1. Describe the problem:
Hello ProblemHunt community! Sorry in advance if this turns out to be a lot of text.
I decided to turn my hobby of photography into a commercial experience. Just a few months ago I found my first company that hired me. During the hiring process, the conditions and tasks looked great. First I passed the interview, then almost a month of in house training. Another week preparing all the documents and certificates they asked for.
But after actually starting to work, it turned out that reality was very different from what they told us during the interview and training. I was hit with other work processes that no one had mentioned and for which we were not paid extra. I had to quit because I was not ready to put up with that. I wasted several months and ended up with burnout.
Before that, I read reviews about this company on different platforms, but they turned out to be useless. Some of them were obviously fake, not just the positive ones, but even the negative ones (I realized this because they did not match my actual experience there). Most likely, the company itself did this to dilute real problems with fake negativity. Another batch of reviews were overly emotional and contradictory, possibly from competitors. In the end, only a small fraction of the hundreds of reviews matched my real experience. So it is impossible to tell what is true until you experience it yourself, like I did.
I saw that in Discord and Telegram groups for photographers, people discuss other employers. Maybe there was something about the company I needed, but I only thought of that after I had already quit and did not try. Besides, those chats have a huge flow of messages, it is noisy, and searching is difficult.
I think it would be great to have a way to quickly find and talk to real people who actually worked at a company within the last 6 to 12 months, to ask them a few honest questions and figure out whether it is worth working there.
By the way, I recently tried searching for employees on LinkedIn and messaged a few of them directly, but no one replied (I do not know why). So it is important to be able to find people who are likely to respond.
I decided to turn my hobby of photography into a commercial experience. Just a few months ago I found my first company that hired me. During the hiring process, the conditions and tasks looked great. First I passed the interview, then almost a month of in house training. Another week preparing all the documents and certificates they asked for.
But after actually starting to work, it turned out that reality was very different from what they told us during the interview and training. I was hit with other work processes that no one had mentioned and for which we were not paid extra. I had to quit because I was not ready to put up with that. I wasted several months and ended up with burnout.
Before that, I read reviews about this company on different platforms, but they turned out to be useless. Some of them were obviously fake, not just the positive ones, but even the negative ones (I realized this because they did not match my actual experience there). Most likely, the company itself did this to dilute real problems with fake negativity. Another batch of reviews were overly emotional and contradictory, possibly from competitors. In the end, only a small fraction of the hundreds of reviews matched my real experience. So it is impossible to tell what is true until you experience it yourself, like I did.
I saw that in Discord and Telegram groups for photographers, people discuss other employers. Maybe there was something about the company I needed, but I only thought of that after I had already quit and did not try. Besides, those chats have a huge flow of messages, it is noisy, and searching is difficult.
I think it would be great to have a way to quickly find and talk to real people who actually worked at a company within the last 6 to 12 months, to ask them a few honest questions and figure out whether it is worth working there.
By the way, I recently tried searching for employees on LinkedIn and messaged a few of them directly, but no one replied (I do not know why). So it is important to be able to find people who are likely to respond.
2. How often does the problem occur?
Almost every time I change jobs. But this time was the most painful; the previous times were tolerable.
3. What attempts have you made to solve the problem?
Naturally, ChatGPT. I read reviews on sites like Glassdoor, Indeed and similar platforms. I searched forums and Reddit, but found almost nothing useful or truly trustworthy about that company, just a lot of noise.
4. How much are you willing to pay for the solution?
Honestly, I do not know how much it should cost. But it would be great if I could pay for a successful hire, like a reward. For example, £50-100. There may be other models, but for now I see that as ideal for me.
I am leaning toward a service that helps quickly find recent former employees and get honest feedback from them before accepting a job offer.
And one more request. Last time I shared a different problem, over 15 people wrote to me. It is very hard to reply to everyone; I only had time for a few. If you could just send me a link to a ready solution and a brief description of how it works, I would be grateful. I will try to test each one, but I cannot promise feedback to everyone. I hope for your understanding.
Thank you to the ProblemHunt community for letting me share my problem and to everyone trying to solve it.
I am leaning toward a service that helps quickly find recent former employees and get honest feedback from them before accepting a job offer.
And one more request. Last time I shared a different problem, over 15 people wrote to me. It is very hard to reply to everyone; I only had time for a few. If you could just send me a link to a ready solution and a brief description of how it works, I would be grateful. I will try to test each one, but I cannot promise feedback to everyone. I hope for your understanding.
Thank you to the ProblemHunt community for letting me share my problem and to everyone trying to solve it.