Fortune magazine claims that’s because youths aren’t up to the task; they don’t dress appropriately, set reasonable expectations, show up on time, show enough initiative, or kick off their careers with a can-do attitude, the publication reckons.
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The message is repeated across multiple media outlets; young people can’t get, or keep, jobs, and they’re all to blame, we’re told.
So I’ll admit I was relieved to speak to the founder of the London Interdisciplinary School, Ed Fidoe, who said the generation’s workplace woes are “not remotely Gen Z’s fault.”
So what’s going on?
There are a “couple of forces” to consider, the founder told HuffPost UK.
Many organisations aren’t hiring right now, and those that are feel that they can “trim their graduate intake” ― even though they “regret it, sort of four years, five years later,” he said.
Then, there’s “a structural problem, a structural challenge, which is… Gen AI, and the impact it has on graduate jobs,” he added.
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Ed shared that “something like 80% [of students] get a 2:1 or a first from Russell Group universities” (it was 87.7% in 2022), meaning internships are crucial if you want to stand out from the crowd.
But the sort of “low-level” research jobs typically given to some interns “could be done very, very easily by the technology that exists.”
“We help broker our students to get internships every year, and… each year, it’s become quite a lot harder to place them,” the founder revealed.
Even where Ed does see some cultural misalignments between young people and the workforce, he still doesn’t think it’s helpful to blame Gen Z.
Though the founder says more and more young people are not given enough “challenges” on things as basic as handing coursework in on time, he states that universities’ failure to prepare students for “the real world” is partly down to an increasingly customer-provider relationship increasingly dear uni fees may encourage.
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University courses themselves are rigid too, he pointed out ― “it’s built in that there’s no change in the university sector. And then we send people out into the most volatile work market that we’ve seen in probably 50 years.”
Especially post-pandemic, Ed continued, “if we see lots of layoffs, it’s not actually because it’s Gen Z being lazy. It’s just… that’s just what happened.”
So what can Gen Z, unis, or employers do to make the situation better?
Though he doesn’t think Gen Z are entirely culpable for their lot, Ed does think that universities could do a better job of setting fair expectations for students.
He calls unis “a wonderful place to be able to provide lots of support, but [also] lots of challenges,” exposing young people to “new environments and new ideas and new thinking.
“And… if universities are backing away from that, then again, my generation is doing that generation a disservice, because what it means is they are optimising for their own ease… because people are worried about being sued. But as soon as those students leave, they’re going to enter a workplace, and the workplace is on the whole not going to be conforming to that,” Ed explained.
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He adds that in the London Interdisciplinary School, “we want people to have difficult conversations. What we don’t want is people to avoid them.”
But Ed says employers themselves often have a skewed view of what their youngest workers can offer.
Far from being underqualified, he says, some Gen Z may find themselves bored by the realities of work ― a phenomenon that may be exacerbated by employer’s perceptions of young people.
“We hear lots about employers saying that graduates don’t have any of the skills they need for the workplace…pick a list; problem-solving, initiative, communication, teamwork, all the stuff, and they’re deeply ill-prepared,” he says.
He adds: “The thing that’s not talked about very much is that graduates, particularly from… often very intellectually challenging degrees, go into work and go, this is really boring.”
He advises employers to “think a bit harder… about what your students are actually capable of because they are highly capable.”
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“Think a bit harder about what they could be really outstanding at,” Ed says.
“There will be some things they can be better at than you are currently, and not just technology, right? Which is the sort of lazy perspective.”
Uncontroversially, I’m a huge fan of bank holidays. But I’ve always wondered why they’re called that.
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I had a vague idea it had something to do with banks (which is true), but I wasn’t sure what it is about, say, a Monday in late August would necessitate a teller’s day off.
So, I looked into it recently ― and I’ve been laughing about what I found since.
What’s the history of bank holidays?
Sir John Lubbock, the 1st baron of Avery, who authored the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, is the reason why we have them in the first place.
Some say the politician, author, and banker (hence the name) set the dates according to when cricket was played in his local village ― he was said to have been a huge fan.
And per BBC Radio 4′s site, this bank holiday per weekend used to take place on the first, not the last, Monday of August.
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That’s not the only change they shared, though.
“For a while some called the first bank holidays ‘St Lubbock’s Days’ after the banker Sir John Lubbock” who helped them to become law, BBC Radio 4 says.
“Funnily enough that didn’t stick,” they added.
We used to have a lot more of them
According to the Trade Union Congress, “Prior to 1834, the Bank of England observed about thirty-three saints’ days and religious festivals as holidays, but in 1834, this was drastically reduced to just four: Good Friday, 1st May, 1st November, and Christmas Day.”
The ’70s was the last time the Trade Union Congress (TUC) successfully campaigned for an extra bank holiday, the TUC says.
Nonetheless, they say about a third of UK workers clock in on at least one bank holiday a year (anyone in hospitality, food, transport, and more will know that other peoples’ time off is your peak crunch time).
“Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”
Ever since I entered the workforce about a decade ago, I’ve noticed versions of this expression on inspirational posters, mugs, online memes, laptop stickers and more. The phrase speaks to the idea that if you are passionate about your work, it won’t feel like a chore or a burden, but rather an enjoyable and fulfilling experience in which you want to take part.
