How do I deal with a workplace culture where coworkers get called out in Slack groups?
At my company whenever someone makes a mistake they often get called out in a Slack group where basically the entire company is present.
It feels less like feedback and more like public shaming. I honestly think it’s creating a toxic culture where people are afraid of making mistakes.
I’m thinking about proposing an initiative to encourage feedback to be handled privately and constructively instead.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Did you manage to change it and how?
Jobadvisor
How to Drive the Culture Shift
- Fear slows down velocity: Teams stop innovating because the cost of a mistake is public humiliation.
- Errors get hidden: When mistakes are punished publicly, people hide them until they become massive fires.
- Retention drops: Top talent leaves psychological safety hazards.
- Public channel rule: Use open channels for announcements, wins, questions, and team-wide learning where names aren't attached to mistakes.
- Direct message / 1:1 rule: Specific individual feedback or corrections must happen privately via DM or 1:1 call.
- Shift the question from "Who messed up?" to "What process or tool allowed this mistake to happen?"
- Example transformation:
- Toxic:
@Alex sent the wrong email to the client again. - Constructive:
We had an issue where an unreviewed email draft went out. Let's look at updating our staging process so this doesn't happen again.
- Ask them: "Have you noticed how quiet people are in Slack after someone gets called out? I'd love to partner on some team norms to help keep communication constructive."
- Getting leadership buy-in gives your proposed guidelines authority.
- Praise in public, coach in private.
- Focus on systems, not individuals.
- Assume good intent before posting in a shared thread.
Anything but corporate...
I recently left a job that was just sucking up too much of my life. I've got a long history in IT, about 15 years, and I'm 40, no mortgage/marriage/debt/kids, never will have kids, and am in a LCOL situation right now. I have some severance to bridge me for a bit but now... I don't know what's next. My degree is in English.
I never, ever want to be in a corporate environment again. And I don't want to go back into government IT or Higher Ed IT either. I thought about the consulting thing but honestly... I don't really care about IT at all anymore and I'm just totally burned out on it, especially now that knowing how to do things is completely worthless in the face of Claude. (yes I know there is a lot of value in understanding that, but not to the dipshit execs who just want deliver deliver deliver).
Really I want control over my time- to work less, live more, and not just waste my life in front of computer screens doing meaningless shit that will be gone in a few years. I would love to work with my hands or possibly in a small business I am passionate about. I love making things, I love working with tools. I'm just not cut out for a consistent job- my mental state is not always steady and keeping it together through rough periods doesn't always work out. Used to be easier but corporations are getting less and less forgiving now that it's such an employer's market. The trades come up and I've considered applying, but not sure I'll make it through the apprenticeship grind.
I just want something else out of life. I would love to live in some kind of self-sufficient commune type situation, more or less separate from the world as much as possible. I just don't know if that exists. Help me find a path.
Jobadvisor
1. The "Solo Mobile Trade" (No Boss, No Apprenticeship Grind)
- Small Engine / Tool Repair: People throw away mowers, generators, and power tools because a $10 carburetor is clogged. Learning small engine repair takes months, not years. You work in a shed/garage, set your own hours, use physical tools, and deal directly with local customers (or fix and flip used equipment on your own schedule).
- Bicycle / E-Bike Mechanics: High demand, tactile, and highly satisfying. You can work seasonal shifts at an independent shop or run a mobile repair van.
- Property Maintenance / Handyman for Small Local Businesses: Local non-profits, independent bakeries, or art studios always need fixed-it work. You pick the jobs, invoice directly, and say no when you need a mental health week.
2. Intentional Communities & Eco-Villages
- FIC (Foundation for Intentional Community - ic.org): This is the central directory for eco-villages, co-housing, and communes across North America and worldwide. Look for established communities that offer residency or work-exchange.
- WWOOF / Workaway (as a stepping stone): If you want to test off-grid living without committing, spend 3–6 months working on organic farms or homesteads in exchange for room, board, and hands-on skills (carpentry, solar setups, permaculture).
- Why your IT background helps here: Off-grid communities desperately need people who understand basic electrical/solar setups, micro-grids, water pumping systems, and logistics. You don't have to touch a corporate server, but your ability to troubleshoot physical systems makes you invaluable.
3. High-Value Seasonal Work (Work Hard, Then Stop)
- National Park / Forest Service Maintenance or Trail Crews: Hands-on physical work outdoors. Jobs often run 4 to 6 months, include low-cost housing, and leave you with 6 months off to live simply on savings.
- Estate / Camp Caretaking: Private properties, retreat centers, and summer camps hire live-in caretakers to handle winterization, basic carpentry, landscaping, and maintenance. Often comes with free housing and a quiet, isolated lifestyle.
