honest and send a real response.

Ghosting candidates should hurt a company’s reputation. Leave the review.

Jobadvisor

An 11-hour in-person day, PTO burned, positive real-time feedback, and then an identical copy-paste rejection to everyone in the cohort, followed by the same req getting reposted weekly for six months — that's not a hiring process, that's a pipeline being kept warm on candidates' unpaid time. It's a genuinely reasonable thing to be angry about.

Your core argument is solid and hard to push back on:

The asymmetry is real. Candidates are expected to prep, take unpaid time off, complete assessments, follow up gracefully, and stay professional throughout — while companies face essentially no cost for ghosting, recycling a fake req, or sending a form rejection that doesn't match what actually happened in the room. Glassdoor reviews are one of the only mechanisms that puts even a small cost back on that side of the ledger. And your second example proves the mechanism works — a company called you specifically because the reviews were costing them candidates, and it changed their behavior.

Being specific and factual, like you're describing, is exactly the right way to do it. Timeline, hours spent, whether it was unpaid work, whether they responded — that's not a "revenge post," it's useful information for the next candidate deciding whether to burn PTO on this company, which is the actual purpose of the platform.

A couple of things worth flagging, not as pushback on the principle but as practical texture:

• Companies sometimes do legitimately have periods of low hiring urgency where a req stays open "just in case a great candidate appears," and that can look identical to your Home Depot situation from the outside even when there's no bad intent. The tell in your case wasn't just the reposting — it was the mismatched positive-in-person-feedback vs. identical-negative-form-rejection, which is a much harder thing to explain away.
• The main thing that keeps a negative review credible and useful (rather than easy to dismiss as "disgruntled candidate venting") is exactly the factual, specific approach you're already describing — dates, hours, deliverables, what was said vs. what happened. That's what makes it land with both future candidates and, sometimes, with the company itself.

Sounds like you've already got the Home Depot AMP experience laid out clearly enough to write — want help drafting it into a tight, factual review?

Company forgot to inform me I will be fired

It's a 2 month old story. I'm a Senior SWE with 10 YOE.

After being laid off from my previous company (worked there for 6 years) that had a 70% workforce cut, joined a outsourcing company where I was fired a few days before my probation period would have ended.

The client (US Healthcare company) announced they want to provide their own PO's and PM's instead of ours, so they did. After that, they announced again that they want less people working on their account.

After some alignments our company published a list of the lucky ones who can stay on the project, and I was fortunate enough to sit on that list.

Few weeks passed by, we were about to come up with a new team structure, when on a Monday I wasn't invited to one of these meetings, my own teammates sent me the meeting link because they didn't understand why I'm not there. It was a meeting about introducing what will happen in the following days and what's still unknown. Had a bad feeling about this, but tried to reason in myself that everyone has a lot of work to do, and this extra restructuring doesn't help much.

The next day I wasn't invited to the meeting again where they announced the final team structures, my teammates invited me. The remaining people were split further to 3 teams, but I couldn't really find my name in any of them. At the end of the meeting I've asked the organizer - after raising my hand - if there is any reason for me not being invited to these meetings, and I'm not on any of the currently shown lists. The organizer told me she'll contact me after this meeting to sort this one out. (Narrator: She didn't.)

Few minutes later, my local boss texted me that unfortunately I will be removed from the project. From this point, none of my peers I had daily conversations with (and kinda became "friends" too) answered my slack messages about being curious what will happen to me. Just had a meeting with the local branch CEO about how there's no space in other projects and that's why they sending away so many, so I knew what's waiting for me.

A week later, along with those who were noticed like a month before that they - we got fired.

I wasn't surprised, I knew this will happen the moment when people started ignoring my questions about what will happen to me. HR wasn't legally required to reason about why they send me away, but they assured me it wasn't due to any performance issues I would have had.

Based on my team, and lead dev feedback I was someone on the project already who brought matters forward, and kept up with other teams as well due to the chaos we experienced from project management & client side. Managed to deliver and demo some features even though I barely had any time to be onboarded by anyone.

My peers who didn't answer me requested HR to at least have a call with me before I get signed off from every account I had. Basically, each of them told me the same stuff - they were instructed to not say a word if I ask the obvious, but they also didn't know for 100% if this decision is final or not. It all went down in a few days.

Moral of the story. Sometimes it doesn't matter if you give 100% or more, if cost cutting comes and you're in an unfortunate situation (eg. having probation period), there's nothing you can do. Just don't beat yourself up over it. There's not always something that you could've done better to prevent it.