This is all a nice idea, but even in a job you love, is it really possible to feel like you’re never working? I spoke to career coaches, psychologists and people who genuinely love their jobs to find out what they think about the expression and how it relates to the reality of work.
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It makes sense why the phrase appeals to people.
“When so many people are stressed and burnt out by work, the idea that you could have a job that doesn’t ‘feel like work’ is incredibly appealing,” said Lauren Appio, a psychologist, executive coach and organisational consultant who specialises in mental health at work. “It’s aspirational and soothing for people who live in a culture like ours in the U.S., where there is little social safety net and people typically have to work very hard to make ends meet.”
Many people have very negative relationships with their work. Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report showed job dissatisfaction to be at an all-time high, along with staggering rates of unhappiness and disengagement.
“You hear about the ‘Sunday Scaries’ or a ‘case of the Mondays,’” said career strategist Ana Goehner. “Some people also believe that everyone hates their job. This expression gives people hope that finding a job they love makes their negative feelings about work go away.”
While people commonly attribute the quote to Confucius, there’s very little information regarding the origin of “find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day.” Some citations of the expression date back to the 1980s, but it seems to be even more prominent in the Etsy era of embroidered quote pillows and inspirational memes.
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“I think this mantra is almost as millennial as ‘live, laugh, love,’” said Kate Kennedy, author of the upcoming book “One in a Millennial” and host of the “Be There in Five” podcast. “I’m not sure when it became widespread, but I remember hearing it a lot in the early 2010s, whether it was a product of being post-recession, the start-up boom, or being in peak ‘Shark Tank’ America.”
Having entered the workforce amid the economic downturn of the Great Recession, Kennedy believes many young people were made to feel lucky to have any job at all.
“There comes the point of burnout where a lot of the joy is sapped from the hobby when it becomes your meal ticket.”
– Kate Kennedy
“That built-in sense of indebtedness to our employers normalised having a job you tolerated that paid the bills, so having a job you loved seemed like the most glamorous dream of all,” she said.
Meanwhile, technological advancements expanded our career options, with full-time bloggers, Instagram influencers and entrepreneurs monetising their hobbies through e-commerce and other new sources of income. Social media compounded the shift, as we saw people “just like us” showing off their flexible schedules, financial success and other aspects of these new aspirational work lifestyles.
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“It’s hard not to find other people’s lives and careers more desirable based on how they portray them online,” Kennedy said. “It’s almost like the volume of options and the frequency of seeing successful examples of exercising those options created a sense of ‘elsewhere’ for careers, where during the moments you are feeling job dissatisfaction, it’s hard not to idealise doing something else.”
But the reality is often detached from the ideal.
“It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury of choosing a job they love,” said Elizabeth Pearson, a women’s career coach and author of “Career Confinement.” “For many people, their work is simply a means to an end, and they may not find much enjoyment or fulfilment in it. Additionally, even if you do love your job, there will still be times when it feels like work ― deadlines, difficult projects and long hours can all take a toll on your energy and motivation.”
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Having a job you love is no guarantee that you won’t face challenges, difficult co-workers and other obstacles that make it feel like work, at least sometimes.
Stressful situations, terrible bosses, difficult co-workers, economic downshifts and other obstacles can arise no matter how passionate you feel about your work. Thus, “find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” is, for most people, more of a feel-good statement than a feasible reality.
“I see this idea sold to service professionals: Work for yourself and do what you love,” Goehner said. “But few people discuss the challenges of building a business and performing tasks you dislike. Few people talk about the issues you face and all the learning involved. Doing what you enjoy should be the norm, but it’s still work. You are still trying to make a living.”
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Even if you have the freedom to take a leap and monetise your hobby, it probably will still feel like work at times.
“There comes the point of burnout where a lot of the joy is sapped from the hobby when it becomes your meal ticket,” Kennedy said. “The biggest issue for me when I started a product-based business was not having access to capital to outsource or hire out many of the functions to get off the ground efficiently, so it all fell on me to figure out, which ended up with me working way more hours for a lot less money than I made in my corporate job.”
The job doesn’t magically feel like it’s not work once you’ve found a sustainable way to make a comfortable living, either.
“I absolutely love my job, and I’m still beat by the end of the day,” Appio said. “It requires deep, sustained focus and active emotional processing and regulation for hours at a time. Outside of my sessions, I also complete paperwork, manage all of my billing, marketing and communications with clients and colleagues, offer consults for prospective clients, develop and deliver trainings, and pursue continuing education.”
Any job comes with difficult days, including one that overall brings fulfilment and joy. And it’s normal to not always want to devote the required time and effort to the job.
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“Even when you find work you love, jobs are temporary,” Goehner added. “In our current economy, you won’t likely spend your entire career with one company and do the same tasks. Even people who dedicate their lives to their careers may have tough days or perform tasks they dislike. You do what you enjoy, receive pay and hopefully get recognised for your efforts.”
What you ‘love’ doesn’t always translate to success or happiness.