Comparing Your Potential Next Steps
| Path | Physical Demand | Isolation / Autonomy | Income Potential | Time to Start |
| Independent Handyman/Small Engine | Moderate | High (You control schedule) | Flexible (Pay per job) | 1–3 months |
| Intentional Community / Off-Grid | Moderate–High | Very High (Separate from mainstream) | Low/Subsistence + Room/Board | Immediate–3 months |
| Seasonal Park/Caretaking | High | High (Nature-focused) | Low–Moderate + Housing | Seasonal cycles |
University-sponsored "Job Fair" was an utter joke.
Got an email from my alumni association about a local job fair in my area. Several other universities were involved and about 50 companies were listed as attending.
I come in and it's a fairly standard setup with companies at tables and people lining up to talk to them. However, I noticed something was off fairly quickly. First company I chatted with was totally normal, explain where I might fit and took my resume.
Chatted with the second company. They're not in the market for what I do, but said they are looking to expand those operations in the US (why they were at the fair). Took my resume, then asked me to scan a QR code which just takes me to their company career page.
Every. Single. Other. Company. They politely chatted, then pointed to the QR code and the person moved along. There was a company I was interest in, but there was a line about 75 people deep, and they had a single, low level person working the table, pointing out of the QR code after every exchange.
What the actual fuck is the point of a job fair if the people representing the companies 1) have trouble answering basic questions, and 2) simply direct EVERYONE to look at their companies career page.
Like, MY BROTHER IN CHRIST, I could have done that from home. The entire point of a job fair is to actually be able to engage with someone in the hiring process. But I guess now all they are good for is driving more clicks to their careers page.
Such an utter waste of time. I'm embarrassed that my university thought this was an event that was worth sponsoring. I feel like the only jobs this fair was creating were for the people who plan this garbage and I feel terrible for all the freshly graduated student who felt like they had to wait through all of these lines for what they could have gotten from home.
Jobadvisor
The Silent Breakdown: Why Job Fairs Sucking Is the Norm
[ Company Branding Goal ] ──> Send 1 Entry-Level Recruiter w/ QR Banner
│
▼
[ University Goal ] ──> "Look! 50+ Major Employers Attending!"
│
▼
[ Job Seeker Reality ] ──> Stand in line 45 min to scan a public URL
1. Companies are there for "Employer Branding," not hiring
2. The recruiters on-site usually have zero hiring power
3. Compliance and ATS legal walls
4. Universities care about the headline number
How to Bypass the QR-Code Trap
- Target the "B-Tier" tables with no lines: The giant multinational with a 75-person line is guaranteed to give you a QR code. The 20-person local firm or specialized vendor at the corner table usually sent a founder, VP, or direct department head who actually has the power to hire you on the spot.
- Use the event to skip the ATS on LinkedIn: If you chatted with someone (even briefly), find them on LinkedIn that evening."Hi [Name], enjoyed chatting briefly at the [University] job fair today. I know the event was packed, but I saw you're expanding US operations in [Field]. Would love to connect here and ask a quick question about the team."
- Ask "Filter Questions" immediately: Before standing in a 20-minute line, walk up to the side of the table and ask someone waiting or the recruiter directly: "Are you accepting resumes directly for [Field] roles today, or directing everyone to the career site?" If it's the latter, walk away.
If you're qualified but not getting interviews, at what point do you stop applying and change your strategy?
I've been reading a lot of job-search discussions lately, and something keeps standing out to me.
People will say:
“I've applied to 50 jobs and gotten 2 interviews.”
Then 50 applications becomes 100.
100 becomes 200.
Sometimes 300+.
At what point does sending more applications stop being the solution?
If someone is reasonably qualified for the positions they're applying to but consistently isn't getting interviews, I'd think the problem is somewhere earlier in the process.
Maybe:
The resume isn't positioning their experience clearly
They're using the same resume for every application
Their strongest accomplishments are buried
They're targeting positions that don't actually match their background
Their resume describes responsibilities instead of results
They're relying too heavily on job boards
They're applying to postings that already have hundreds of applicants
What I find interesting is that job searching seems like a conversion funnel.
Applications → Interviews → Final Interviews → Offers
Where you're getting stuck probably tells you more than the total number of applications you've submitted.
No interviews?
I'd investigate the resume, targeting and application strategy.
Getting interviews but never reaching final rounds?
Maybe interview performance needs work.
Consistently reaching final rounds but not getting offers?
That's a completely different problem.
I'm curious what people here have actually experienced.
For those who went through a long job search and eventually landed something, what did you change that finally started getting you results?
Jobadvisor
Your funnel framework is basically right, and I think the number most people should use as a trigger to stop and diagnose is smaller than they think.
A rough rule of thumb: if you've sent 15-20 applications to roles you're genuinely qualified for and gotten zero interviews, that's already a strong signal something upstream is broken. Not "maybe worth checking" — actively broken. A qualified candidate applying to reasonably-matched roles should be converting at some nonzero rate almost immediately. Silence at 20 isn't bad luck, it's data.
