r/recruitinghell: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

Posters run from a 21 year old who cannot land a first job to someone with three decades of work behind them and candidates five interviews deep for a senior role. No knowledge is assumed, since the shared subject is being a candidate. A basic question such as whether you have been ghosted gets sympathy and a blunt answer. The rules say the subreddit is not about helping people find jobs, but advice posts stay up and get replies.

• Job seekers months into a search, posting rejections and asking what a silence means.
• New graduates and students who cannot get a first interview.
• Experienced workers, laid off or stuck, comparing this market with earlier ones.
• People warning others about a specific scam, fake job or bad hiring process.
• The occasional recruiter or HR person, usually posting as a candidate themselves.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/recruitinghell.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 100.

• Stayed up88%
• Removed by Reddit's filters10%
• Removed by moderators1%
• Deleted by the author1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

What happened when we posted here

We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.

Stayed up

100%

Removed by Reddit's filters

0%

Removed by moderators

0%

Period

June 2026 to July 2026

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Don't post obvious typos

   For posts that are obviously typos, and not malicious in nature. Examples include "$14/yr" instead of "$14/hr", and "25 years of java experience" instead of "2-5 years". "$300/mo" for a job that would expect 5 times that is not an obvious typo.

2. 2

   Addicles are not allowed.

   Oftentimes, companies will frame an ad as an article, these are spam and will be treated as such.

3. 3

   No direct links to a job

   Only text posts, screenshots, relevant articles, or archive links allowed. Exceptions will now include the monthly job post.

4. 4

   Don't go off topic

   Post may have merit, but isn't what /r/recruitinghell is about. We're more about amusing (if infuriating) stories of bad recruitment practices, not about helping people find jobs or horror stories after someone's gotten a job.

5. 5

   No Spam

   It SHOULD go without saying, but no spam. Spam is defined as any attempt to pitch a product, service, or seek people for jobs (yes, this happens a lot). Posting spam will get you banned (ONE STRIKE), and a report will be sent to the Reddit Admins for possible account termination. If you want to advertise on Reddit, buy ads.

6. 6

   Be civil.

   Personal attacks against a person's skills, abilities, or other part of the recruiting efforts will lead to disciplinary action. Basically, no namecalling.

7. 7

   Be respectful of the volunteer mods.

   Being a dick towards the volunteer mods will get you voluntold off this subreddit. We're just trying to keep the community peaceful, don't make our lives difficult. If we warn you about one of the other rules, please don't respond by turning your rulebreaking up to 11.

8. 8

   Be yourself, but don't be an ass.

   Opinions are totally fine, and it's acceptable to have an against the grain opinion. Our subreddit isn't about hate - it's about the annoying recruiting practices and the pain of getting a job. To that end, don't go out of your way to provoke arguments and start fights.

9. 9

   Do not post personal information

   This is a site-wide Reddit rule. Identifying a company or public figure is fine, but do not otherwise leave names or identifying info (such as pictures or Twitter handles) visible.

10. 10

    Don't be racist.

    Really? Do we have to explain this one?

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/recruitinghell has about 1.5 million members and around 85 posts a day. It was set up for horror stories about recruiters and candidates who do not get it, and the sidebar still asks posts to have humorous areas, or at least some dark humor or biting sarcasm. About 61% of posts are text, a quarter are images, mostly screenshots of job ads and rejection emails, and the rest are links.

The mood has shifted from amused to worn out. The recurring subjects are being ghosted after interviews or even after an offer, automated rejection emails, AI screening interviews, job ads that demand years of experience for entry level pay, and scams aimed at people who are desperate. A good share of posts are simply people saying how long they have been looking.

That creates a gap between the rules and the feed. The off topic rule says the subreddit is about bad recruitment practices, not about helping people find jobs. In practice resume reviews, should I follow up questions and general job market despair are posted daily and stay up, and moderators removed about 1% of posts in our sample. Comments are supportive more often than funny.

What lands

• A specific story with a clear wrong: an interviewer who had not read the CV, a recruiter who rescheduled for days and then rejected you.
• A screenshot of a job ad or rejection email with the absurd line visible and personal details blocked out.
• A warning about a named company's process or a scam, with what happened and what it cost you.
• A finally got an offer post after a long search, with how long it took.
• A pointed question about hiring practice, such as what employers should have to disclose before a first interview.

What gets removed or ignored

• Posts that link to a site on the AutoModerator blocklist. The one automatic removal in our sample was a request to connect on a professional networking site.
• By rule, direct links to job ads and recruiting sites.
• By rule, posts whose whole point is an obvious typo in a job ad, such as a salary listed per year instead of per hour.
• By rule, adverts written as articles, and any pitch for a product, service or job opening.
• By rule, anything showing an individual's name, contact details or photo.

The unwritten rules

• Name the company if you want, never the person. That is the line the rules and the submit page both draw.
• Give the timeline: how many rounds, how many weeks of silence, how long you have been searching. Replies depend on it.
• Posts get a handful of replies, five at the median, and comments are about 21 words. Almost none carry a link.
• Readers are alert to AI-written posts and to tools dressed up as a rant. A post that ends in something you built gets treated as an advert.
• Telling people to try harder goes down badly. Most of the room has sent hundreds of applications.

Self-promotion

The rule is blunt. Spam is any attempt to pitch a product, a service or to seek people for jobs. It is a one strike ban, a report goes to the Reddit admins, and the rule ends by telling you to buy ads. Articles written to sell a company are treated the same way. In practice moderation looks light, and a post asking for feedback on a job search tool the poster built was still up in our sample. That is not a tolerated path. It is a post the mods had not reached, in a room where the stated penalty is permanent.

How people write here

Typical post length

114 words

Typical title length

8 words

Titles phrased as a question

33%

Typical comment length

21 words

Comments that include a link

1%

Posts that carry a flair

4%

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/recruitinghell.

• job 57 posts
• interview 37 posts
• interviews 25 posts
• applied 20 posts
• jobs 23 posts
• applying 17 posts
• rejected 14 posts
• rejection 10 posts
• position 18 posts
• recruiter 11 posts
• role 20 posts
• candidate 11 posts
• resume 13 posts
• company 26 posts
• job market 10 posts
• ghosted 8 posts
• recruiters 8 posts
• told 19 posts
• employers 7 posts
• reached 11 posts
• hiring 12 posts
• offer 15 posts
• experience 23 posts
• interviewer 5 posts
• recruiting 6 posts
• market 14 posts
• interviewed 6 posts
• apply 10 posts
• emailed 6 posts
• applications 8 posts
• positions 7 posts
• rounds 6 posts
• interview experience 3 posts
• job posting 4 posts
• unemployed 5 posts
• another candidate 3 posts
• final round 4 posts
• manager 10 posts
• sent 9 posts
• round 7 posts

Recurring topics: job, interview, interviews, experience, rejection, application, offer, resume, job search, hr.

Growth

1. 201612k
2. 201726k
3. 201840k
4. 201981k
5. 2020137k
6. 2021241k
7. 2023597k
8. 2024770k
9. 20251.2M
10. 20261.5M

Related subreddits

• r/jobs
• r/AskHR
• r/jobhunting
• r/sales
• r/jobsearch
• r/Teachers
• r/FinalDraftResumes
• r/Recruitment
• r/QualityAssurance
• r/developersIndia

Common questions