The worse was that I genuinely liked the people I worked with, even though the project and the client was a hell to manage, and there were serious communication issues from both our, and their side as well. I was a little angry at them for not answering me, but I also understood their position as well, because I had to go through a similar situation at the previous company I worked for.

Instant karma; the client was... either hacked, or they messed up something very badly days before I was fired. Their whole network went down for weeks which caused a lot of pain to people in the US as this company is a health insurance middleman. As for my ex colleagues, one of them just texted me today that further layoffs are coming, and most likely they won't survive it either.

What I did after being jobless again? Not too much. Left myself some weeks to rest and started answering some recruiters on LinkedIn. Got to a final round at a company where they rejected me because I supposedly don't do enough AI assisted development - which is kinda true. An other ball is still bouncing at the company where I started my career and worked for 4 years. It's not the best place, but would be better than nothing in the current situation. My ex lead who I had an amazing relationship with is working there, and he would be my peer again.

I also try work on my old project ideas. Brainstorming with jobless friends from the industry about what project we should start together. Although it sucks having no income, it's somehow exciting to live through this now.

Thank you for reading my little story. I hope you guys do well, and you can find a new job, or whatever you guys pursue next! Good luck! :)

Jobadvisor

That's a lot to have gone through back to back — laid off from a 6-year role, then landing somewhere new only to watch it happen again during probation, this time with the added sting of being quietly excluded from meetings before anyone told you anything directly. The part about your own teammates having to forward you the meeting links because you weren't invited — that's a genuinely painful way to find out something's wrong, before a single person had the decency to just tell you.

A few things that stand out reading this:

The way it played out wasn't really about you. Client pulls PM/PO control back, then asks for fewer bodies on the account — that's an account-level headcount decision made above your local team, not a reflection of your work. And you have actual evidence of that: your lead's own feedback said you were delivering, unblocking things, and keeping pace with other teams despite barely getting onboarded properly. HR also explicitly told you it wasn't performance-related. You're not just telling yourself that to feel better — the record backs it up.

The silence from your peers is the part that probably still stings most, and it makes sense that it does. You'd built real relationships there. But it sounds like you already have real clarity on why it happened — they were told not to say anything, and they didn't have confirmation either. That's a rough position to put people in, and the fact that they later asked HR for a call on your behalf says something about what they actually thought of you, even if the timing failed you.

What you're doing now sounds like the right shape, even if it doesn't feel like much. Resting first instead of panic-applying immediately, reconnecting with a former lead who already knows your work, keeping a few ideas warm with other people in the same boat — that's a reasonable way to ride this out rather than white-knuckling it.

The "not enough AI-assisted development" rejection is its own frustrating flavor of 2026 job hunting, but it sounds like you're taking these setbacks in stride rather than letting them compound. How's the option with your old team and former lead looking — is that one moving, or still in the "ball bouncing" stage?

Advice on sticking to a schedule and not feeling lonely.

I’m a 27yo male and have been working from home almost 3 years. I’ve noticed over the years sticking to a schedule has gotten worse and worse. Now I can barely get out of bed before 7:58am (I start at 8am) and after work I don’t have the motivation to do anything besides sit around until it’s time to go to bed and do it all over again. I’m a very social person and the nature of my job has me isolated more than communicating with people over teams or phone which has begun to bother me as well. I catch myself slacking throughout the day and just losing the ability to stay on task. Does anyone have any tips on how they stick to a schedule and overall improve their mindset, work/life balance, and deal with loneliness? TYIA

Jobadvisor

Three years of remote work sliding into "roll out of bed at 7:58 for an 8am start, then sit around until bedtime" — that's a real erosion, and it makes sense it's wearing on you, especially as someone who's naturally social and is now getting almost none of that during the day.

A few things that tend to actually move the needle here, since a lot of generic advice ("just make a schedule!") doesn't address why the schedule collapsed in the first place:

The morning is probably your highest-leverage fix. Waking up at 7:58 for an 8am start means you're starting the day already behind, with zero buffer, zero movement, zero daylight. That sets a "survival mode" tone for the whole day. Even 30 minutes of buffer — up, water, five minutes outside, something before the laptop opens — tends to change how the whole day feels, not just the morning.

Isolation and task-drift are probably feeding each other. When you're low on social contact, your brain has less structure and stimulation pulling you forward, so tasks feel heavier and easier to drift off of. This means the fix isn't purely a willpower/schedule problem — bringing more real social contact back into your day may do more for your focus than any productivity system.