“Telling others to ‘do what you love!’ is an oversimplification. Doing what you enjoy is not enough. Doing what you’re good at ― and being willing to stick with something, even when what was fun is no longer so fun ― can be just as important,” said Gorick Ng, a career adviser at Harvard University and author of “The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right.”
Consider whether you can leverage certain skills or expertise to succeed in your field.
“Maintaining the belief that work you love isn’t actually ‘work’ can create shame for people who feel burnt out or overwhelmed by work that they do truly love. This is especially common in work like health care, mental health and education.”
– Lauren Appio
“The expression doesn’t help people see possibilities based on where they are in their careers now,” Goehner said. “You can use your skills, gain new ones and find a workplace where you use 60-70% of the skills you enjoy. Sometimes, feeling a sense of expertise and having the freedom to share that at work can help you feel a sense of purpose or connection with your job.”
If you’re feeling drawn to a completely different path, give it a lot of thought and do your research. Ng emphasised that the idea of something is often more interesting than the thing itself.
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“Would I like to be a musician? Sure! Can I sing to save my life? No!” he said. “And does singing the same song over and over again in a different city each week still sound fun when I haven’t been home for six months? I’m not so sure.”
“Your number one passion may not be a realistic career,” Goehner added. “I’d love to take care of baby pandas, but the likelihood of this happening is minimal. Also, what you love may not provide a decent living for yourself or your loved ones. It could be a source of income, but you may need to supplement it with another job. Love doesn’t always pay the bills.”
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Even if you love a hobby like photography or baking, that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily love the business of doing that hobby as a career.
Additionally, consider how you feel about the business of the thing you love, not just the activity or hobby itself.
“It’s great to have a dream job, but it’s also important to remember that you may not like the day-to-day tasks associated with monetising that dream,” Kennedy said. “I started a handmade business selling home decor where I hand-painted things, and I loved the category, I love working with my hands and being creative and I loved the idea of self-employment. But I didn’t spend most of my days doing an artist’s work ― I was mostly buried in things I was less passionate about, like shipping, fulfilment, customer service, and inventory management before I could afford help in those areas.”
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Ng shared a time he met a talented photographer and asked if he wanted to pursue his art as a full-time career.
“His response surprised me,” Ng recalled. “He said, ‘I love taking photos, but I hate the business of taking photos. The minute I start relying on photography to pay the bills is the minute I’ll stop loving it.’ Be honest with yourself if you’re thinking of turning an interest into a career. Do you love the business of doing something as much as you love doing the thing itself? Not everyone will say yes to this question and that’s OK.”
The expression sets up workers for dissatisfaction and shame.
One problem with this idea about work? “It can keep people preoccupied with finding their ‘dream job’ and experiencing a chronic sense of dissatisfaction,” Appio said. “Because if your work feels like work ― as work does ― does that mean you’re doing something wrong?”
This fantasy of doing what you “love” and never feeling like you have to work can also lead to feelings of guilt or shame for those who don’t take a huge leap. This is especially true in the age of social media when we frequently see “creators” sharing all the highlights of their careers and few if any of the downsides.
“When I was in a corporate job, I wondered if I had ‘sold out’ or forwent meeting my potential by working in the corporate world,” Kennedy said. “Sometimes, it creates a fear that you actively chose to do something you don’t love when you could have followed your passion.”
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There’s a sense of guilt for those who do make the choice to pursue a passion-based career.
“Maintaining the belief that work you love isn’t actually ‘work’ can create shame for people who feel burnt out or overwhelmed by work that they do truly love,” Appio said. “This is especially common in work like health care, mental health and education. Professionals in these areas may feel guilty or ‘ungrateful’ for experiencing compassion fatigue or needing a break.”
She also believes the “find a job you love and you’ll never work” expression can be used to further devalue creative or mission-driven work.
“If you love your job, people will often tell you that you ‘didn’t get into it for the money,’” Appio said. “But we all work to earn money, and even if we’d do our work for free in a different world, we all deserved to be paid well for the work we do.”
But it’s not completely off base.
“This is actually an expression that I believe in myself, and there have been moments where I lived it,” said career coach Jasmine Escalera. “The thing is, I do believe the expression needs to be tailored because it isn’t just about finding work you enjoy, but finding work that is connected to your purpose, to your passions and to your strengths.”
She believes a job that integrates the skills or tasks you’re particularly good at can make you feel inspired and as though you’re not working at all.
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“The company culture is such an integral part of enjoying the work, as well,” Escalera said. “So I would say not just find a job you love, but find an environment that will let you be the most successful version of you, and you’ll never feel like you have to work a day in your life.”
Other experts offered their own rewrites of the expression.
“To make the expression accurate, I’d say, ‘Find a job you enjoy and that recognises your efforts, and build time for hobbies and activities that bring purpose outside of work,’” Goehner said. “You are more than your job.”
“I’d tell people if they haven’t found a job they love, to find a job comprised of tasks they like and do what they love on the side,” Kennedy added. “Jobs are often more about the day-to-day than the broader industry or buzzwordy job description, and paying attention to the type of work you find engaging can be a good way to find job satisfaction within the confines of being employed by someone else.”