The reason people push past that number anyway is that job searching feels like a volume game (because it's marketed that way — "just apply to more!"), and doing more of the same thing feels like effort even when it isn't fixing anything. Going from 100 to 300 applications with a broken resume isn't more effort, it's just repeating the same failed experiment.
Where I'd add nuance to your diagnostic funnel:
Zero interviews stage — before touching the resume's content, check the mechanical stuff first: is it getting parsed correctly by ATS (test it — some formatting choices, tables, headers in weird places will silently mangle a resume), and are you actually applying within the first 48-72 hours of a posting going live. A lot of "resume problem" is actually "applied on day 9 of 400 applicants" problem. Timing and ATS-compatibility can look identical to a content problem from the outside.
Interviews but no final rounds — this one's often less about "performance" in the vague sense and more about a specific mismatch between what they emphasize in the interview and what the role actually needs solved. Worth getting someone to mock-interview you and flag not just delivery but whether your answers are actually answering the question being asked underneath the question.
Final rounds but no offers — you're right this is a different animal. Often it's not you at all — internal candidate, budget pulled, they went with someone with one specific niche skill. This is the stage where it's genuinely closer to variance and less something to over-correct on.
One thing I'd add that doesn't fit neatly into the funnel: referrals change the funnel shape entirely, not just the odds. A referred application often skips the top of the funnel altogether — it goes straight to a human instead of the ATS pile. If someone's stuck at zero interviews after 20+ cold applications, the highest-leverage move usually isn't a 21st cold application, it's finding one person at a target company to get the resume in front of a human directly.
Are you asking this because you're in the middle of a search right now, or more out of general curiosity about the pattern? Happy to dig into resume specifics or interview prep if it's the former.
What is the likelihood an employer is rejecting me due to a 17 year old misdemeanor conviction?
My background check came back and it's right there in black and white. This company requested I complete behavioral assessments, reference checks and the background check BEFORE the offer was submitted.
I emailed my future boss my references on Wednesday and haven't heard back. The recruiter said she was sending my behavior assessment results to the hiring manager. How likely they might reject me for this misdemeanor conviction? It was theft 50 to 500 and I was 19 years old when it happened. The job's salary band starts at 75k so they were able to run a check that went all the way back to age 18.
Jobadvisor
Hard to give you real odds since it depends heavily on the company's specific policy and what state you're in, but I can walk through the factors that actually matter here, because a few things in your situation work in your favor.
Things that generally help you:
- 17 years is a long time. Many "fair chance" / ban-the-box laws (which exist in a growing number of states and cities) either prohibit consideration of convictions past a certain age, or require employers to do an individualized assessment that weighs how long ago the offense was, your age at the time, and evidence of rehabilitation since. A single misdemeanor at 19, nearly two decades old, with presumably a clean record since, is close to the textbook case those laws were written to protect.
- It's a misdemeanor, not a felony, and a relatively low-dollar theft charge. Employers generally reserve automatic disqualification for things that are more severe or more directly relevant to the job (e.g., a cash-handling role and a theft conviction could be treated as more relevant — worth thinking about whether this role involves handling money or valuables).
- You made it past behavioral assessments and reference checks first. That ordering suggests they liked you enough to invest time before running the background check, which isn't nothing.
- The fact that they're still processing this (sending results to the hiring manager) rather than an immediate auto-reject is itself a decent sign — many companies with a hard-line policy on certain conviction types have that baked into an automated pre-screen that would've stopped things earlier.
Legally relevant protections you may have:
- Under the FCRA, if they're going to take adverse action based on the background check, they're required to give you a "pre-adverse action" notice, a copy of the report, and a chance to respond/dispute before they finalize a rejection. If they do reject you over this, you're entitled to that process — it's not just "sorry, no."
- Depending on your state, there may be a legally mandated individualized assessment they have to perform (looking at nature of the offense, time elapsed, job relatedness) rather than a blanket policy. Some states (CA, NY, IL, and others) have fairly strong protections here.
- Some states also restrict how far back a background check can even legally report misdemeanors (often 7 years) — if you're in one of those states, a company running one that reaches back to age 18 for a role at this salary level should still be following those reporting limits, and I'd double check what actually showed up vs. what should have been reportable.
What I'd actually do right now: the silence since Wednesday is a slower read than the conviction itself — hiring processes stall for lots of boring reasons (approvals, other candidates, budget sign-off, someone's on vacation). I wouldn't over-index on a few days of quiet. If you do get a rejection tied to this, ask directly whether it's related to the background check — if it is, you're entitled to the pre-adverse action process, and that's also your opening to explain context (age, time elapsed, growth since) directly to them.
I'm not an employment lawyer, so if this is a state with specific fair-chance protections, it might be worth a quick consult or even just reading your state's specific law — that would give you a much more concrete answer than general odds-guessing. What state are you in? I can look into the specific rules that would apply.