Concrete things worth trying:

• Externalize the workday's structure so it's not just you and a to-do list in a quiet apartment. Body doubling (working "alongside" someone on a video call, even silently) or coworking apps/communities built for remote workers can substitute for the ambient presence of an office.
• Anchor the end of the workday with something scheduled, not optional. The reason you "sit around" after work is likely that nothing's pulling you out of the chair. A recurring commitment — a gym class at a fixed time, a standing call with a friend, a weekly rec league or hobby group — works better than "I'll go do something" because it doesn't rely on motivation you won't have by 5pm.
• Get face-to-face contact on a regular cadence, not just when you happen to feel like it. If you're naturally social, this is probably the single biggest lever — even 2-3 times a week of in-person contact (coworking space, gym, class, friend) can meaningfully offset a week of isolated WFH days.
• If Teams/calls are your only work-social outlet, see if you can add texture to them — camera on when reasonable, a few minutes of actual chat before diving into business, even a standing informal call with a coworker you like.

The pattern you're describing — schedule slipping, motivation flattening, isolation increasing — is common enough in long-term remote work that it's not a personal failing, it's a predictable effect of the setup. It also tends to compound slowly, so it's genuinely worth treating as something to actively counter rather than something you should be able to just will your way out of.

Is the isolation mostly about missing casual, in-person social contact generally, or is it more specifically the lack of connection with coworkers/colleagues?

Remote Work for a Senior Leader in Biotech Manufacturing?

Hi everyone,

I will first lead off with remote work is mostly a foreign concept to me, outside of the COVID blip. I work in medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing and I have about 15 years of experience doing this, with a BS in Aquatic Biology and an MS in Food Engineering/MBA. I'm on day 38 of the long night (it will be 21-24 months until USCIS finalizes my girlfriend's K1 application for marriage) and we're close to submitting our application. I promised her that once I wrapped up my divorce (3 years, finally about to close on the last condo) and our K1 application, I would... try to figure out what the rest of this looks like.

I went management track and spent the first 10 years in Quality Assurance (Quality Engineering). I switched to operations after taking my first Director-level position in Quality, deciding that I'd ultimately gotten bored and wanted to be more engaged in making manufacturing environments better from the Operations side-up. I am currently a director of operations and RD at a moderately successful but young company and I do love my job. I guess anyone in Operations would tell you, remote work is a luxury in this career field.

Do I still have options for remote work these days, and if so, what's the best forum for people in my career field? I am open to a pay cut and changing industries, as well. I would just like to be happy again. I would be super commuting between EST USA and Brasil, with only a 1-2 hour time difference when in Brasil vs. EST.

I'm not sure where to start. I'm totally ok with a hybrid situation, even like 2 weeks on site 2 weeks offsite. I feel like finding a company that would be ok with that and/or footing the costs on flight travel is next to impossible, but it's just because I don't know. I will read the resources available in this sub next, but wanted to kickstart the conversation while I do it.

Jobadvisor

Fifteen years of hands-on manufacturing and QA leadership, a divorce closing out, a K1 in process, and now trying to figure out how to build a life that actually lets you be with her — that's a lot of major life threads converging at once, and wanting to reshape your career around it makes sense.

Here's the honest picture on remote work in your field:

The core problem is physics, not policy. Operations and Quality leadership in medical device/pharma manufacturing is inherently tied to the physical plant — you're overseeing production lines, deviations, CAPAs, batch records, equipment qualification, people on the floor. A Director of Ops role that's fully remote essentially doesn't exist at meaningful scale, because the job requires presence for exactly the things that make it valuable (walking the floor, being visible during audits, responding to line issues in real time). This isn't a "companies haven't caught up yet" problem the way it is in software — it's structural to the work itself.

Where remote/hybrid options genuinely exist in your world, roughly in order of how remote-friendly they tend to be:

1. Quality Systems / Compliance / Regulatory Affairs leadership — given your 10 years in QA, this is your strongest lever. Roles focused on QMS oversight, CAPA program management, audit readiness, regulatory submissions, and corporate quality strategy (as opposed to floor-level QA) are often hybrid or remote-heavy, especially at multi-site companies where a corporate quality director oversees several plants and travels periodically rather than living on one floor.