Whether you’ve monetised a hobby or simply work to pay the bills and seek greater purpose elsewhere, Ng noted that there is no objective right or wrong in your approach to your career, just a difference in personal choices and values.
If you do want to find meaning in work, however, he shared this rewrite: “Find something that brings you joy and purpose every day, and you’ll always have something to look forward to.”
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“Ultimately, the idea that you should ‘find a job you love’ is a good one, but it’s not always realistic or feasible,” Pearson echoed. “Instead, it’s important to strive for a job that aligns with your values and provides some level of fulfilment, while also being realistic about the fact that work is still work, even if you love it.”
This story was previously published on an earlier date.
Four years since the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to shut down office spaces around the world, remote and hybrid work seems here to stay.
About a third of US workers who can work from home now do so all the time, according to a Pew Research Center survey from March 2023. (The majority of U.S. workers – 61% – do not have jobs that can be done from home, Pew notes.)
Companies that insist on mandatory full-time attendance at the office do so at their own peril; today’s employees value the autonomy that comes with remote or hybrid work and are increasingly leaving workplaces that forget they have lives outside their 9-to-5.
In March 2022, Microsoft’s second annual Worker Trend Index found that 53% of respondents prioritise their health and well-being over work, “and if unhappy, more than half of Gen Z and millennial respondents said [they’d] seriously consider switching employers over the next year.”
Of course, working from home is not without its drawbacks. Many working women say they feel greater conflicts between their job and family roles while teleworking, and studies have shown increased rates of depression and anxiety during remote work. (Though it’s worth noting, most of the research was conducted while respondents were living through an active pandemic ― stressful in its own right.)
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Still, with increased social support and systems put in place by managers and organisations trained in managing hybrid teams, research also suggests there’s plenty of benefits to working from home. Below, 10 studies and surveys that quantify just how game-changing remote work can be for employees and companies.
Remote workers experience a better work-life balance
Prior to the remote work era, a healthy work-life balance often felt like a pie-in-the-sky goal for workers: nice to idly dream about but never quite attainable. Now, it’s more in reach: Among hybrid workers who are not self-employed, 71% say working for home at least partially helps them balance their work and personal lives, according to the Pew Research survey.
They don’t feel micromanaged, either, despite being out of the office and outside the eyeline of their bosses. The same Pew survey found that employees who work from home at least some of the time (71%) say their manager or supervisor trusts them a “great deal” to get their work done when they’re out of the office.
Working remotely can halve an office worker’s carbon footprint
Hybrid work arrangements help some, too. Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual’s emissions by up to 29% compared with office workers.
Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual’s emissions by up to 29% compared with office workers.
Remote workers tend to eat more healthy ― up to a point
Research on remote work can be a little contradictory – is it good for your mental health or does it lead to depression? – so in December 2023, British researchers set out to interpret over 1,930 academic papers on teleworking and hybrid work arrangements.
The study, funded in part by the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, pointed out some negatives, too. One of the studies reviewed found that 46.9% of employees working from home had put on weight. Another study put that number around 41%. Remote workers also tended to drink and smoke more.
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A downside for workers: Remote employees work longer hours
Though working from home is often equated with laziness and low productivity, the aforementioned British study found that remote workers tend to work longer hours and that their work is more likely to bleed into evenings and weekends. Regrettably, they’re also less likely to take sick time.
Another study – this one tracking more than 60,000 Microsoft employees over the first half of 2020 – found that remote work led to a 10% boost in weekly hours.
One drawback was less collaboration. The Microsoft study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, found that cross-group collaboration dropped by about 25% of the pre-pandemic level.
Less commuting time means more time for work
Remote employees are working more because they’re spending less time stuck in traffic. One 2023 University of Chicago study looked at data from 27 countries and found that remote workers saved 72 minutes in daily commuting time. On average, employees spent about half an hour of that extra time engaged in daily work, which comes out to more than two hours a week.
Since the pandemic, some social scientists have highlighted the downside to eliminating the daily commute: In one 2022 study published in the Organisational Psychology Review, researchers argued that commutes are a source of healthy “liminal space” – a time free of constraints from work and home that gives people a chance to recover from the workday and mentally prepare for reentering the home.
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“Without the ability to mentally shift gears, people experience role blurring, which can lead to stress,” the study’s co-authors wrote in The Conversation. “Without mentally disengaging from work, people can experience burnout.”
Remote or hybrid work options may help with employee retention.
Worried about losing your employees to more enticing offers? Give them the chance to work from home. In 2019, video conferencing company Owl Labs surveyed 1,200 U.S. workers between the ages of 22 and 65 and found that remote workers were 13% more likely to stay in their current job for the next five years than on-site workers.
When asked if the opportunity to work remotely would make them happier, 83% of the survey respondents agreed, while 80% agreed that working remotely would make them feel like their employer cares.
People of colour say they’re able to manage stress better working from home
More Black professionals want flexible work policies than their white, Asian and Latino colleagues, according to a 2021 study conducted by The Future Forum, a research consortium organised by Slack.
Black workers reported a 50% increase in their sense of workplace belonging and a 64% increase in their ability to manage stress when they began working from home.
