Photo: TikTok
She's done playing games with hiring managers that don't respect her time. But is she demanding too much?
By John Sundholm — Written on Apr 20, 2023
There are few processes as anxiety-inducing and frustrating as a job search—the constant resume updates, the interminable waiting and wondering after an interview, and the haggling over salary when you finally do get an offer. It's one of life's most unpleasant chores.
One woman on TikTok has decided she is no longer willing to play any games when it comes to job hunting.
A woman on TikTok is being called a 'hero' for refusing to endure her job-hunting pet peeves.
Job hunting is literally among the most stressful slogs we humans have to endure—according to psychologists, the job search process actually activates the part of our "lizard brain" where the fight-or-flight reflex lives, just like if we were in actual danger.
So when the job interview process turns into a drawn-out, multi-step gauntlet, it makes an already taxing affair all the more nerve-grating. TikToker Callie, known as @_cal_cifer on the app, has a simple solution—walking away the moment the process becomes tedious.
She refuses to go on multiple interviews or spend more than a month in the hiring process.
We've all been there—we make it through the initial interview on the phone, then we meet with a hiring manager. As if that weren't stressful enough, now we've got to meet with one, two, three, maybe even a whole retinue of other people, racking up multiple interviews and using up hours, days and weeks of our time—often only to end up not even getting the job in the end.
Callie has said "absolutely not" to this all too common wringer that is atop the list of many people's job-hunting pet peeves. "If you're asking me to come and do three and four interviews, the chances are I'm just not interested in that job anymore," she declared.
In fact, she's refused to participate in any lengthy hiring process at all, regardless of how many interviews are required. "If your selection process takes more than a month," she went on to say, "there's a decent chance that I'm not interested in that job anymore." Time is money, as they say, so it's hard to argue she doesn't have a point.
Her job-hunting pet peeves also include having to rehash her resume and haggle over salary, and she refuses to do either.
Callie shares many people's job-hunting pet peeves—the constant regurgitation of your resume details. Being asked to manually enter your resume details in 2023 is an absurd ask on its face.
But when you've already been required to upload a PDF of it in the first place? Well, that's just plain infuriating, not to mention time-consuming, and many people have begun refusing to play that game anymore.
Callie takes this one step further, though—she refuses to even discuss her resume details over and over again, and calls it a deal-breaker. "If I have to re-explain my entire resume at every step of the process because it's obvious those interviewing me didn't even bother to glance at it, I'm probably not interested in that job anymore."
And she rejects many companies' lack of transparency about salaries too. "If you refuse to give concrete salary ranges until the offer letter is sent out, I'm probably not interested in that job anymore," she says.
For her, this all comes down to a fundamental lack of respect for applicants' time, and she has some blunt advice for hiring managers—"Good applicants are also not going to wait around and wait for you to figure it out."
Some feel the woman is 'entitled' and demanding too much, but even some HR professionals agree the job interview process is broken.
Of course, Callie got the expected backlash for her approach to the job search process. "That is the problem with your generation," one crank commented, "you want everything given to you instead of working for it. No wonder your generation will get nowhere." Another user agreed. "Yes! Then they complain bout how horrible capitalism is & bout how horrible jobs pay," they wrote.
But even older people rolled their eyes at that suggestion. "What does generation have to do with it?! I'm 47 and I'm not going to a million interviews for a job," another person responded. A man in his late 50s responded similarly, giving a two-week limit to employers before he moves on in his search.
And most felt Callie was spot on in her refusal to play games or put up with her job-hunting pet peeves.
"If you're asking me to jump through a dozen hoops in the application process," one person wrote, "I'm going to assume the job will be disrespectful as well." Another user put it more simply—they theorized that companies and HR departments who put job applicants through these wringers "likely don't want good, they want desperate."
Even many HR professionals and recruiters agree that the job search and interviewing process is profoundly broken—and some, like the HR executive and coach known as @HRManifesto in the TikTok below, say people like Callie are doing the right thing.
She suggests you always ask recruiters and hiring managers about their hiring process and timeline before even accepting an interview. "You don't want to waste your time with a company that doesn't mind wasting your time," she said.
Especially in today's world of low pay and even lower job security, expecting applicants to go through the wringer for a job that likely won't hesitate to get rid of them if the going gets tough is a pretty tall order. And given the US's ongoing labor shortage—with some 10 million unfilled jobs and only 5.7 million unemployed workers to fill them according to the US Chamber of Commerce—companies would do well to fix their broken interview systems, and do it as soon as possible.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.