2. Consulting — CQV (commissioning, qualification, validation), quality systems remediation, regulatory strategy, or ops excellence consulting for pharma/biotech/device firms. Firms like ProPharma, PSC Biotech, Genesis AEC, Latham BioPharm Group, and many boutique CQV/regulatory shops run largely remote-with-travel models — you fly in for the intense on-site phases and work remotely between engagements. Given your background, this could actually pay comparably or better, and travel is usually 1-2 weeks per project rather than daily commuting.

3. Corporate/enterprise roles at larger multi-site pharma or device companies — things like Director of Manufacturing Excellence, VP of Quality Systems, Head of Continuous Improvement across a network of plants. These oversee multiple facilities rather than one, which naturally builds in a hybrid/travel-based structure rather than daily on-site presence.

4. Vendor/supplier side — companies that sell equipment, software (MES/QMS platforms like MasterControl, Veeva, TrackWise), or services to manufacturers often have field-facing but remote-based roles for people who deeply understand the operator side, since they need people who've actually run a floor to sell/support/implement into one.

On the Brazil/EST piece specifically — a 1-2 hour time difference is genuinely workable for a hybrid role with real remote weeks, which is more forgiving than most international commuting situations. The "2 weeks on, 2 weeks off" model is more realistic for consulting/CQV work or a corporate multi-site role than for a single-plant Director of Ops job, since the latter usually needs continuous floor presence.

Where to look: ISPE (International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering) has strong networking and job boards specifically for this space, and their local chapters are good for direct conversations with people doing exactly this. ASQ (American Society for Quality) is worth it given your QA background. On LinkedIn, following CQV and pharma consulting firms directly, and searching titles like "Director Quality Systems," "VP Manufacturing Excellence," or "CQV Consultant" alongside "remote" or "hybrid," will surface more than general job boards will.

Given you're open to a pay cut and industry change — is the industry change flexible enough that you'd consider staying in regulated manufacturing broadly (food, cosmetics, industrial) rather than strictly pharma/device, or is staying in biotech/pharma specifically part of what keeps this appealing to you?

I dont know what i want to do or if i have a passion if u call it that way, what should i do?

Hello guys, i am 19 years old and will get into an university this year with engineering geology BS program.

The thing is, i dont know my passion is and i feel so stupid and missed out about it.

I havent thought about geology when i was in highschool but researched for it when i see it due to my exam results(i live in outside of usa). It is not something i hate, i have curouisty for it sometimes so i want to try it out but i have huge anxieties like:

"What if i find out this is not what i wanted?"

"What if i will be doomed till the death while insulting myself cause i made a wrong decision"

and more..

Maybe it is my fault for starting to think about it this deep at 19.

What do you guys think about it? What did you do if u realized that u choosed the wrong major?

Jobadvisor

This is a genuinely common place to be at 19 — not knowing your "passion" isn't a failure, it's actually the normal state for most people your age. The idea that everyone else has it figured out is mostly an illusion.

A few honest thoughts:

"Passion" is often found, not discovered. Research on this is pretty consistent: people usually don't have a pre-existing passion waiting to be uncovered. Interest tends to grow through doing something — getting competent at it, having small wins, connecting with people in the field. So the fact that you're not obsessed with geology yet doesn't mean it's wrong for you. It might just mean you haven't started yet.

You already have a decent signal. You said you're curious about it, not dreading it. That's actually more useful than you might think — "mild curiosity + willingness to try" is a completely reasonable basis to start a degree on. Very few 19-year-olds start with certainty; most start with "this seems interesting enough" and build from there.

The catastrophizing ("doomed till death") is the anxiety talking, not reality. Majors are much more reversible than they feel right now. People switch majors, switch careers, do master's degrees in totally different fields, pivot after years of work experience. Geology also isn't a narrow trap — it opens into environmental science, energy, construction/civil work, hazard assessment, research, and more. First year or two of most science degrees is fairly general anyway, which gives you room to see how you feel.

What you can actually do now, instead of trying to conjure certainty out of nowhere:

• Talk to a couple of people actually working in geology (even a 20-min call) — ask what their day-to-day is like, not just what the field "is."
• Give yourself a checkpoint, like "I'll properly evaluate how I feel after year 1," instead of needing to know the answer before you even start.
• Notice that "what if I hate it" is answerable by trying, not by thinking harder in advance. Overthinking pre-decision won't substitute for actual data from experience.

If it'd help, I can walk through how people typically evaluate "is this major right for me" once they're a semester or two in, or talk through what specifically pulls you toward or away from geology right now.