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In the wake of the pandemic and office closures, many Black Americans spoke of how draining microaggressions in their office environments can be.
“Most of my interactions with my co-workers are very focused on the work that we’re doing, and for me, I appreciate that,” Christina, a Black software engineer, told HuffPost in 2021 after switching to remote work. “Sometimes hearing your co-worker’s opinions on current events are not really the most inclusive opinion. It’s nice that I don’t have to delve into that with them.“
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Black workers reported a 50% increase in their sense of workplace belonging and a 64% increase in their ability to manage stress when they began working from home.
Mothers and caregivers report higher rates of well-being with hybrid work
A March 2023 study out of the University of Melbourne found that women – especially mothers and caregivers – reported improved well-being when they’re given the option to work from home. The researchers posited that such flexibility helps women balance paid employment with unpaid caregiving and household duties, which women disproportionately bear the brunt of.
Remote work has been a benefit for people with disabilities, too
Workers with disabilities appreciate the option to work from home because it reduces transportation and accessibility challenges they face going into the office every day. It also allows them to better manage chronic health conditions.
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“Before COVID-19, work from home was generally not popular, and disabled people had to try hard to get these accommodations,” Meenakshi Das, a software engineer focused on accessibility, told HuffPost in 2021. “It took a pandemic for people to realise how accommodations are low-cost and totally doable, and I hope it stays that way.”
There’s benefits for employers, too. Almost two-thirds of disabled employees believe they were more productive when working from home than at an office or external workplace, according to a 2023 study out of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
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Workers with disabilities appreciate working from home options because it reduces transportation and accessibility challenges they face going into the office.
Employees with flexible schedules tend to have better mental health
Employees at workplaces that prioritize flexibility and higher job security are less likely to experience serious psychological distress or anxiety,according to a March 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open. The study, which polled more than 18,000 U.S. workers, defined “job flexibility” as the ability to adjust their own work schedule to meet personal demands.
Workers with flexible schedules were 13% less likely to experience daily anxiety, 11% less likely to experience weekly anxiety and 9% less likely to experience anxiety several times a year. The researchers also found that increased flexibility and job security led to reduced absenteeism ― a win for everyone involved.
If you’ve ever been on a work video call (and after COVID, it’s safe to say lots of us have), then you’ll probably know the particular stressors the medium can bring.
There’s the person who’s accidentally muted themselves. There are the patchy internet connections. There’s the awkward, crossed-mic silences when the person leading the call asks a group questions (martyrs, IMO).
And now, a paper published in Imaging Neuroscience has found that video calling people affects more than just social cues; it suggests that the contact method can have a pretty noticeable effect on how our brains process the interaction.
“Separable Processes for Live ‘In-Person’ and Live ‘Zoom-like” Faces’,” a study led by Yale professor Joy Hirsch, found that “the social systems of the human brain are more active during real live in-person encounters than on Zoom.“
People who we see on video calls “do not have the same ‘privileged access’ to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing,” Hirsch said.
The researchers used brain imaging tools to look at the neural activity of pairs speaking via video call and those speaking in person.
The scientists observed high levels of neural activity during face-to-face interactions, along with long gaze times, increased pupil diameters, and what appeared to be enhanced face-processing abilities.
Those who were looking at an image on a screen had a “suppressed” social response compared to those who were talking face-to-face, the paper revealed.
“Overall, the dynamic and natural social interactions that occur spontaneously during in-person interactions appear to be less apparent or absent during Zoom encounters,” said Professor Hirsch. “This is a really robust effect.”
The Yale study highlighted the unique impact face-to-face interactions can have on our brains.
“Online representations of, faces, at least with current technology, do not have the same ‘privileged access’ to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing,” said Professor Hirsch.
So, if you’ve ever felt like a video meeting was genuinely mind-numbing, you might be onto something…
For Tejal Wagadia, some of the job interviews she had after getting laid off a few years ago are her “villain origin story.”
Back when she was unemployed, Wagadia applied for a staffing agency’s technical recruiter role. It was a “super frustrating” process, she said. The recruiter initially promised that it would be just two rounds of interviews to meet teammates, a hiring manager and the business co-owner. But then the interviews kept coming until it became a total of five rounds at an office, lasting at least two hours each.
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“They’re like, ‘The other owner also wants to meet with you.’ OK. ‘You know what? One more hiring manager wants to meet with you.’ OK,” Wagadia recalled.
By the third interview, she realised her time was being wasted. “None of the questions that they asked me were about my skill set or my qualifications. Especially at the owner level, they asked me questions about my employer that had just laid me off,” Wagadia said. Still, she participated in two more rounds due to the “sunk cost fallacy” of investing so much time already and because she was “desperate at that time to find a job,” she said. But she still didn’t get the role.
And Wagadia’s not alone in enduring excessive interviews like these. There are countless stories of job candidates being strung along through an indefinite number of interviews.
So, exactly how many interview rounds is too many? Hiring experts shared their tipping point.
Employers that do more than 5 rounds usually don’t know what they want — and that’s a big red flag.
Eddiana Rosen, a human resources specialist with recruiting experience who coaches job seekers, said that if a company doesn’t know who it wants to hire after five rounds of interviews, it has “a broken system.”
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Rosen went through this herself in one memorably indecisive hiring process, where she had eight in-person interviews and one final Zoom interview for a promising startup job in New Jersey.
“I was driving and paying for parking every single time,” she said. She got the job, but she knew her time had been wasted.
“The majority of people who are interviewing have another job, and I think that asking people to come in more than a certain amount of time to interview is just ridiculous,” Rosen said.
Companies that drag out their hiring do not know what they want, experts say.
“They’re afraid of making the bad hire,” Rosen said. “But at the end of the day, the more that they take time, the more they risk losing good candidates, because essentially, the more qualified the candidate, the less they’re willing to put up with these bad hiring practices.”
Rosen said she saw employers hire faster in 2021, when job seekers had more leverage. But in this tight labor market, she has seen the number of interview rounds balloon to around five or more. “Five [rounds] would be like the absolute maximum if I’m really interested in that company, but four is more of where it should be,” Rosen said.
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Wagadia, who now works as a technical recruiter, also firmly believes that an organisation’s hiring process should take no more than five rounds of interviews, from the first screener call to the offer or rejection.
She said that after five, “you’re telling them, ‘Hey, a) we don’t have a process, we are not organised enough to have a process,’ or b) ‘You’re not important enough, or good enough for this role. So we’re going try and figure out whether you are good enough.’”
Ebony Joyce, a career coach and diversity consultant, finds that for midlevel non-management roles, “typically any more than four [rounds] is too many.” But for more senior roles with potential employers, that number can increase.
In general, she said candidates should ask themselves: “Did I learn something about them? Did they learn something about me? … You should be going to each interview learning more about what the company’s problems are, and how you can solve that problem.”
If you’re not learning anything new, that may be your sign that the rounds have gone too far, Joyce said.
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Employers should be upfront about their expectations.
Although a job candidate can sometimes get the job after many interview rounds, a company’s wishy-washy behavior is not a good sign that you are the preferred candidate.
“If you are a top candidate for an employer, they will make you a priority,” Wagadia said.
Now when she talks to job candidates, Wagadia models what she wishes she had seen in her job interviews. She shares that she may not be able to give an exact date for when the hiring process will end, but she can explain what an average hiring timeline looks like, “such as six to eight weeks,” and what the interview rounds will entail.
Rosen, who previously had a sponsorship with Teal, said that more employers should use the career development platform because its job listings let candidates know upfront about the number of interviews, who they will be interviewing with, the questions that they can anticipate, and how long each interview will take.
For example, a current listing for a senior backend engineer at Teal explicitly states that there will be four interviews and that the first one will be a 30-minute Zoom call with the chief technical officer, where the goal is “high level qualifications & mutual fit.”
In this way, there are no surprises and candidates can decide for themselves if this is a job they want to apply for. “That way you can opt out,” said David Fano, Teal’s CEO. ”[You] know exactly what [you’re] getting into.”
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Fano said interviews are typically no more than three rounds for Teal candidates. The first is a “smell test”; it assesses if they are who they say they are. Then the second interview’s goal is to answer “Are they technically capable?” The third is about work culture: “Are they a culture add?” Candidates meet team members and can decide if they want to join.
“At the end of that, we feel like we have enough information to make the decision,” Fano said, adding that hiring “doesn’t benefit from groupthink where more voices and more opinions is necessarily better.”
Here’s how to gently push back when your time is not being respected with job interviews.
If an employer doesn’t set a time boundary and keeps scheduling more interviews, set it for yourself in the beginning of the hiring process.
Joyce said she successfully coached a client to ask what the interview process would look like in the first round and to state, “I have a five-interview max.”
You can also make the call to bow out of consideration when the number of rounds is becoming egregious.
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Rosen suggested you do this by saying something like: “It’s been quite a bit of a lengthy process so far, and I’ve had to say no to other commitments. … I would really appreciate if you can let me know how much longer I’ll have to be in the process, because if I have to go much longer, I’ll have to get myself out of the race, just to respect each other’s time.” With this approach, your tone is more politely curious than demanding.
And if you’re not interested in continuing the relationship, Rosen suggested that you simply state: “Hey, I am so appreciative of the time so far. Unfortunately, I’ll have to take myself out of the race, considering this process has been so lengthy for me.”
Ultimately, employers disrespecting a candidate’s time can be a bad omen for how they may one day disrespect your work-life boundaries as an employee.
“At the end of the day, your time is just as valuable as theirs,” Rosen said. “Being respectful of your own time is very commendable.”
Have you ever been told to ‘just try time management’? If you’ve got ADHD, it’s likely that you’ve tried every time management hack in the world, but none of them seem to work.
We often know what to do, we just can’t do it. Having a brain that only experiences time as ‘now’ or ‘not now’ can make it extremely difficult to plan ahead, organise our time, or prioritise our work. This is linked with the 30% developmental delay in executive functioning skills such as memory, self-awareness, and motivation – it is not your fault.
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Having a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes means that we might zoom ahead on the things we’re interested in, but crash into walls when we need to slow down. At work, this can be extremely difficult as we try to juggle endless competing demands.
As neurotypical solutions don’t work for neurodivergent brains, here’s 3 ADHD-friendly time management hacks to thrive at work:
1) Hack your interest based nervous system
People with ADHD have interest based nervous systems, which means we thrive off interest, adrenaline, and novelty. By understanding what interests you, and how you can incorporate gamification and fun into planning ahead, you can stay one step ahead of procrastination by planning ahead.
As an ADHD Coach, I’m constantly supporting clients to figure out the ways that work best for them to manage their time – from colour blocking their work in their calendar in advance and wearing watches, to setting up calendar reminders and arranging weekly body doubling sessions to focus on the things they don’t want to do. You can also never have too many clocks around you!
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As we have a limited number of ‘spoons’ of energy, it’s also sensible to hack your days by doing something you don’t want to do first thing in the morning. For me, this is going to the gym – I incorporate my interest based nervous system by sleeping in my gym clothes and finding accountability buddies!
2) Turn marathons into sprints
As our brains are constantly seeking dopamine and stimulation, we can turn long term projects into sprints by incorporating artificial deadlines and accountability. It’s much easier to work with short term goals that feel immediate and urgent, which can be harnessed with regular 1:1 meetings and dopamine boosts such as positive feedback celebrating our ‘wins’.
For example, I break down long term objectives into three month goals. Setting short term priorities can help us to break these down further, such as by setting weekly or daily goals, and to share these with another person for accountability, checking in on how it went at the end of the day.
Instead of trying to do everything on your to do list, picking just one thing to get done can help you to get started, overcoming the common challenge of ADHD decision paralysis.
Having visual reminders of short term sprints can be highly effective and motivate us to get them done, such as by visualising our progress with trackers. This also helps us remember what to not do – if something isn’t one of our sprint goals, it’s a ‘not now’! Writing down distractions or ideas in a notebook enables us to return to these when we review our next set of sprints.
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3) Ask for help
Asking for help at work may feel overwhelming for people with ADHD, but it’s important to remember that you deserve to be supported – and this helps everybody! One highly effective technique for time management at work is by asking your team to use a briefing document for new work.
This sets out in a shared document what a project will involve, breaking objectives into short term actions, and scheduling any check ins with colleagues as needed. In general, it can be very helpful to have written instructions for everything in the workplace, and to regularly ask your manager what you should prioritise and how you will know when a piece of work is complete.
Having additional check ins is a common reasonable adjustment employers can implement to help employees with ADHD to manage their time effectively. This could be with a colleague, or externally with an ADHD Coach, for example.
Ultimately, it’s important to have a foundation of psychological safety at work to empower you to feel safe enough to focus on the ‘not now’. Having colleagues who clearly set out expectations and support you to ‘do what you know’ empowers you to use your super whizzy brain within a structure of safety and support.
It might feel like we’re surviving from day to day, but creating an environment tailored to our brains can enable us to use these unique traits to thrive at work because of our ADHD, not in spite of it.
Shocking new research from the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed has revealed that 1 in every 61 pregnant workers says their boss has insinuated they should terminate their pregnancy for the sake of their career.
Pregnant Then Screwed, who campaign for the rights of parents and against sex discrimination, surveyed over 24,000 parents to uncover the discrimination that women face in the workplace when they become mothers.
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The data shows that over half of all mothers (52%) have faced some form of discrimination when pregnant, on maternity leave, or when they returned to work.
One woman involved in the study, Connie*, told her boss about her pregnancy at eight weeks and was told, “It would be easier for your future career if you just brought a coat hanger”. Three colleagues went on to tell Connie that she had ruined her career and should have had an abortion.
For some women, the consequences of having children can have life-changing consequences on their career, with one in five mothers (19%) making the decision to leave their employer due to a negative experience.
Additionally, one in 10 women (10%) revealed they were bullied or harassed when pregnant or returning to work, and 7% of women lost their job — through redundancy, sacking, or feeling forced to leave due to a flexible working request being declined or due to health and safety issues.
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If scaled up, this could mean as many as 41,752 pregnant women or mothers are sacked or made redundant every year.
“These stats show how far we have to go before mothers are truly accepted as equal members of the workplace,” says Joeli Brearley, CEO and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed.
“We know that women are treated differently from the point they get pregnant. They are viewed as distracted and less committed to their work, despite there being no change to their performance. This bias plays out in numerous ways, affecting women’s earnings and career potential. There is absolutely no excuse for bosses, who hold the power, to tell their employees to abort a pregnancy. It is sex discrimination and it is inhumane.”
Abraham Gonzalez Fernandez via Getty Images
Portrait of a stressed woman tries to work from home with baby in arms
The discrimination that women face doesn’t always come from their boss; in fact, 73% of women shared that a colleague made hurtful comments about their pregnancy or maternity leave, and 74% of women said that a colleague insinuated that their performance had dipped due to pregnancy or maternity leave. Some women even experience criticism based on the way they look when they are pregnant – with 64% saying their boss or a colleague had made inappropriate comments about their looks.
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“The fact that the majority of pregnant women have experienced inappropriate and degrading comments from a colleague or their boss about the way they look is shameful,” says Brearley.
“Why as a society do we accept women being a target for such abuse? These hurtful comments chip away at women’s confidence, ambition and feeling of belonging,” she says.
“Pregnant women are made to feel like an unsightly burden, no wonder a high proportion of women report feeling depressed or anxious when pregnant and one in five women leave their employer after becoming pregnant.’’
The study’s data and the shocking stories shared by pregnant women in workplaces around the UK highlight the worrying and pervasive attitudes towards women in society — even in a supposedly equal one like the UK.
It isn’t just about having children; women are being treated differently for decisions relating to their reproductive health, too. An especially worrying trend in our post-Roe v Wade world, which is seeing our rights rolled back across the globe.
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For instance, a third of women (31.58%) who told their employer about having an abortion felt that they experienced discrimination or were unfairly treated as a result. And the majority of women (57.6%) didn’t even tell their employer they had an abortion, presumably for fear of being judged negatively.
Women being bullied out of the workplace for being pregnant, or choosing not to be, is just one more example of the ways women’s freedoms are being infringed upon, and shows that, in the end, the patriarchy doesn’t want us to win.
It’s something we should all vehemently stand against, together.
If you or anyone you know has experienced discrimination in the workplace, please call the Pregnant Then Screwed helpline on Tel: 0161 2229879
What are you putting off right now? For me, it’s sorting out my clothes into a pile to keep and a pile to donate. It’s been months. OK, fine. It’s been a year.
I just can’t bring myself to do it. Now that I’ve admitted mine, you can admit yours (to yourself, don’t worry).
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There’s something about these tasks that – for some of us – feels so overwhelming, so impossible, when, in reality, they’d usually take no more than a couple of hours to sort and finally tick off our mental to-do list.
This is why some people are trying the ‘body doubling’ method.
No, it’s not quite the Hollywood version where somebody who looks like you does the hard parts (though this would be ideal).
Instead, it’s when you tackle these somehow mountainous tasks with the help of somebody else. Not by having them do anything for you, but instead just being present while you’re getting through the task.
Why does body doubling work?
Catherine, a civil servant from Scotland, who has ADHD, said that body doubling, even if it’s just done over FaceTime, keeps her accountable without the other person ever actually having to hold her to account.
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“It’s almost as if having them there reminds me to do the thing – [they’re] a comforting reminder, and somebody that helps me stay motivated to complete the task,” she says.
Some creators have tapped into this helpful hack by creating “study with me” videos that people have watched whilst getting through their own work.
Even the digital presence of somebody else can remind people to stay on track and keep them motivated.
How to find a body double for productivity support
According to ADDA, the world’s largest organisation dedicated to helping adults with ADHD ‘live better lives’, when looking for a body double you need to “find someone who can be quiet and independent”.
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The idea is that they can sit, read, knit, or work quietly on a laptop. Their job is to not engage with you – they’re just there in the background.
“It requires energy to instruct, supervise, or be interrupted by another person, and that expenditure of energy equates to distraction,” says ADDA.
They also add that you can hire outside help if need be, such as an assistant.
However, for some people, a ‘study with me’ video, a loved one on FaceTime or even working from a cafe with others around them is enough to keep them motivated and on-track.
Another workplace label just landed, and you’re probably going to relate to it: rust-out.
Somewhere between boredom and burnout, rust-out isn’t a case of being fed up with your job but more about how you’re being treated within that role.
If burnout is when you push yourself too far, rust-out is when you’ve effectively been forgotten by your manager – leading to frustration, exhaustion and just… a desire to quit. You’re stuck in a position, and can’t go anywhere else.
“It’s where people don’t feel they’re don’t anything purposeful or being recognised.
“They often feel blocked – as if there’s nowhere for them to progress to, and it can be a much harder issue to address than burnout.”
Burnout is already recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an occupational phenomenon, but it’s worth putting rust-out on your radar too.
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After all, not everyone joined the Great Resignation during the Covid pandemic – there are bills to pay (and they’re only getting more expensive thanks to the cost of living crisis).
Analytics company Gallup found in 2022 that just 21% of respondents were engaged with their jobs around the world.
But with rust-out it seems like motivation is gone altogether.
Clouston explained: “The mental impact of rust-out can be quite dark. You can feel depressed – like you’re stuck in the mud, unable to move.”
She claimed this then had a domino effect on the rest of our everyday lives outside of work, too.
miodrag ignjatovic via Getty Images
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And rust-out doesn’t help anyone, including your employers.
“As a general rule, once someone starts to rust out, the quality of work goes downhill, as the employee loses interest, finding the job unfulfilling,” Clouston said, leading to cynicism.
But Clouston said that experiencing rust-out doesn’t mean you have to quit completely.
She suggested speaking to your manager to see if you can amplify the parts of your role you really enjoy, or create a progression plan for your role.
“This can help you review what you want in the workplace and help you find that opportunity for change,” she explained.
Clouston advised moving the focus back onto your wellbeing too, and remembering the pastimes which gave you joy before.
But if this doesn’t help, and it doesn’t seem like you can develop at work even when you try, you might want to start looking for a new job.
